AN HOUR UNTIL DAWN
IVY
Fury.
Wrath.
Rage.
Death.
Ethan, at this very moment, was all of those things, personified in silence, as we, and everyone else within the neighborhood and beyond, stood outside, watching as the Boston PD and the FBI raided my former childhood home alongside that of Cillian and Elroy. The whole place looked like the ending to a Christopher Nolan action movie. Helicopters hovered in the air as their spotlights beamed down on the street below, camera crews and reporters recording from off to the side, cops putting up yellow tape, dogs sniffing around the houses…and like the movies, no crime scene was complete without a body. There were a few in the street, people who’d supported Cillian who’d chosen to go firing at the police. Some were young, probably teenagers, teenagers who so badly wanted to have a purpose and be rich. Most of them were older, around Cillian’s age…all of them following him…straight to the grave. Who’d killed him, no one was saying, not with the feds all over the place, at least.
“Thank you, Cooper,” a female reporter spoke loudly into the light and camera in front of her just off to the side of us. “Right now, I, along with many other reporters, are standing at the home base of the notorious ringleaders behind the infamous drug known as the Cocktail. Shortly before five forty-six this morning, the DEA, FBI, and the BPD descended on South Boston where a shoot-out between the Boston police and the assailants occurred no less than a few feet from where we are standing. Another one of the attackers drove right into a yard of bystanders in the neighborhood, leaving multiple dead and injured. The whole area is on high alert. There has been no word yet on who has died and if this puts an end to the deadly drug. But we will not be leaving until we find out what exactly happened here.”
He took it all in. His gaze shifted from the reporters to the police, the dogs, the burning car crashed into the house next door, everything…until he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He pressed only two keys before putting it to his ear.
“Enjoy this moment, Takahashi, burn it into your mind, because when I find you, you’ll never show what is left of yourself again. You are the mayor of nothing and no one now,” he said, hanging up and heading into the house quickly.
He walked into the living room and waited till the door closed before he grabbed the fire poker and began to destroy any and everything.
“FUCKING SIMPLETONS!” he roared out, swinging into the television set, shattering the glass. “I BUILT UP EVERYTHING AROUND THEM AND YET NO ONE LISTENS!” He shattered the coffee table. “THEY CALL ME A GENIUS FOR PLANNING. DON’T THEY HAVE BRAINS? CAN THEY NOT FUCKING THINK?”
He hammered into the wall, breaking the wood.
“GET POWER! GET RICH! STAY POWERFUL! HOW? HOW?” He swung at the lamp. The bulb exploded on impact and there was a giant flash before the light went out. “THEY DON’T FUCKING KNOW HOW? THEY ARE GREEDY MOTHERFUCKING COCK SHIT!”
Nothing left to break, he threw the bent, deformed fire porker to the ground. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he rubbed the corners of his eyes.
“How many people died in the street?” he asked, and I wasn’t sure he was talking to me or himself. Dropping his hands, he looked at me. “Thirteen, correct?”
I nodded.
“Plus Cillian. Makes fourteen.”
I nodded again.
He paused, tilting his head to the side. “Which means Elroy escaped.”
I didn’t know the answer to that question, so I didn’t move at all. He didn’t seem to notice or even care. He was thinking quickly.
“There was no word, no chatter of the raid, which means my people in the department either didn’t know until the very last moment or all communication was shut. If I didn’t know, then how the fuck did Elroy escape?” He paused again and looked up at me, but the way his green eyes looked through me was eerie. “He didn’t escape. He betrayed Cillian. Cillian was going to bow, surrender to me. At least for now to get me to leave. Elroy’s pride wouldn’t have it. He killed Cillian, took whatever money there was, told the men outside to stand watch and then left. No.” His eyes shifted back and forth as he pieced it together. “They both could have escaped, if that was Elroy’s end game. Cillian wanted to wait to strike…Elroy wanted to fight. Which means—IVY!”
He tried to reach for me, and I didn’t know why until a gun was pressed up against the back of my head and his eyes went wide.
“Damn, you really are a slick one, Callahan.” Elroy laughed behind me, gripping onto my arm. “You figured me out…just a little bit late. Ain’t that a bitch.”
ETHAN
When I’d heard the sirens and the gunfire we left the house, but didn’t close the door behind us. While we were watching his house and the police, he’d snuck in and waited. Trapping himself in the safest location possible, the one place where my guard was down, and holding the weapon he could kill me with…her.
“I was kinda expecting this place to be more…luxurious, you know?” He looked around the shattered room, his grip on Ivy tighter, tapping the mouth of the gun on the back of her head over and over again. She didn’t look bothered, just stared at me blankly. “I mean, a little paint could have gone a long way.”
I said nothing and didn’t dare look away from her. “You’re going to be all right.”
“Maybe you don’t understand the situation here!” he yelled, and I still didn’t look at his face.
BANG!
I flinched, for the first time since I was a child when he shot into her shoulder. She bit her bottom lip hard, swallowing her screams and her pain. The blood soaked through her blouse.
“LOOK AT ME!” he hollered, and I did then, unable to stop my hands from shaking. “That’s right. I’m in charge. Disrespect me again, I’ll shoot other body parts. How much can you take, Ivy?” he asked, squeezing her jaw. She pulled away, turning her head to spit the blood out of her mouth. “A little warrior, ain’t she? She’s always been like that. Getting into fights, not letting people see her cry or weak. She’d just run. But I gotta say, if you weren’t my cousin I’m sure we could have put on a nice show for your hubby here.” He stroked her neck and brought his nose to smell her hair. “Such a shame…but.”
“Let. Her. Go,” I said through clenched teeth.
“He speaks!” He guffawed, rolling his eyes. “But that sounded a little disrespectful to me, didn’t it, Ivy?”
“Don’t!”
BANG!
“FUCK YOU!” I hollered out, watching as her leg buckled and she fell forward, muted whimpers the only thing coming out of her mouth, but he caught her and held her tight to him.
“Ha-ha!” He laughed, stomping his foot into the ground. “This is great! I was planning on waiting till you both went to bed before killing you all, but this…this is so much better. Who would have thought I’d get a front row seat at your own undoing, first the mistake, then the temper tantrum, the shaking, now this…watching you as you watch me slowly kill your beloved childhood sweetheart. All your big talkin’, all your planning, and this is how it ends. How does it feel to be the dumbest man in the room?”
“Hum…hah...” Ivy laughed gently in his arms. “It’s funny because I was just going to ask you that same question.”
“You must have lost your—”
Before he could finish she brought her free hand up, holding a shard of something I’d broken, and swiped it across his face, over his eye as quickly as she could. “I have long arms, motherfucker!”
“AH!” He let go, his hands going to his face, causing her to slump onto the ground. The moment she was free I lunged from the window over the couch, tackling him on the ground, my fist colliding with his face.
“YOU LITTLE—”
BANG!
I froze on top of him and glanced down at the blood now staining my shirt.
“ETHAN!”
I gripped his neck and reached for the gun with the other hand, tossing it to the side. I squeezed, and he punched the wound over and over, both of us now struggling on the ground.
“Ah!” I hissed when he managed to get another punch in, rolling onto my side. I gripped my side, the blood warm over my arm. Ignoring the pain, I rose to my feet just as he did. The slash across his face was bleeding a deep red. His good eye shifted to the gun and when he made a run for it I kicked his head into the wall and took the gun, pointing and firing, but there were no bullets.
“It just ain’t your day!” He laughed and then charged at me, my back hitting the back beam when he moved to strangle me. My head hit his, causing him to back up before I punched his jaw.
“JUST DIE ALREADY!” he yelled, grabbing a shard of broken glass.
BANG!
“Fucking shit—” he cried out, grabbing on his shoulder.
“Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?” Ivy said, pointing the pistol at him. He froze, staring at her. “You’re right. I’m a little insane. You shot me and my husband, Elroy. You threatened to rape me…IN OUR FUCKING HOUSE!”
“Cousin—”
“SHUT UP!”
“Run,” I said to him.
“Ethan—”
“Run. Let’s call this one a draw. Head down the stairs, to the basement, get out through the window. None of the cops will get you. This is between us men. You really want her to kill you? Go. And pray we don’t meet again.”
“ETHAN!” Ivy screamed.
“Ivy, do not shoot him!” I snapped at her. “He’s mine to kill.”
He snickered and walked backward, Ivy still pointing the gun at him. “Until next time, Callahan, then.”
“Watch to make sure he leaves,” I said to her, reaching into my pocket for the phone. She limped backward, carefully scanning around her, still holding the gun tightly before lifting the phone. She glanced down a few times before finally relaxing.
“Lock down the house,” I said to her.
When she did, the bars extended over the windows, and she turned to me. “I wanted to kill him. I could have killed him.”
“You only had one bullet,” I reminded her.
“What?”
“You cleaned the gun last night, remember? And only put one bullet in. Didn’t want to come down to get the rest, remember?” I snickered lazily and looked at her. “If he realized he would have kept attacking and I’m—”
My legs buckled under me and I slid onto the ground, staring at my own blood in my hands. Today really wasn’t my day.
“Ethan!” She ran to me, taking off her shirt, ignoring whatever pain it may have caused her, and placed it over my wound. “Put pressure on it! I’ll get—”
“G…et…get Wyatt…no one else.”
“Ethan, he could be anywhere right now. You need to go to the hospital!”
Putting my hand on her cheek, I brought her forehead to mine. “Wife, I need you first to keep calm, go upstairs, clean up as best as you can—”
“Ethan!”
“LISTEN TO ME!” I yelled more because I hated the way she said my name, with fear, with pain. “We are Callahans, baby, we do not fall and we do not show weakness. All eyes are on Boston right now. I cannot be wheeled out of here on a stretcher. You can’t run out crazed screaming for help. Half of our power is perception. I’d rather die here than look weak out there.”
Tears fell from her eyes. “You’ll bleed out.”
“Then stop arguing with me.” I smiled, bringing her forehead to kiss it. “Go. Wyatt is out there somewhere. My brother pretends he doesn’t like the madness, but the truth is he became a doctor so he could always be in it and still act innocent.”
She kissed my lips. “If you die I will kill you!”
“Noted.” I smiled, relaxing against the beam. “Go.”
My vision was starting to blur and I didn’t want to pass out in front of her. Luckily she was already moving. The truth was, there was a high chance I’d bleed out before she made it back. I was sending her to the only person I trusted to get her out of the city into safety if needed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, knowing she wouldn’t hear…I’d broken my promise. I’d manipulated her again.