WYATT
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for waiting,” the chief of surgery said into the microphone beside me. “I’m Doherty Han, Chief of Surgery at Chicago Medical. Yesterday at four p.m. central time, a fire broke out at the Orlando-Sedric Community Center, injuring approximately sixty-two people…fifteen children and forty-seven adults. Their injuries ranged from serve burns to smoke inhalation. I’m happy to report to you that there are no causalities, in part thanks to the quick actions of Dr. Wyatt Callahan, who was also among those in the fire, luckily unharmed. He will be joining the Chicago Medical Trauma Center as a trauma surgeon…Dr. Callahan.”
Nodding, I stepped forward behind the podium and spoke into the microphone. “I’ll answer any questions…but please be gentle. As you know, I am a Callahan, and I have no experience with the press.”
A few of them laughed; others glared. But I just smirked, pointing to the left, toward the first woman to raise her hand.
“Mr. Callahan—”
“It’s Dr. Callahan, Mr. is everyone else in my family,” I joked, though she didn’t seem amused as she rolled her eyes at me, before parting her lips to ask.
“Dr. Callahan,” she stretched, and I nodded for her to go on. “The Orlando-Sedric Community Center has marketed itself as having state-of-the-art technology that prevents fires from spreading. As I recall, your family has claimed it was fireproof.”
“Dr. Callahan is answering questions regarding patients—”
“It’s alright,” I interrupted the chief before she went on. “As I recall, my family claimed the O.S. was nearly fireproof. ‘Nearly’ is not one hundred percent. Chief Han claimed that it was luck that I was not harmed and was able to help others. However, it wasn’t luck…it is due to the state-of-the-art technology at the O.S., and had it not been tampered with, I’m positive there would have been even fewer injuries.”
That got their attention, more than a few them sitting up and calling out.
“Are you saying that the security system was tampered with?”
“Was this arson?”
“Has the fire chief confirmed?”
“Do the police have a suspect?”
Reaching up to my lips, I blew on my fingers, making a high-pitched whistle that was further amplified by the microphone, making them cringe. Dropping my hand, I took a deep breath before speaking.
“I am a doctor. I came here to give you all a status update on the patients under my care. If you do not have questions regarding the patients…like seven-year-old Mary Gore-Booth, who has serve burns on both her left and right arms, along with her feet. She’s scheduled for skin grafts within the week…and hopefully, within a few months, this will be behind her,” I replied, lifting the photo of Mary. Did I have the mother’s permission? No. Would she give it to me? I was sure Bridget wouldn’t ever question this family again. “While there are no critical patients, we do currently need blood donations…to those who have donated, thank you.”
I could feel myself going on autopilot. My mother used to say the press are like puppies—hyper, attention-seeking, eager for a bone. So always give them your attention and a damn bone. They were asking me questions, but I was sure they were all itching to question the police and fire chief about an arson suspect. Meaning my family…the O.S. didn’t fail but was a victim of arson. So long as trust in my family was still maintained, and that we still had a good image, I didn’t care who took the fall for the arson.
No... that was a lie. I did care. Which is why I already had a scapegoat.
NEAL
“Sweets, hold on,” I said to her as I stepped out onto the street. One of the guards who’d driven in behind me jumped quickly out of the Ranger Rover, hand outstretched for my keys.
“Who are you?”
“Mannix. But people call me Monk.”
“I don’t really care. What I care about is my precious. Do you know what that is?” I asked him, nodding to my car.
He glanced to my precious quickly before looking to me. “It’s a vintage Ferrari.”
I stared at the blonde-haired, lanky man-boy stepping forward. I put my hand on his shoulder, turning him to face my precious along with me. “A poor man sees an old Ferrari. This, my ginger-haired friend, is a one-of-a-kind, custom-built forest green 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder. It’s almost as precious to me as my children. So how will you treat it?”
“Like it’s your child?” he replied.
“No,” I shook my head. “You’ll treat it like it was more important than your child. Your favorite child. Your only child. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man.” I nodded to him, tossing the keys up for him to catch, which he did as if I’d thrown up gold, before looking toward the hospital behind me. “I’ve been back in this city for an hour and already at the fucking hospital. Can you believe this shit, Sweets?”
“Are you talking to me or the driver still?” she answered back.
I grinned, pressing the Bluetooth further into my ear as I walked forward. “You know you’re the only Sweets I have.”
“Umm,” she replied to me. Then to someone else, “Put that in the corner and leave that. I’ll unpack it myself.”
“I still don’t understand why you needed to pack anything. We could have bought anything that wasn’t already in our room here.” I said to her as I glanced over the emergency room. The smell of alcohol and disinfectant trying but failing to mask the scent of smoke and burnt flesh.
“Well, when you decide to copy Declan’s bad habit of expensive cars…we should save anywhere we can.”
I rolled my eyes at her piss-poor excuse to take a jab at cars. “Sweets, it is our duty as insanely, unimaginably rich people to spend money on obscene shit. It’s an insult to the poor if we don’t, AND it hurts the economy.”
“Did you really just say not buying expensive shit hurts the poor and the economy? You don’t give a crap about either of those things!” She laughed so hard she snorted, which in turn made me laugh as I walked up to the visitors desk.
“That is not true! I care a lot. That’s why I’m about to donate to…” I paused, picking up one of the flyers on the desk. “Half-Home!”
She stopped laughing and paused for a moment before asking, “Do you know what Half-Home is?”
I glanced at the picture on the cover of the flyer, a father and daughter hugging each other. There were no other words on it besides ‘Support Half-Home.’ “A father-daughter program?”
She broke out into a fit of laughter again.
“What?” I snapped, even though I couldn’t help but grin. The nurse behind the station looked at me, leaning forward to speak, but I held my finger up at her, telling her to wait a second.
“Half-Home is a drug rehab program! You just…” She tried to hold in her laugher as she said, “You just said you wanted to donate to a program that tries to take away the customers who are making you so very rich enough to donate.”
I couldn’t help the Grinch-like frown that appeared on my face. The nurse stood up, pointing behind me. I glanced back at the families, also on the phone but a lot more panicked, who had photos in their hands. They were scanning around for whom I could only guess was their family members.
“Sweets, I’m going to have to call you back…duty calls.”
“Spending money on obscene shit?” she questioned.
“No, pretending to give a shit,” I said to her in Korean.
“Fighting!” she replied before hanging up.
Taking the Bluetooth out of my ear and tucking it in my shirt pocket, I turned to face the nurse, who was more than annoyed with me. Flashing a smile at her and standing straighter, “Hi—”
“This is a hospital, sir. You should finish your calls outside.”
“Sorry about that,” I said, still smiling while I tapped my fingers on her desk to keep from plucking the eyes out of her little head. “I’m looking for Wyatt Callahan—”
“Do you have an appointment with Dr. Callahan?”
I need an appointment to see my nephew now? “No but—”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Callahan is very busy, and you’ll need to call—”
“Uncle Neal!”
I glanced over to right, somewhat stunned at the man in front of me, dressed in a white coat over a dark red shirt with dark grey dress pants, his hair cut and styled, and a very familiar hidden darkness on his face, even though he grinned from ear to ear.
He’s different.
“Dr. Callahan, is that you?” I grinned, hugging him when he was close, patting him on the back. “I was just being lectured on why us little people must make an appointment to see such an important and busy person as yourself!”
“What?” He pulled back, his brown eyes speckled with spikes of green, shifted to the nurse beside us.
She stood up straighter, eyes wide. And his glance shifted down to her name tag. She noticed. Anyone would have noticed. He made it obvious, and in doing so, she quickly spoke up. “I’m sorry, Dr. Callahan, I didn’t realize he was family.” She looked over to me, and I just leaned on the counter. “If you had said that you were—”
“Ms. LeRoy,” Wyatt cut her off, speaking to the older nurse who only came to the desk to place a tablet back down. She looked to him. “I know you are busy. I apologize, but you get Nurse Alice here some help. She’s seems a little overwhelmed, and a line is forming.”
“Yes, doctor,” she replied, flashing a glare to the younger nurse before moving to speak to the doctor behind me.
“Let’s get brunch, Uncle,” Wyatt said to me, no longer paying attention to the nurse beside me. He’d discharged her without even acknowledging her, already moving away.
“I’m always in the mood for brunch,” I replied, taking only one step before leaning back to look at Nurse Alice, who looked to be having a mental break down. Tapping the flyer, I dropped it on the counter, getting her attention. “If you’re still positioned here later, you might want to talk to people about these flyers. I know it’s a new age and everything, but you still have to have information on them.”
“Uh…I’ll let them know.”
“She won’t be there later, Uncle, let’s go,” Wyatt replied aloud, not giving a shit if she heard him.
I followed him as he walked down the hall, taking the path of the purple hearts. He rolled his neck and yawned before asking, “How are you, Uncle? Is Aunt Mina with you?”
“I’m good as always. So is your aunt. She’s moving our stuff back into the mansion…which is shocking because Ethan made it clear that he needed space.”
“Ethan isn’t at home, so he still has space.”
I paused, my jaw locking in anger. “Because of Ivy.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. Ethan was already distant by nature—the death of his mother made him cold. But becoming the Ceann Na Conairte so young only made him lock the rest of himself in ice. He became more dispassionate…the only breaks in his demeanor for his siblings. But all three of them were distant from each other. I’d hoped Ivy would at least warm him up some, be his fire. Now that she was gone, instead of a fire, she was like a shooting star in the North Pole. Pretty, unexpected, but fleeting and utterly useless. Ethan would most likely sink deeper inside himself, now…fuck…this isn’t what Liam wanted for him.
“He’s going to be back. And this time, we’re not going to let him have space. Space doesn’t apply to family.” He said seriously…making me look at him again.
“Who are you, and what did you do with my nephew?” I questioned, crossing my arms.
“I killed him,” he muttered under his breath, pausing to look to me. “I need you not to get caught up in who I was but who I am right now, because there is no learning curve on what we need to do.”
My eyebrow raised. “Learning? Kid, I remember teaching you how to scope.”
He laughed, pressing his badge on the panel near the double frosted doors labeled BCR.
“BCR?” I asked him.
“Burn Center Recovery,” he replied. “Where the last man who called me ‘kid’ is.”
Ignoring his latter statement, I grimaced at the former. “I thought we were getting brunch?”
“We are.” He grinned.
“You’re really going to depress my appetite before I eat?” I grumbled, followed inside to hell. No, not to hell, to those who’d barely escaped hell. That’s what it looked like. Everywhere, on the right and the left of me, were doctors tending to weeping, sobbing, or sleeping drugged burned victims. Children, women, men, but very few old people, all wrapped like mummies on beds. I noticed the names outside the glass rooms were either Irish or Italian.
“We were attacked?” I whispered to him.
“No.” He whispered back to me, pausing to look into one of the glass rooms. A brown-haired woman rested on a chair next to a small girl, who I could only assume was her daughter, trying to stay awake. Both of the older woman’s hands were wrapped in white bandages. But that looked less painful than the thick, cast-like bandages on her daughter’s arm. On the glass screen of the door was the name Mary Gore-Booth, her vitals appearing when Wyatt tapped the glass.
The woman looked up, and the moment she saw him, fear and rage—but mostly fear—spread across her face, engulfing her. She tensed up and sat straighter. It wasn’t the normal fear our family received, which was usually fear mixed with respect. No, the way Ms. Gore-Booth looked at him, you’d think it was a scene right out of a horror movie where the creature appears out of nowhere, staring right at you.
“No one was attacked, Uncle…they were just disciplined,” Wyatt whispered.
“You did this?” I said softly in disbelief.
He glanced up at me, and I knew why that look in his eyes felt so familiar. It was Melody. The look in his eyes, on his face, it was the same look I saw in his mother when she had done something….so ruthless that it would mentally shatter anyone who heard it.
“I hated having going to Bible study when I was a kid,” he admitted randomly. “In fact, I kinda thought God was a dick. Mom and Dad said we take care of our people. Then in the Bible I’d read how God would punish the Israelites, the ones he called ‘his people’ because of the actions of a few.” The corner of his lip turned up, and he shrugged. “I guess that’s because I was a kid. I didn’t think about the big picture. But now I do. God is responsible for his people, and his people are responsible for each other. So, if one person messes up and the rest of them do not take care of it, he must punish them all…so they all know they will be held accountable for the sins of their neighbors.”
I tried not to yell, looking around before muttering, “You did this so they’ll police each other?”
Uncaring, he spoke as if he didn’t care who heard. “I did this for many reasons. That is one of them. There will be no more rebellions. There will be no more feuds. There will be a long line behind my brother. They can get in it, or they can burn.”
It was in that moment I felt the chill gone down my spine. I realized that, for Ms. Gore-Booth, he might really be the creature from a horror movie.
“Dr. Callahan?” Turning to my right, two cops walked up to us…no, to the door. It took me much longer than it should have to put the pieces together, but when I did… I couldn’t speak. I was barely able to breathe.
Un-fucking-believable… I watched in absolute shock as the cop walked into Ms. Gore-Booth’s room. Her eyes shot to us…to him, the creature from her ongoing horror movie. They put her arms behind her back, and she must have been in shock too because she just stared at Wyatt as they took her out of her room.
“You framed her?” I whispered as they took her way.
“Both her and Moretti needed a special lesson,” he muttered, glaring down at the double doors. He blinked a little before focusing on me. “Now let’s get food! I’m starving, I’ve been up all night tending to burnt flesh. Urgh!”
I watched as he yawned, stretching his arms out as he walked away from the door…I had to pause for a moment and glance down at my arm. Sure enough, the hair had raised, and I had goosebumps. The same type I used to get when Liam and Melody showed the world how ruthless they could be.
DECLAN
“The Irish are calling him MahDoc,” Neal said to me over the phone.
I thought about it for a moment before nodding; “How fitting, MahDoc…Mad Doctor...son of the Mad Hatter. The Irish sure know how to give names.”
“Declan, this shit is motherfucking insane. He set the goddamn O.S. on fire…while he was inside it, too!”
“Wait, what?” I frowned, putting the book in my hand down. “He was inside? As in inside the fire? Is he okay?”
“Is he fucking okay?” He snapped at me. “The kid—he’s taking a quote ‘power nap’ right now, after stuffing his face with chicken and prawn Pad Thai, two bagels, and Jell-O.”
I had so many questions.
Like when did hospitals start serving Pad Thai? Why the fuck was he saying Pad Thai with a shitty accent? Did the bagels come before the Pad Thai or after? Did he just stop himself from calling Wyatt a ‘kid’ out of fear? Was he afraid of little Wyatt now?
Postponing all of those questions for the more serious ones, I asked, “Have you heard from Ethan?”
“No, but I’m not worried about it because I’m sure now that he’s the sane one out of the three of them,” he grumbled.
“Dona is the most reasonable—”
“If Dona wasn’t well on her way to being the Supreme Princess of Monaco, she would have killed Ivy or Ethan…or Ethan then Ivy, before trying to burn everyone else alive.”
The laugh that came out of me was reflex…mostly because it was crazy and true, but no longer a real possibility. It was funny. “You know who you remind me of right now?”
“Who?”
“Your father…Sedric.” He knew who his father was. I said his name only because I missed saying it. The moment I realized I wasn’t alone, I glanced behind me, toward the back of the Jet, where Evelyn sat, across from my sleeping wife, on the couch. She smiled at me, and I smiled back. Without a word between us, she went back to reading on her own. Cora had made us all book nerds.
“Why do you think so?” he asked, a little less animated and definitely soberer.
“When Liam and Melody got married, he knew what they were doing was crazy. But he couldn’t help but get excited about what might happen next,” I answered…thinking back to a time that felt like a lifetime ago.
“I remember. But you can’t say that shit to me now, man. I’m the same age as he was when he died now.”
“Fuck, you’re old.”
“Fuck, your hair is grayer than mine!”
I laughed. “That’s only because you dye it.”
“I do not.”
“Bullshit.”
“I got bull but no shit, brother. Some of us are just blessed.”
Rolling my eyes hard, I nodded. “Fine. It makes sense now that I think about it anyway…grey hair comes from stress. Stress from thinking…I guess in your case you just never—”
“The moment you get off the plane say it to my face, you little cunt.”
We were both silent…and I didn’t realize why until I remembered. “That’s that point where Liam would have said something to insult the both of us, right?”
“Or praise himself,” Neal snickered bitterly.
Inhaling, I nodded and smiled to myself, leaning back into my chair. “We aren’t burying any more of our family, Neal. I’ve seen far too many Ceann Na Conairtes come and go, Neal, in this lifetime.”
“You? What about Mom? She’s still good, right?”
I grinned. “Evelyn is made of something out of this world. I wouldn’t be surprised if she lived to be 200.”
“Then we got to live to 201,” he replied. “I don’t want her grieving over anyone else. She’s been through hell because of all of this.”
I nodded. When I thought about how long she’d lived on the sidelines of our merciless, bloody lives…how many people she’d watched get lowered into the ground, I knew without a doubt that I wanted to just let her have peace. Let her enjoy family. “We’ve always watched over them…but Wyatt’s right. We need to be together again. One family under one roof again. Whatever he needs…no matter how far…we’ll have their backs right there on the ground with them. Ethan, too. Dona if she ever gives up that crown.”
He scuffed. “Yeah, good luck getting that thing out of her hands. She’s been walking around with an invisible one all of her life. Now that it’s real and everyone knows it? I feel sorry for the poor motherfuckers that try to get in her way.”
“When this is settled, I want to take a better look at this Gabriel, too.” The fact he’d just take her from the family without even meeting the rest of us…I don’t give a fuck that he’s a prince. I wouldn’t stand for such disrespect. Liam would have spoon fed him his own balls.
“Understood. Now if you’ll excuse me, the Mahdoc is walking up, and I have questions about your thinking equals grey hair bullshit!”
“You’re an idiot,” I laughed, and he just hung up on me. Taking off the Bluetooth and tossing it on to the table, I glanced out at the blue sky. We were going back to Chicago. Home.
And with home came the madness.
“Are you going to sit there all day, or are you going to help your wife get some proper rest?” Evelyn called out to me.
Grinning, I stood up, turning back to them. “The moment I move her, she’s going to wake up.”
“Not after the sedative I just gave her,” Evelyn replied, sipping her tea.
My eyes shifted quickly to Cora, watching her chest rise softly, thankfully, as I moved to her. “You drugged my wife?”
“Somebody had to…the way she’s been hovering over me the last few weeks, she was bound to crash sooner or later. Better now before we go back into the heart of darkness,” she said with no remorse as I gently brushed the dark curls of Cora’s face, moving her head onto my shoulder.
“Evelyn,” I inhaled, trying to speak calmly. “Thank you for your concern, but I’d rather you didn’t resort to drugging her.”
“I rather not have churches fall on top of me, but what can you do? Some things are out of your control,” she replied, sipping her tea again. I didn’t want to smile, but I couldn’t help it. It was good having her back to her normal, witty self again.
For the most part, thanks to some of the best doctors, and most expensive, on this planet, you could barely see the scars on her arms and neck anymore. She sat on her own, dressed in black trousers, a stripped blouse, and a gold and green double-breasted jacket.
“Ethan took care of those ingrates,” I told her seriously.
She looked to me, her dark eyes hard and angry. “Then another set of ingrates killed his wife. They hurt my grandson. Now he’s only god knows where.”
“He’ll be back—”
“I know he’ll back. He’s Ethan. He knows his responsibilities. He needs to get himself straight, but I don’t doubt he’ll be back. What I need to be sure about is Wyatt.”
Once again, I remembered that I wasn’t just sitting across from the woman who had raised me since I was a child—my aunt and my mother—but instead the former wife of the Ceann Na Conairte, mother of the Ceann Na Conairte, now grandmother to Ceann Na Conairte. She was as, if not more, attached to our family’s business and empire than anyone else.
“Wyatt was the one who set who fire to our center? He put our people into the hospital?” she asked me for confirmation.
I nodded. “They’re calling him Mahdoc now.”
“Good.” She placed her cup down and lifted her book again, which was ironically Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. “It’s time he became the man his mother said he’d be.”
“What?” Melody never said anything about Wyatt. In fact, she seemed to coddle him, which for Melody, it was odd to see how soft and gentle she was to him. She loved all of her children. But she was always especially attached to Wyatt…it was how everyone knew he was her favorite.
“You didn’t see it?” She glanced to me and seemed honestly shocked.
“See what?”
“Declan, she wasn’t coddling Wyatt. She was weaponizing him.”
“What?” I laughed, holding on to Cora. “You make it seem like she was creating a biological weapon.”
“In a way, she was.” She leaned back, propping her head up on the arm of the couch as she explained. “Slowly, carefully, painstakingly, she was morphing Wyatt, a boy who was going to be dangerous simply by nature for being a Callahan, into someone more dangerous. She pushed Ethan and Dona to be strong mentally and physically, because she knew they were both going to rule. They needed to be able to see all the people trying to hurt them. They needed that foresight. But with Wyatt, she wanted him to forget who our enemies were and who our friends were…forget everything but who he was. While Ethan and Dona always cared about the overall family, Wyatt only cares about Wyatt.”
“So…she made him selfish. That’s what we didn’t need, Evelyn—”
She shook her head. “It’s exactly what we need. They are all selfish. But Wyatt’s selfishness…is like Melody’s selfishness. Ethan and Dona are complex. Wyatt is simple. He will do what is best for him. And what is best for him is having his siblings. His only goal is to defend. Melody knew Ethan would become Ceann Na Conairte. She didn’t want Wyatt to think like him. To want the same things as him. That would only lead to a civil war between brothers. Look at Dona, how close she came. She was trained to think like a queen because…her parents knew their daughter would not remain a Callahan. Dona would leave this family and rule on her own terms. Ethan has Chicago, and therefore has this country. And Dona has her own. But Wyatt…Melody wanted her sons together. One the brain, the other muscle. Separate, they are terrifying. But together…it will be hell on earth for their enemies. Now that someone who he cares about is hurt and his sister is gone, what do you think he’ll do? How do you think he feels?”
I paused, letting it sink in. All the moments I’d witnessed Melody training him alone—slowly explaining things to him, separating him from the rest of the children just to talk—flashed through my mind. “He feels personally offended. They aren’t just Ethan and Dona. They’re HIS siblings. People he loves. This is about him. It may seem like he’s avenging his family. But it’s just his selfishness. They hurt his people. So, he’s going to do anything and everything to make sure those people hurt…hurt worse. Like a kid that has his toy broken, he’s going to get revenge for his own sake.”
“And by default, become Ethan’s soldier, protector, enforcer...the hammer upon everyone’s head… he’s just going to keep hammering until he feels better.”
“And he won’t feel better until his toy is fixed…until Ethan is back to where he wants.”
“Until then, expect chaos.” She sounded proud. “Expect it to last until Ethan is back… When Ethan comes back…no one will ever question him out fear of having to deal with Mahdoc again. Melody’s plan. Wound one son, and unleash the worst in the other.”
She wasn’t just proud…she was gleeful.
In the same sense that Neal had been on the phone.
They both felt it. They felt it in the way animals feel an earthquake or a tsunami coming. The only difference was they didn’t fear it; they weren’t running from it because it felt like home…it felt like the old days. It felt like Liam and Melody…and Sedric were here.
Looking out the window, I could only imagine the terror that would be unleashed soon… Liam, Melody, Sedric…my own father. They were here…the ruthlessness it didn’t end…it was just passed down from one generation to the next, growing stronger and darker.
Wyatt was just now coming into his own.
Which was good for this family and hell on earth for everyone else.
I glanced down at the beauty in my arms for a moment and then back to Evelyn as she lifted her eyes. “You have any more pills left? I have a feeling I might not be sleeping for a while either.”
She laughed, shaking her head at me.
Welcome back to Chicago, Declan…the forecast is as it has always been…windy with a chance of murder.
No sooner had I thought it, my phone rang, and the name on the screen was none other than the new Mahdoc himself.
“Hello, Wyatt.”