Sparrow

“Who are you? I’m calling the police,” the maid announced, but she made no move to pull out a cell phone or lunge for the one on the table in the foyer.

I offered her an impatient smile. “Don’t be stupid. Tell me where he is and get outta here.” I reached into my pocket and jerked a stack of money from my wallet.

She jumped back, watching the hundred-dollar bills feather-float all the way to the Spanish tiles. She then looked back up to face me and silently stared up to the second floor, tilting her head toward its right wing. Her gaze was steady, but her body shook.

“That’s where he is?” I tipped my chin down, inspecting her.

Her full lips were pursed and her thick eyelashes fluttered. She was having a hard time giving him away, but knowing Rowan, he couldn’t have been nice to a maid. He was notorious for putting women through shit, especially powerless ones. The Irish mob was always into the * business (mainly strip clubs that offered some extra attention to their clients—it was too profitable to turn down), but most men weren’t particularly anxious to leave their mark on the girls. Paddy, however, liked them young and suffering. Preferably the latter, if he had a choice.

The girl nodded wordlessly.

“Are you giving him away because of the money or because he messed around with you?” I tucked my wallet back into my breast pocket, waiting with interest for the answer.

She gulped hard and studied the floor, knotting her fingers together. “Both.”

A brief, heavy silence fell between us.

“Get out of here and if anyone asks, he gave you half the day off because you caught a stomach bug. I was never here. Understood?”

She nodded again.

“Who am I?” I asked.

“No one,” she parroted. “I never saw you.”

“Good girl. Now off you go.”

When I walked into the darkened master bedroom, the stench almost knocked me over. So far the house looked nice and taken care of, but the thick and suffocating scent of illness crashed into me the minute I stepped into his room.

There was a tall king-size bed, and right in the middle of it, tucked inside dozens of f*cking duvets and fluffy pillows lay the man I hated. Or, at least what was left of him.

He looked frail, skinny, the opposite from his old burly self. He used to be stocky, bald, short, ugly and healthy. Now blue veins traveled up and down his hands like vicious snakes and his skin was dotted yellow and brown. He was withering. An autumn leaf sticking out like a sore thumb in green Miami.

Paddy was wearing some kind of an oxygen mask, hooked into a silver and green tank that was sitting right next to him by the bed. The curtains were all drawn.

It smelled like death. Rotting, in-process death. I’d seen death before, but it was always quick and unripe. There was the rusty scent of blood, sour scent of fear and sweet scent of hot metal and gunpowder. It wasn’t an unpleasant combo, albeit one that would stick in your nose and throat for days. But that was the photogenic side of death. Rowan was on the other side.

He was a living, breathing corpse, decaying like the bad apple that he was—and it f*cking reeked. We both knew men like him were better off dying somewhere on the job, hard and quick and in a blaze of glory, rather than the mess of being on death row, hooked to a f*cking oxygen tank, looking like a shadow of your former self.

I walked inside the room and yanked a handkerchief out of my jacket. I usually kept one for when I needed to touch shit without leaving fingerprints. I used it to cover my nose and breath through the stench of a body eating itself alive.

“Ah,” I heard him say or, rather, cough. I wasn’t sure if he was awake or asleep. In fact, the only thing that gave away the fact the bastard was still alive was his labored breathing. “I see the devil wants his pound of flesh. So the little bitch told you.”

I continued strolling in his direction wordlessly until my legs hit the edge of his bed. I kept the handkerchief over my nose and stared at him. He shifted uneasily but kept his eyes on mine.

“I believe congratulations are in order.” He attempted a chuckle. “I’m guessing you ain’t here for some fatherly advice. Rumor has it you know all about the birds and the bees.”

I stared down at my hands, fighting the urge to pick at the scabs on my knuckles. I wanted to touch something, to break something.

Of course Paddy knew about Sparrow and me. At this point, every single person in South Boston did.

“You should know by now, your sins always catch up with you at the end,” I said, my tone flat.

He tapped his oxygen mask, rolling his sunken eyes. “Remind yourself of that when little wifey realizes who you really are and what you did to her mother, will ya, boyo?”

His words hit me hard. How the f*ck did he know? There were only two people other than me who knew about Robyn Raynes and about my promise to my father…and now there were three. Fucking Cat and her big mouth. She probably told him too, in one of her visits to his notorious coke parties in Boston.

I couldn’t let him see the surprise in my eyes, so I glared, trying to hide the hurricane swirling in the pit of my stomach.

“So, am I going to finally meet my maker today?” He tried to laugh, but it somehow rolled into a full-on cough. It sounded like he was going to throw up his lungs. The coughing got shallow and throatier, then died down.

“You don’t deserve to go like a mobster,” I answered. “No bullet to the head for you. I’d much rather know you’re decaying here like roadkill no one bothered to scrape off the pavement.”