I bit the inside of my cheek praying I hadn’t overstepped.
“Since before it happened,” Connor replied calmly. “Well before.”
All hell broke loose.
Ferdi had to jump in front of Mac and hold him back from rushing his father. He was pissed because he’d allowed my kidnapping and subsequent beating without doing shit about it. Oran and Spoon were trading verbal jabs at each other, throwing shade left and right. All while Connor and I shared a quiet understanding without saying a word. I felt such overwhelming sadness at that moment once I realized that once again, love had cost someone else too high a price to be paid.
“O’Brien knew,” I guessed, shaken. “He knew what she was up to all along and thought he could change her mind. He was willing to die for the woman he loved.”
The fighting and name calling stopped abruptly.
“He warned the council ahead of time. He felt his life was in danger from his wife, but he didn’t want anything to happen to her in the interim. He made us promise that if or when he was taken out, that we wouldn’t act until we had a complete confession. We had to respect his wishes. The guards were instructed not to make a move until the final vote was cast.”
My heart broke for Kellan all over again.
Still, it was a dick move on Connor’s part.
“You could’ve been wrong, you know,” I told him.
“How so?”
“You gambled that Mac would pledge his life for me. What if he hadn’t? Then what would you have done?”
“Then he wouldn’t have been the man I raised him to be.” He crossed his leg over his knee, looking way to cool for someone his age. “Besides, he’s a MacCabe. We do what we must for the people we love. Just ask his grandfather on his mother’s side.”
I smiled, recalling the story of how Mac’s parents got together.
It was finally over.
“I’m still not satisfied,” Oran grumbled. “We let her go, and the entire outfit is in jeopardy. It’s too much of a risk.” He turned his dark gaze towards me. “I’ll be watching you, Otelia. One false move, and I swear to Christ…”
Geez, this guy really needed to get laid. The way he said my name sent a shiver down my spine. Mac slid into position in front of me and extended his hand.
I took it.
“It’s me you should be looking out for, brother,” he warned Oran. “Otelia is my business, and I’ll burn down any man who dare tries to come between me and mine. She’s bled for this family. Look at her fucking face! That alone makes her one of us. Decide, brother.”
He was fury. He was strength. He was death’s promise.
“Aye!” shouted Connor.
“Aye!” came from Spoon.
“Aye!” Ferdi added.
Then finally, after a short deliberation, “Aye” spilled from Oran’s lips, and I sighed with relief, turning to Mac. There was only one thing left to say.
“You owe me a shit ton of ice cream, bucko, and it better not be sherbet.”
EPILOGUE
THE WAREHOUSE WAS operating at capacity.
Theme night. First Saturday of every month, and one of our biggest money makers since putting it into effect. Wall to wall bodies dressed in the most outlandish seventies outfits I’d ever seen in my life. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was blasting through the speakers while patrons lost their damn minds dancing The Hustle between bouts. Afro wigs, platform shoes, bellbottom pants, it was Studio 57 incarnate. Even the damn fighters and referees were sporting that shit. Big tree-trunk-ass fuckers getting knocked on their balls in those tight-ass clothes was the funniest shit to ever hit YouTube. It also brought in a shit ton of cash, which was what I enjoyed the most.
“Yo… I’m never leaving this motherfucker, Darragh. This shit right here is fucking fire.
I knew I should’ve asked Pops to let me run the fights. I could’ve been my own boss just like you. And the women? Oh Lord, the women…I’m never leavin’, that’s all I’m sayin.’”
My brother saddled up next to me with a shit-eating grin on his face. He looked so stupid wearing a brown polyester suit, blond wig, and fake gold chains hanging around his neck. I wanted to reach out and knock that shit off the top of his head.
I held back.
It had been three months since we’d returned from Boston and Spoon decided it was high time he came to Remington for a visit. He had his own job in the family business, given to him by my father and brother, one he half-assed most of the time. Growing up, Spoon never could concentrate on any one thing for any length of time. He was easily bored; nothing he tried ever held his attention for more than two seconds. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t slightly deranged and had been known to fly off the handle in a fit of rage. Spoon’s easy-going nature and man-whorish ways were a façade, one that had caused more than a few ignorant fools to meet their maker. My father had hope he’d grow out of it. “He just needs to find the right woman,” he liked to say. I called bullshit, but what did I know? He used to say the same thing about me.
“Glad you approve, Spoon,” I deadpanned. “Oh, and you will be leaving, alright. As soon as this mini vacation of yours is over, back to Boston you go.”
“Nuh-uh, fuck that, bro. I’m staying. I got bitches to the left of me, bitches to the right, and smack dab in the middle… guess what?” He tapped my shoulder as if I didn’t already know the answer to his stupid-ass question. “Mo bitches. Smashville, here I come.”
I gave him the side-eye. “Oran might beg to differ.”
That knocked him down a peg.
“Don’t be such a killjoy, man…and where’s your fucking costume? You look like someone just took a run at your woman, who I must say is looking gud! Loosen up and have a little fun.”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
“No, what you need to do is take that stick out of your ass and get your boogie on.”
He gyrated his hips against my leg right before I playfully shoved him back. One would think he was the youngest with his carefree antics. It wasn’t long before he spotted something new and shiny to play with that thankfully captured his attention, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I loved my brother to the moon and back, but it was times like this where he tried my patience. A good woman couldn’t come along soon enough.
I stood on the mezzanine overlooking the sea of bodies with a brand-new set of eyes. I felt humbled at what I saw given the trials it took to get here. The expansion out west was now complete and thriving beyond all our expectations. Most of that had everything to do with the new partner I took on, a real tough businessperson who was smart as a whip. We worked great together, trading ideas that were both innovative and well thought out. I needed that fresh perspective in case another Kellan O’Brien tried to crawl out of the woodwork. After the shitstorm that went down with Bella and the council, I couldn’t ignore my personal contribution to the fray and make some adjustments as a result.
My father and I hit a rough patch after his duplicity that had nearly cost Otelia her life. The images of what could’ve happened to my headstrong woman, they haunted me, haunted my dreams, and my nightmares. He’d presented it in a way that made total sense for someone not accustomed to the rules of the syndicate. Accusing one of the bosses of wrongdoing without proof could’ve cost the family its standing, and with that in mind, he’d made a choice. One he would gladly make again under the same conditions. I still had a hard time reconciling that with having to watch Otelia battered and bruised, so we agreed to disagree on the subject. I was made to pay a substantial penalty to the outfit’s operating fund for my transgression with Bella. Her pussy wasn’t worth it, in my opinion, but we do what we must in order to keep the peace. Oran took over as head of the family while my parents set off on a cruise around the world.