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Tilted: A Mafia Romance by Heather West (1)


Chapter One

Killian

 

I woke up at around five in the morning, unable to keep lying in bed. For a few seconds, I couldn’t remember why I was having a crappy night’s sleep, but then it hit me. My brother was dead. My baby brother, the boy with the round face and the lone dimple that all the ladies loved, was dust.

 

My feet hit the floor next to the bed, and I was surprised by how normal it felt. The ground was still solid, the blue light of early morning peeking through the tin foil I’d taped over the drafty windows, and despite the physical and emotional trauma of the last seventy-two hours, I still had to piss.

 

Such normality made me feel nauseous. Though, that could also be because I hadn’t eaten much of anything. Consuming food felt like a betrayal because it would be one meal Niall never got to have. It sounded stupid, even to me, but my brain and my emotions didn’t seem to be communicating much with one another.

 

After my morning pee, I walked to the fridge and opened it, more out of habit than an actual desire to consume calories. It didn’t matter either way because it was empty. I hadn’t been grocery shopping since I’d moved in two days earlier.

 

I slammed the fridge door shut, sending an “I Love My Yorkshire Terrier” magnet (left by the previous tenants) flying off and onto the floor, where it slid under the dishwasher. It was no real loss, so I didn’t bother retrieving it.

 

Half of the furniture in the apartment was left behind by the previous tenants, according to the Super. He said people moved in and out so quickly that few of them bothered to pack their things. So, that made me the proud owner of an olive-green couch with a rip in the center cushion, a black coffee table with the phrase “down wit da patriarchy” carved into it, and a lopsided entertainment center with a huge gaping hole where a television should fit.

 

The only things I brought over from the compound were my mattress sans frame and box springs and my clothes. There hadn’t been time for anything else. Dad sent over a few of the enforcers to make sure I left “peaceably.” As if there was anything peaceful about being thrown out of your own home by hulking men who beat people up on behalf of the mafia for a living.

 

This apartment was the first one I had looked at, and I signed the month-to-month lease without looking at another. There didn’t seem to be a point; I wouldn’t be here long. The truth would come out eventually.

 

It was supposed to have been an easy job. Debt collection. A guy, down on his luck and low on cash, borrowed money from us and hadn’t paid it back. It was little more than a chore. Typically, one of the grunt guys would’ve done it, but Niall and I were going to be in the area for a concert and decided we’d do it ourselves.

 

I set it up with Kevin Rourke, one of our family’s oldest and most trusted enforcers. He was supposed to already be there when we arrived. The whole deal was taking place behind a meat-packing plant that bordered the bay.

 

It was dark and nearly always vacant, perfect in case things went south and we were forced to “draw blood.” That’s what Dad liked to call it, as if we were nurses performing a medical procedure.

 

I carried a pistol on my hip, just in case, but Niall didn’t like to carry one. He said it made him bulky and he never had to use it anyway. “That’s why we have enforcers,” he’d say.

 

When we arrived, Kevin wasn’t there. Per usual, we were early for the meeting. I thought we should leave and call Kevin—the guy owed $5,000, not exactly a sum I wanted to bet my life on—but Niall said we should stay and give it a few more minutes. Little did he know, he didn’t have minutes. Seconds later, shots rang out.

 

It’s funny. I’d heard gunfire my entire life, but at that moment, the noise was so unexpected that I didn’t recognize it. Like an idiot, I stood in the middle of the alley long enough for anyone with a decent shot to take aim, but they didn’t. Niall, on the other hand, tried to dive behind a metal dumpster along the chain fence behind us but was hit before he could make it.

 

He fell to the ground with a sickening crunch and then convulsed as he was shot twice more. Each bullet hit him square in the chest. I ran to him, grabbed his limp arms, and dragged him to the mediocre safety of the dumpster, but no more shots rang out. I tried to look up at the warehouse, to see into the windows and discover the culprit, but nothing moved.

 

The only sounds I could hear were the push and pull of water meeting shore behind us and the soupy sound of Niall’s breathing. He died without any last words and my goodbye consisted of a series of repetitive curse words as I pressed my palms into his bloody shirt.

 

Earlier that day, he’d told me about Heather.

 

“She’s pregnant,” he said, a nervous half-smile emphasizing the dimple in his cheek.

 

“Heather Rourke?” I asked, confused. I’d seen Heather around for as long as I could remember. Our families were friends, and her dad and brother worked for us as enforcers, but I’d never spoken to her.

 

Niall nodded.

 

“I didn’t even know you were seeing her,” I said. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

 

He laughed. “Well, I saw her. Twice. It was more of a fling than anything else. Though, if that counts as “seeing” someone, then I’ve been seeing several women on a regular basis.”

 

I didn’t understand how he could be so calm about the whole thing. He was basically living my nightmare. One-night stands were the rule in my life, not the exception. Any girl who walked through my front door knew what she could expect: a night of heavy sex and a bagel on her way out the door in the morning if I’d been to the store that week. I didn’t even make them coffee, so the thought of procreating with them, forming another human life with both of our DNA, was not only terrifying but absurd.

 

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

 

“Be supportive, I guess,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “She told me she wants to keep it.”

 

I groaned. “Oh God.”

 

“Calm down,” he said, winking at me. “You should be thrilled. You’re about to be an uncle.”

 

I leaned forward to smack him, but he dodged my hand, laughing the entire time. “It’s not a big deal, Killian. Lots of people become parents, and they survive. Plus, I think I’ll be a cool dad.”

 

“Yeah, but lots of people don’t impregnate the daughter of a 300-pound Irish mafia enforcer,” I said. “And, for the record, there is no such thing as a ‘cool dad.’ You are either cool, or you are a dad, there is no crossover.”

 

“You only say that because you haven’t seen me in my leather jacket driving a minivan yet.” He laughed. “But I know. Explaining everything to her dad will be tricky, but I’m sure it will be fine. I have you and Dad on my side.” He paused. “Right?”

 

I wanted to tell him to talk Heather into an abortion or convince her to say it was someone else’s baby, but I knew Niall would never accept either option. He was a good person, through and through. He’d support her at every turn, always be there to help raise his kid, and be a great dad.

 

“Of course, bro. Always.”

 

“Good.” He looked relieved, and I felt a sting of annoyance that he’d doubted my loyalty. “Because I’m going to need help keeping her safe. Her dad is pretty old-fashioned.”

 

That was an understatement. Heather and I hadn’t spoken often, but that wasn’t by any accident. Her dad kept her on an incredibly short leash. Despite being twenty years old, she couldn’t move out of the house until she was married and her dad was in charge of choosing who she could and couldn’t date. I can say from experience that no guy wants to date a grown woman whose dad is as big and crazy as Heather’s. Except for Niall, of course.

 

I threw myself onto the couch, the rusty springs wailing under my sudden weight, and stared up at the ceiling. It wasn’t until I was being thrown from the compound by Heather’s older brother, Caleb, that I remembered the baby. I’d felt purposeless, lost without Niall by my side, but Heather and the baby had been his last request, even though he hadn’t known at the time that it would be his last request.

 

He wanted me to protect them, and I swore I would. I just needed to figure out how.

 

###

 

Heather

 

The pregnancy had been enough of a shock. My period was never exactly regular, but it had never been more than five days late before. I was in denial at first; positive I’d miscounted the days or was experiencing a weird hormonal fluctuation. However, by the ninth day, I had to entertain the idea.

 

Buying the pregnancy test had been tricky. Dad didn’t like to let me leave the compound without a chauffeur, and he checked my credit card statements. He claimed it was to “balance the books,” but I knew the real reason was to keep tabs on me. He didn’t check Caleb’s statements.

 

While they were out on a job, I snuck into Caleb’s room, which was a remodeled attic space, and pulled a ten-dollar bill from his bedside drawer. It was risky because his room was so impeccably clean, but the chances of him noticing such a small bill missing were slim, and the chances of him suspecting me of stealing it even if he did notice it missing were even slimmer.

 

I had the chauffeur drive me to a McDonald’s combo gas station under the pretense of needing a McFlurry. When I got inside, I ordered an M&M McFlurry from the pimply-faced cashier, bought three one-dollar pregnancy tests called Womb-an’s Choice from the gas station side of the building, and peed into the plastic cup I’d stashed in my purse from home. Three minutes later, all three tests showed a tiny pink plus sign. Shit.

 

The McFlurry tasted like metal in my mouth as we drove back to the compound, and I threw away the remaining three-fourths of it as soon as I got back to my room. I pulled the three tests out of my purse. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t throw them away. They were the only proof I had—aside from my absent period—that the pregnancy was real. Each time I began to allow myself to slip into denial, I pulled them out and reminded myself I needed a plan.

 

I had no doubt who the father was. I’d had sex twice the month before, both times with Niall O’Donnell. We’d used a condom both times, but the sex had been… rough, to say the least. The condom easily could have fallen off or torn. Plus, I had been way too preoccupied to notice whether he’d put it on properly. On the bright side, I thought, at least I got pregnant from good sex.

 

After allowing myself a few days to process the information, I texted Niall.

 

H: Hey. Can we talk?

 

N: Sure. What up?

 

H: In person?

 

He didn’t respond for a few hours. Such a typical guy thing to do, I thought as I sat in my room, lunging at my phone every time it vibrated to notify me of a new email or a new comment on Facebook. I assumed he probably thought I wanted to meet up and confess my undying love for him. He’d been clear before we’d had sex the first time that he wasn’t looking for a relationship, and I’d assured him that hooking up in a storage closet wasn’t my idea of a romantic first date.

 

Besides, my dad had been clear about his feelings for Niall and Killian. They were off-limits. There was absolutely no way he would let me date one of the O’Donnell boys. Though, he hadn’t specifically mentioned anything about not having meaningless sex with them, so I figured I was in the clear.

 

Finally, just after dinner, Niall responded.

 

N: Meet me at the closet?

 

H: Be there in twenty.

 

He took the news surprisingly well. I’d prepared myself for wide-eyed panic, and immediate mention of an abortion, but he merely leaned against the wall of the closet, his arms crossed over his chest.

 

“Have you thought about what you want to do?” he asked.

 

“I’m not sure,” I said, though even then I thought that might be a lie.

 

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn’t want. Abortion felt off the table. I was adopted. From the little my dad was willing to tell me, my birth mother had been young and unprepared for the responsibility of a child. She’d decided on adoption, and I officially became a Rourke when she waved her parental rights. If she hadn’t made that choice, I wouldn’t be here. I felt, somehow, like I owed it to her to make the same choice for this baby.

 

Niall bit his lower lip, and his dimple deepened. I hope this baby has a dimple, I thought before I could stop myself. It surprised me. The baby was still microscopic, and I was standing there thinking about its possible dimples.

 

Niall interrupted my thoughts. “I just want you to know that I’m fine with whatever you choose.”

 

I nodded.

 

“There will obviously be some challenges,” he said, gesturing to me, which I understood to be him silently mentioning my crazy over-protective father. “But I can handle them if you can. Plus, my family will support us no matter what.”

 

I nodded again.

 

We stood in silence for a few minutes, Niall staring at his feet, glancing up at me occasionally to reveal small flecks of yellow visible in his caramel brown eyes even in the dimness of the closet.

 

After a few minutes, he spoke again. “Do you want to add anything?” he asked. “I’m not really sure what to say, but I really want to know what you’re thinking.”

 

I sighed.

 

None of this was supposed to happen to me. I was supposed to meet a man, get married, and then have babies. I had never been particularly traditional, but growing up in a compound full of mafia members had made me crave normalcy, stability. Normalcy, however, didn’t seem to be in the cards for me.

 

So, I took a deep breath and said, “I want to keep the baby.”

 

Niall paused but then smiled. “Great. Okay. Now we just need a plan.”

 

We never got to make those plans. Three days later, Niall was dead.

 

Caleb was the one who told me. I had been lying on my bed, the pregnancy tests spread out before me all in a row. I would look at them and then touch my stomach, though I knew it would be months before I felt even a small flutter of movement inside of me. There was a knock at the door, and I had just enough time to pull the comforter over the tests before Caleb walked in.

 

“Did you hear?” he asked, a curious look on his typically stoic face. Caleb was the classic James Dean brooding type. He didn’t smoke, but I always imagined him with a cigarette in his mouth, leaning against a wall.

 

“Hear what?” I asked, my heart pounding, knowing my deepest secret was currently buried under a thin comforter.

 

“Niall O’Donnell is dead.” He delivered the news like he’d deliver the weather. It’s raining out. Did you know?

 

“No,” I said, shock seeping into every nerve of my body. I felt like I was being liquified from the inside. “How?”

 

“He was shot. A guy owed some money he apparently didn’t want to pay.”

 

I nodded, feeling incapable of saying anything more.

 

“Did you know him well?” Caleb asked, his eyebrows lowering as if he were staring at a pile of puzzle pieces, trying to decide which to pick up first.

 

Did I? That was a good question. In the Biblical sense, yes. But being bent over in front of someone while your legs quivered and you tried not to scream didn’t exactly seem like the kind of quality time getting to know someone required.

 

I shook my head. “Not really. Only in passing.”

 

Caleb bobbed his head, but he didn’t seem convinced. “Anyway, I just thought I’d let you know first. I’m supposed to go talk to the O’Donnell’s now. Dad is already there talking to Liam. I’m sure finding out your son has been gunned down isn’t a fun experience, so I better go try to help.”

 

He left before I could respond, which was good because I didn’t have any words. They’d all been sucked out of me, stolen away until I was nothing but skin and shock and pain. I lifted the comforter slowly, hoping by some God-ordained miracle that the pregnancy tests would be gone. It would all have been a bad dream. Yet, as the comforter slid back, the pink crosses peeked out at me. I dropped the comforter, laid back on the bed, and stared at the ceiling.

 

I barely left my bed for seventy-two hours. I memorized the cracks in my ceiling, tried to reorganize them into a recognizable shape or map, perhaps a message that would explain what I was supposed to do. Niall and I weren’t particularly close, but he knew my secret, and he wanted to help. Now, I had no one.

 

He’d mentioned his brother being supportive, but rumors had already begun to spread that he’d been thrown out of the compound for being instrumental in Niall’s death. I didn’t want to believe it could be true, but the only thing I knew about Killian before all of this was that he was trouble. Everyone said so. He was constantly getting himself into dangerous scrapes, starting fights he could barely finish, and botching jobs and losing money.

 

So, when Dad said Killian told him the exchange that night was canceled, everyone felt certain it had been a setup. Killian orchestrated it so he and Niall would be alone and without protection. No one was straight on whether Killian did the shooting or not, but they knew it was intentional. Either he arranged for Niall to be shot so he could take the money for himself, or the exchange really had been canceled, and he took his brother there anyway to kill him.

 

Jealousy was Caleb’s theory. Liam liked Niall more and that killed Killian. As he was the oldest of the two, Killian was meant to inherit the compound, but rumors had also spread that Liam was considering handing it down to Niall instead.

 

Either way, Niall was dead, and Killian was gone. I had a human being growing inside of me and no one to turn to. Telling my dad definitely wasn’t an option. Not yet, anyway. Of course, in a few short months, I wouldn’t have an option. My secret would be on full display for the world to see.

 

But, until then, I at least had time to figure out a plan. Maybe if I went to my dad with a plan for my life and my future, for the baby’s future, he’d understand. If I could line up a job, maybe my own apartment, perhaps he’d be proud of me for taking the initiative, for being responsible. Or maybe he wouldn’t.

 

I can’t remember how many times I’d heard him say that a pregnant woman needed a husband. To him, unwed mothers were a plague on the Earth. No matter that most of them were single mothers because the men bailed on them. That fact didn’t matter to Dad. The only thing that mattered to him was that those children would grow up without a male role model in their lives, which he believed was crucially important.

 

“Children without fathers end up in prison or worse. Nothing can replace a man’s influence on a child,” he’d say. Then he would warn me, always with a laugh, “Find yourself pregnant, Heather, and you’ll find yourself married.”

 

I didn’t know if he could actually force me into an arranged marriage, but I didn’t want to take the chance. I closed my eyes, tired of staring at the ceiling with my thoughts going in circles. I needed to figure shit out before I ended up some old Irishman’s wife.

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