Chapter Twenty-Three

Emma

The hours ticked by, each one more painful than the last. Anxiety crashed through me like waves in a tsunami. Hard, overwhelming, and each one dragged me deeper and deeper into the darkest place my mind had ever wandered. Images of Dylan lying dead somewhere in Brighton haunted my every step as I paced through the apartment. Tommy was still sleeping in his bed. I’d checked on him half a dozen times, as though I thought someone was coming for him. Dylan’s cryptic warnings cycled through my head over and over.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It was sheer agony. By three AM I was wondering what I’d do if I had to leave. The check Dylan had left behind was a shot at a fresh life, but part of me didn’t care. I didn’t want a fresh start unless it was with him. I’d have to go on, for Tommy’s sake. I knew it, but it was impossible to think about.

Where would we go? What would I do? What about my mom? Kate? The diner? Round and round the questions spun, none of them had answers.

Finally, at a quarter to four, a soft knock sounded on the door. I lunged for it and flipped the first lock only to freeze in place. Dylan’s warning came back to me. I paused, my fingers frozen on the second deadbolt. I forced myself to check the security peephole.

Dylan stood in the hall.

My heart leaped into my throat, beating wildly. I tore the door open, and he shuffled inside. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust and take note of the full picture. “You’re bleeding!”

Dylan pushed the door closed, and I hurried to lock it before leading him to a chair in the kitchen. He moved slowly, but I couldn’t figure out where the blood was coming from. Blood stained half of his white t-shirt and his pants had splatters of blood.

“It’s not my blood, Em,” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s been kind of a rough night, but I’ll be okay.”

“What happened?”

He eyed me skeptically.

“I can handle it.”

He sighed, “Gregory O’Doul was the one who got Jimmy and Tommy and the two others killed. He meant it as a scare tactic, but things got out of hand and four men ended up dead. Jimmy and Tommy were running hookers for the O’Douls. They were cogs in a much bigger and uglier machine.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“Tara.”

I snarled at the name, my hand still stung from punching her bitch face.

Dylan held up a hand. “None of this would’ve been possible without her help, Em.”

“I don’t care. She’s a slut who slept with my husband.”

“I’m not going to defend her actions. She won’t be back in town. I’ve helped her and her father get away from the O’Douls and everything they stand for.”

“Her father?”

“I’ll explain that all some other time. You’re just going to have to trust me. Eddie and Gregory O’Doul are dead.”

I knew I should express some concern or shock, but instead, all I found was a feeling of relief. The men responsible for the horrible murders were gone. I looked at Dylan and saw the answer to my question in his quiet stare. He’d been the one who put them down.

“What now? Won’t the Irish retaliate?”

Dylan shook his head. “No.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I have friends who manage these kinds of situations, Em.”

“What does that mean? It doesn’t sound good.”

Dylan met my eyes. Dead serious. “It’s not good but when they’re done, the O’Douls will be a problem of the past. I’ve made some calls, and the wheels are in motion. A cleanup crew will take care of the rest. The O’Douls will go down for murder, human trafficking, and money laundering. I can only imagine there will be a crop of other charges along the way. They’re not getting away with this. And without their leaders they won’t be able to strike back before it’s too late.”

“Are you sure?”

Dylan nodded and reached for my hand. “You have to trust me, Em.”

“I do.”

“I have to do something,” he said. I looked at his bloodstained shirt and pointed to the bathroom. “Wait here,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

A few minutes later he came out of the shower with a towel around his waist, water dripping from his hair. I pulled the towel away and ran it through his dripping curls before he took me in his arms and kissed me deeply. “Take me to your bed, Em.”

We had to keep quiet, out of fear of alerting Tommy in the next room, but we made love. It was slow and sensual and erased all the fears and drove the horrifying nightmares from my mind.

***

Two weeks later we stood in a room barely recognizable from the pub as Jimmy and Tommy had left it. Everything from the furniture and paint down to the light fixtures and doorknobs had been replaced.

“The place looks great, Patrick,” I said, dropping a kiss on the man’s cheeks.

“You’re going to have to get used to calling me Paddy,” he said. “There’s a rumor going around that it won’t be long before you’re officially one of the Malloys.”

My cheeks flushed. “Wishful thinking on the part of Mrs. Malloy. Unless you know something I don’t.”

Paddy flashed me a wry, sad grin. “I had a talk with the lad. Said he’d be a fool to let you slip through his fingers.”

“And what did Dylan say?”

“He just told me he had to report back to active duty. Holds his cards close to his chest, that one does.”

“There you go then. The news is no news.” I tried to laugh it off, but my heart was heavy with not knowing what Dylan had on his mind. I’d been here before, déjà vu all over again, a farewell party before he ships out.

My eyes flitted across the room to where Dylan was standing with his parents. Tara was out of the picture. Dylan eventually told me her story and while it went a long way toward resolving my anger, I was mostly just relieved she was gone and that her face would no longer be there to remind me of the ugly past.

“Well I wouldn’t go picking out china patterns just yet, Patrick,” I said, patting him on the arm. “Dylan has some big decisions to make.”

As if he overheard his name, Dylan turned and smiled at me from across the room.

Patrick nudged me. “I trust he’ll make the right ones this time.”

I said nothing. I wouldn’t let myself get my hopes up. Dylan would be flying back to his unit overseas, but I could see his gut was twisted when anyone asked him if was going to sign up for another tour or come home to Brighton for good. The expectation was that he was a homeboy after all, like everyone else in this town. But they didn’t know Dylan like I did. They didn’t know the ghosts waiting for him, especially after the last few weeks.

The O’Douls had been taken down, just as Dylan promised. The pub on Fourth was boarded up, and while everyone had their own version of the truth, no one knew what really happened that night. In the end, the police and FBI were called in and quickly dismantled the organization. A body was found outside O’Doul’s—Eddie O’Doul—killed with the same gun used on Gregory O’Doul. It was determined that the crime syndicate had some internal fighting that resulted in the killings. That wasn’t what put them away, though. Rather, it was an anonymous tip that led them to the storage facility that belonged to a pair of Irish men where the feds found nearly a dozen women and children who had been kidnapped from Central America and were being used as sex slaves under the guise of a bar supply company.

Dylan never confirmed to me, but I knew that he’d been the tip-off. In the end, all that mattered was that a giant human-trafficking ring was taken down, and the O’Douls were running a skeleton crew that couldn’t possibly worry about taking over more property from the Malloys. Paddy had his bar back, his son Frankie behind the wheel, and everyone was ready to move forward, out of the shadows of the destruction and tragedy.

Not least of all, myself.

Dylan sidled up to me at the buffet table and glanced down at the picked over remnants as I started to clear away empty dishes. We’d thrown a little reopening-slash-goodbye party, catered by the diner.

“Well, the cake’s gone, pretty sure that means the party’s over.”

I smiled. “Guess you’ll be heading home, huh?”

Dylan stroked the side of my face. “Not unless you’re with me.”

“Tommy is with my mom for the night.”

“Good. Cause I plan on making you scream my name before the night is over.”

I looked into those deep eyes. It was time for me to live in the present. For tonight that was all I could count on.