WYATT
“I hope this isn’t your death bed confession,” I told him as Greyson placed a chair for me to sit on next to the medical bed my new dog was chained to. He still smelled like burnt flesh, and both of his legs were in thick casts. “Because I haven’t given you permission to die yet, Emilio,” I added as I took a seat.
Trembling, his burnt hand reached up to pull the oxygen mask down. “You really are like your father. He also enjoyed kicking others when they were down.”
“Thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” I replied, fixing the handcuffs. “And I hardly call this kicking…haven’t I been an exceptional host? I provided you with a room, medicine, food, and all you do is sleep.”
He huffed and then grimaced. “You’re letting me gather my strength before you torture me.”
“You think too highly of me,” I said, leaning back. “I haven’t tortured you because I’ve been busy and forgot about you. I could care less how much strength you have. I’m a doctor after all, I could keep you alive through the pain.”
“Didn’t you pledge to do no harm?”
“I lied. Shocking.”
He was silent.
“Emilio, they told me you had something to say. If you find yourself no longer able to say it, should I help you?” I looked to Greyson, who brought over my medical bag and placed it at my feet. “Because if need be, I can help you.”
Reaching into the bag, I pulled out a pair of black surgical gloves. Emilio tried to remain calm, but no matter how emotionless his face, he couldn’t hide the fear in his heart, the monitor beeping as his heart rate rose.
“Well? I’m all ears.” I slid the gloves onto my hands.
“There is a shipment my brother had coming in,” he said.
“Coming in where? Here?” I questioned.
He nodded.
Feeling my own heart rate rise, my hands balled into fists as I clarified, “Your brother was going to have a shipment sent to Chicago? Our Chicago. My Chicago. That’s what you’re telling me?”
Again, he nodded.
“What was it? Coke? Crystal? Heroin?”
“Heroin.”
It’s always heroin. “What made him think he could outsell us in our own backyard?”
He wouldn’t have done something so stupid unless he was, in fact, that stupid, or unless he had a reason to believe he could get away with it. I doubted the former, so it had to be the latter. Emilio didn’t reply, obliviously not understanding the delicate situation he was in.
“Emilio,” I looked up at the concrete ceiling and inhaled. The moment I exhaled, I was out of the chair so quickly it tipped over. My hands were around his neck, lifting him up off the bed and throwing him on the ground, the wires and monitors crashed down along with him. Gripping on to the side of his skull, which still somehow had hair, I lifted his head so he could see. “Did I not tell you I was busy! Do busy people have time to listen to dogs take dramatic pauses? SPEAK!”
“I don’t know!”
“Hold him up!” I yelled, letting go of his head and standing straighter. Two other men beside Greyson lifted the ingrate as I reached into my bag, pulling out a pair of scissors and a scalpel.
“I don’t know! I swear! I SWEAR!”
“You see, I want to believe you, Emilio,” I said as I walked closer to him while holding onto his jaw.
“I swear—”
“But I don’t believe you, Emilio. After all, you’ve been keeping this secret for so long now. Who knows what other secrets are going around in that brain of yours?” I whispered as I placed my scalpel on his forehead and started to cut into his flesh. “Should I open it up and see for myself?”
His mouth opened, but he couldn’t speak. And so I kept cutting, carving a massive C on his forehead. Tears came out of his eyes, mingling with the blood dripping down from his forehead. Gently, almost kindly, I said to him, “Emilio, don’t you want to rest? I can let you rest. You can lay back down, no one will bother you again.”
“P…please,” he begged.
“Just tell me what I need to know, and you can go back to bed,” I said lifting my blade from his skin, putting one of my gloved hands on the side of his face. “It’s okay. Go on. When is this shipment?”
“The nineteenth,” he answered, and I felt the urge to rip his mouth from his face. Today was the nineteenth.
Breathing in with a grace that had to be divine in nature, I asked, “What time?”
“10 pm.”
I glanced down at my watch. It was 10:49 pm because, apparently, I had to be the last to know about every goddamn thing.
“Where?”
He paused again…and I called upon all the angels in heaven to stop me from losing my shit.
“Emilio, your brother is dead,” I said softly. “You can’t betray the dead. Think about yourself. Aren’t you in pain?” His fear had been blocking the pain, but me reminding him I could make it go away—or make it worse—left him trembling as panic set in. “Tell me, and I can take the pain away. Where?”
“Chicago PD,” he managed to spit out.
“Chicago PD?” The moment I couldn’t help but grin and soon that grin broke into full blown laughter. “The police? Bloody brilliant! Man, I gotta give it your brother. He had balls.”
I waved my hands and released him, letting him fall back onto the ground. Looking down at him, I still couldn’t wipe the smile from my lips. “It’s hard being the second brother, believe me, I know, but look at us now. Everything is on our shoulders.”
Not waiting to hear his reply, I walked over toward the door as Greyson spoke to the others. “Put him back on the bed—”
“Did I say put him back on the bed?” I questioned, all humor gone from my voice as I handed Greyson the scalpel and scissors in my hands.
Greyson stared back at me. “You said you’d let him—”
“I lied. I’ve been known to do that. Everyone learns through suffering.”
He nodded, moving to go pick up my medical bag. As he did, I picked up the chair he’d brought for me and slammed it into his back, sending him onto the ground, before kicking into his ribs. “Apparently you haven’t suffered, Greyson.”
Before he could get up, I pulled my foot back again, kicking into his teeth. “HOW THE FUCK DID WE NOT ALREADY KNOW THE MOTHERFUCKING POLICE ARE NOW WORKING AGAISNT US?!”
Annoyed, I yanked the pole that had connected Emilio’s IV drip, lifting it high in the air before beating Greyson’s body with it repeatedly. “Do we not have people in the Chicago PD? Did they betray us, too? How does everyone in our world lose their GODDAMN MINDS AND WE DON’T HEAR ABOUT IT! What are you good for? WHAT ARE ANY OF YOU GOOD FOR?!”
I wanted to beat him to death. But instead, when he stopped responding, I dropped the pole before walking into the viewing room. There, leaning back on the chair eating an apple was Darcy, his feet propped up on the table.
“Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got serious anger issues?” Darcy asked before taking another bite of the apple.
“All of us have serious anger issues. It’s in our DNA,” Sedric replied as he did a sit-up on the ground next to Darcy.
“I see you two are just having a grand old time,” I snapped. Both paused—one mid-bite and the other mid-crunch—to glance at each other before looking over at me, smiles forming on their faces. In an instant, I knew what was going through their minds. “If either of you compare me to Ethan one more time, I will find the highest bridge to throw you off.”
“Yeah, definitely not Ethan-like at all.” Darcy fought back a laugh.
“I’m already getting goosebumps,” Sedric replied as he pushed himself off the ground. “Once he starts giving us the silent treatment and the cold stare, we’ve lost him.”
I stared at them for a moment, all of me still tense, before inhaling deeply. Taking the gloves off, I glared at them both. “You mean this cold stare? Or do I need Ethan’s pretty green eyes to really cut you deep?”
Darcy grinned.
Sedric sighed in mock relief. “There you are, Wyatt…you disappeared for a little bit in there.”
“No, it was still him. Just dark Wyatt. You know they call him the Mahdoc now,” Darcy replied.
I grinned at that, walking toward them and taking a seat on the coffee table. “Mahdoc…mad doctor…you’d think they’d be a little more creative.”
“At least they aren’t referring to you as kid anymore,” Darcy reminded me, and it was true.
“The secret to their respect is apparently abuse, the savages,” Sedric joked as he handed me a small sliver flask.
“No, the secret is and always will be the money,” I reminded him before accepting the flask and taking a long swing from it. When I paused to breathe, wiping the corner of my mouth, I continued, “They put up with the abuse because they want the money. What is death and pain to poverty? People would sacrifice their own children at our feet if it meant they could get even 1/100th of our wealth.”
“Maybe that’s why everyone is now thinking they can be us,” Darcy responded seriously, sitting up to the edge of his seat, leaning in closely to me. “No one has checked their greed.”
Tilting my head to look directly into his brown eyes, I asked, “Then why am I the mad one? Mahdoc? I’m a Callahan. We are Callahans. Everyone knows the rumors, and yet even still they are testing us. Everyone. Our own people. Our city. The goddamn police. They know who we are and what we can and will do, and yet they still come to die. They are the mad ones.”
“Moths to the flames,” Sedric said while walking over to the one-way mirror, watching as the guards tried to wake Greyson’s sorry ass up. “Just like moths, they can’t help themselves. They are programmed to seek out the light because that’s the only way they know how to survive. We’ve been raised to be flames; they’ve been raised to be moths. They aren’t loyal to us, they are loyal to anything that shines bright.”
Again, I looked to Darcy, and he gave me the same look. As I put the flask down on the table beside me, we both began to clap, causing Sedric to turn back around.
“Bravo.” I nodded to him.
“Who knew you could be so deep?” Darcy said with a laugh, leaning back into his chair.
Sedric flipped us both off before crossing his white arms over his chest. He leaned up against the window. “I’m not. The first time I saw my dad…at work…I was scared and confused. So I did what I normally did. I played outside in the woods until it was dark outside, and even then, I didn’t want to come back in. I wasn’t sure how to explain to my dad. But Ethan came out and sat next to me. He told me not to see them as the same as us. They were moths. We were flames. Moths that try to touch us must burn. That is the way of the world.”
“How old was he?” I questioned.
“Ethan? Sixteen,” Sedric answered.
“A natural-born Ceann Na Conairte,” I said, running my hands through my hair. “I would have just told you I don’t know why they do the things they do and to just suck it up and get back inside before you freeze.”
“It was summer,” he shot back, and this time I flipped him off in return.
“You would have thought of something,” Darcy cut in. “You have your moments. Problem is, you don’t realize when you’re having them.”
“It’s the mark of a true genius,” I said, winking at him. Rising from the table, I thought for a moment. “It’s late to deal with the Chicago rats. The shipment was today. It will be on the streets by morning. It seems I’m not even going to get a chance to fight the southern cunts anytime soon. After all, I must defend the homeland at all cost.”
I said the last bit with an Irish accent for my own amusement.
“Should we take a tour of the Chicago Police Headquarters before it magically…I mean accidently catches on fire?” Sedric asked.
I gasped in fake concern. “I would never waste the tax dollars of my fellow citizens like that!”
“So how are you going to find the traitors in blue?” Darcy questioned, now much more serious.
“Good question,” I replied but didn’t answer the question. I could tell they were waiting, but I pretended I didn’t know. Instead, I looked at my watch, only to see blood had gotten on it. “Goddamn it! I swear these people are the reason I can never wear nice things!”
Taking it off, I tossed it to Sedric and moved to the mirror, pressing the intercom. “Call the clean-up crew, then have the usual doctor come and have them both checked out…I need them alive. Well, truthfully, I only need Emilio alive, but you all seem fond of Greyson, so I guess he can stay alive as well. Then one of you...actually, no. Let me just end there seeing as you all haven’t been able to even walk and chew at the same motherfucking time.”
Releasing the intercom, I felt myself tense up again. I flexed my finger. “Darcy, I’m leaving my dog in your care.”
“I’m not a fan of dogs,” he started to object, until I looked over my shoulder at him. He rolled his eyes and nodded. “Fine, I’ll happily dog sit while you’re off killing cops.”
“I’m not going to kill anyone.” I walked over to the elevator. “Didn’t you hear Sedric? We are flames. Therefore, they are killing themselves. Tell Nana I apologize for missing dinner tonight.”
Entering the elevator, I leaned back against the panels, and just as the doors closed, I heard Sedric say to Darcy “A hundred grand he burns them alive, too.”
God, I wish it was only that simple.
SEDRIC
“He isn’t going to burn them alive, though he probably wants to,” Darcy said after Wyatt left, tossing the core of his finished apple like a basketball into the air and across the room. It landed in the trash bin in the corner.
“He’s barely holding himself back. You and I both know the longer Ethan isn’t here, the more reckless Wyatt will be. We controlled the OC. Apparently, we no longer control headquarters. That means he can’t go in there guns blazing just because they ticked him off.”
“He wouldn’t—”
“Are you sure?” I pressed, and he paused before rising from his chair, adjusting his trousers. Between him, Wyatt, and I, he was just slightly taller, but still shorter than Ethan.
“There’s nothing we can do for now. He’s decided to deal with this his own way.”
That was the problem. Wyatt’s way wasn’t always the most logical or reasonable way…actually it was rarely the logical or reasonable way. “Wyatt is the type of person to jump out of a plane without checking if he has a parachute on.”
“Yet somehow, he has always managed to make it to the ground safely,” Darcy tried to remind me as he walked up beside me.
“Somehow is Ethan. Ethan has always watched over him. Before that his parents. Our parents.”
Darcy just shrugged his shoulders at me. “Ethan isn’t dead. If Wyatt gets in over his head, I’m sure Ethan will be back…even if not, there’s us. Both of them become tunnel-visioned when it’s this personal. That’s why we’re here. To see when they can’t.”
“Glorified side-kicks,” I scoffed.
A smile formed on Darcy’s lips as he nodded. “Yes. But even glorified side-kicks have their day. We already got what we wanted. We’re in, where we belong. Right now, I’m more annoyed about these ingrates.”
He meant the people on the other side of the glass. Turning my back on them, I leaned on the glass again.
“Have you spoken to your sister? It’s dangerous for her to be by herself with all of this happening.”
Darcy shook his head no. “There’s no need. She’ll be fine. Besides, I pity the fool who thinks of going after my sister.”
The moment he said it, I tried to imagine what would happen if someone did try to go after her. If Helen of Troy caused a thousand ships to sail, then Helen of Chicago could cause ten thousand bullets to fly.
There was a price to pay for messing with the women of this family. Ivy hadn’t even been part of this family for three months, and her death already made Wyatt burn people alive. Turning around, I watched as Darcy gave orders to the guard who lifted the broken, bloody, and bruised Emilio from the ground.
Why do I get the feeling that is still just the opening act?