“Crude as always, I see. It’s a wonder any woman in her right mind is willing to have sex with you without you having to pay for it first.”
“Darragh, you wound me.” He mocked offence. “Besides, my dick is like OJ Simpson—once the glove is in place, bitches love to make haste.”
“Whatever, Johnnie Cockhead. Mom better not catch you fucking the hired help in the storage closet again. Remember what she said would happen the last time your dumb ass got busted.”
“Totally worth it, dude,” he preened. “Should be the best night of my fucking life.”
My brother didn’t seem to care about losing his loins in a wood chopper, a credible threat in my opinion. Mom never joked about such things. We walked side by side towards the rest of the crowd, grabbing a flute of Champaign from a passing server. Mother had really outdone herself. The place looked amazing without appearing ostentatious. No expense was spared.
The FBI would have a fucking field day if they happened upon this gathering tonight. Anyone who was anyone in the underworld was in attendance. Notable bosses and their underbosses, the O’Sullivans, the Walshs, the Ryans, and the Kellys, who specialized in everything from guns to pussy, dined on hors d’oeuvres without a care in the world. Security was tighter than a virgin’s asshole. No one was getting in without an invite.
My father sat regally at one of the tables talking with Ferdi and a few men I recognized from the Murphy clan, who hailed from South Boston. My oldest brother, Oran, was seated to his left. As heir to the family, he was rarely far from our father’s side. Although this was supposed to be a friendly gathering, they never missed an opportunity to further our business holdings within the brethren. They looked every bit the part of the keepers of our future. They represented the MacCabe legacy to the fullest. My father spotted my brother and me right away and waived us over, smiling from ear to ear. Movement coming towards me halted my advance and subsequently fucked my entire mood.
When it rains, it fucking pours.
Karma, you spiteful bitch.
She hadn’t changed in all the years since I’d last seen her in person. Strikingly beautiful and sexy as all get out. If I’d known she’d be here, I never would’ve come, regardless of my father’s orders. Fionn shouldered past me, oblivious to anything not in his own personal orbit, and continued on while I was stuck stock-still in my worst nightmare.
“Darragh,” she whispered my name, causing my cock to stir on cue. She shouldn’t possess that power, not now, after everything.
I looked deeply into her dark eyes. Everything around me slowed to a crawl, or stopped altogether. Arabella Cocci—or Bella, as she was called. I remembered the first day we met at the age of six, our awkward first kiss at twelve, and the night of her sixteenth birthday when she gave me her virginity. My chest warmed when I realized she was smiling up at me with her full lips and one dimpled cheek. I longed to reach out and touch it. Feel the softness I knew all too well on the tips of my fingers. It was all right there for the taking. All mine.
She raised her glass of champagne to her lips just as the lighting in the room caught the sparkle off the diamond on her left hand. It was just the bitch slap I needed to wake the fuck up.
“Excuse me.”
“Please. Don’t go, Darragh.
I turned on my heels without acknowledging her presence and headed straight for the exit. I was wasting valuable time with this bullshit. Seeing her put everything back in line in order of importance. Someone was fucking with my business, and it was payback time.
CHAPTER 18
Otelia
THINGS INEVITABLY CHANGED after I was freed from the clutches of Darragh MacCabe. Some for the better, others were a lot worse, depending on the hour of the day. My favorite foods were now bland to the taste, water wasn’t quite as wet, and the singing birds outside my bedroom window gave me a fucking headache. How could two days in isolation have left such a profound mark that on most days, I found it difficult to breathe? Something was missing, like an amputated limb, phantom sensations signaling my brain that a part of me was left behind. I was in an awful rut that I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how to shake. As much as I wanted to blame the mob boss for my current state, it wasn’t entirely his fault. Didn’t mean he hadn’t had a part to play. Just not all of it.
There’d been a shooting in the parking lot of the diner about a week ago that left a young girl badly injured. She was there having dinner with her boyfriend, at least I assumed it was her boyfriend, before they had a silly fight. He left in a huff, and she decided to wait for him outside, hopeful that he would return for her. Sadly, he didn’t.
Since that tragic turn of events, Nipsy implemented a few changes at the restaurant designed to protect “his girls”, as he put it. Twenty-four-hour security guard stationed at the door with strict orders to escort each of us to our cars after shift, even if it was broad daylight outside. Massive flood lights were added around the entire building, so damn bright you could probably spot them from Mars. As if that weren’t bad enough, he changed the look and style of our uniforms to something that resembled a gunny sack. Puke brown with a flared skirt that slipped past the knee and buttoned all the way up to the neck. It looked completely ridiculous, but Nipsy wouldn’t have it any other way. His place, his rules, he said. Like it or lump it.
“Hey, Odie?” Maribel interrupted my thoughts as we worked our shift.
“Sup’, babe?”
“Wanna hang out later and grab a bite to eat? Somewhere that doesn’t serve a side of ptomaine poisoning with their entrees.” She laughed as she saddled up next to me at the counter.
“Oh? Your man gave you permission to leave the house unchaperoned today, or did you plan on taking another ass whoppin’ and labeling it love like always?” I spat hatefully.
“Odie?” She blanched, shaken.
Congratulations, Odie. You’ve reached cunt level of Jumanji.
Sorrow clouded her previously bright features the minute those horrible words left my mouth. She didn’t deserve it, and none of what I said about her relationship with Marcus was true. He wasn’t Drew and never fucking would be. Marcus was a war hero, a protector to the extreme. His love for Maribel had stood the test of life or death, and they came away the winners. Deep down I knew my misplaced anger was not with her but the ever-blossoming connection to that whore she called a sister.
I tried and failed to understand what made her forgive that horizontal heifer for all the shit she’d pulled in the past. I mean, so what she showed up to the fight with the payoff money? So fucking what? That hadn’t stopped her from boasting about how much she loved sucking Mac’s dick to anyone who would listen. She’d been missing when Maribel needed her the most, and that shit didn’t sit well with me, not one bit. In my eyes, she would always be a Barbie bitch from hell, and no amount of explanation would make me change my mind.
A tentative touch to my arm bought me back from my reflection in time to see my best friend staring at me with confusion in her eyes.
“I, um…” Shame blanketed me from the inside out. “I can’t tonight, Maribel. I have a date.”
She returned a tight smile.
“Oh, okay, then. Maybe some other time when you aren’t so busy.”