As a little girl, I’d watched Finn. It had been back in the day when his old man had been around and Fiona had lived with her husband and son. He’d beaten her up something rotten. Barely a week went by when Fiona, my mom’s friend, didn’t appear with some badly made-up bruise on her face.
I was young, only two, but old enough to know something wasn’t right. I’d even asked my mom about it, wanting to understand why someone would do that to another person.
I couldn’t remember what my mother had said, but I could remember how sad she’d been.
For all his faults, my dipshit stepfather had never beaten her, he’d just taken all her tips for himself and spent every night getting drunk.
Well, Finn’s dad had been the same, except where mine passed out on the decrepit La-Z-Boy in front of the TV, Gerry had taken out his drunk out on Fiona.
And eventually, Finn.
Even as a boy, in the photos Fiona kept of him, Finn had been beautiful.
I could see him now, deep in my mind’s eye. His hair had been as coal dark then as it was now, and not even a hint of silver or gray marred the noir perfection. His jaw and nose had grown, obviously, but they were just as obstinate as I remembered. Fiona had always said Finn was hardheaded.
When I was little, I hadn’t had a crush on him—I’d been a toddler, for God’s sake—but I’d been in awe of him. In awe of the big boy who’d been all arms and legs, just waiting for his growth spurt. Sadly, when that had happened, he’d disappeared.
As had his father.
Overnight, Fiona had gone from having a full house to an empty nest, and my mom had comforted her over the loss of her boy.
To my young self, I’d thought he’d died.
Genuinely. The way Fiona had mourned him? It had been as though both men had passed on, except we’d never had to go to church for a service, and there’d been no wake.
As kids do, I’d forgotten him. I’d been two when he’d disappeared, so I only really remembered that Fiona was a mom and that she was grieving.
We’d barely spoken his name because it could set her off into bouts of tears that would have my mom pouring tea down her gullet as they talked through her feelings.
As time passed, those little scenes in our crappy kitchen stopped, yet Fiona hung around our place so much it was like her second home.
One day, my stepfather died in an accident at work. The insurance paid out, Fiona moved in with us, and Mom had started scheming as to how to make her dream of owning a tea room come true. With Fiona living in, I’d heard Finn’s name more often, but the notion he was dead still rang true.
Yet, here he was.
Finn wasn’t dead.
He was very much alive.
Had Fiona known that?
Had she?
I wasn’t sure what I hoped for her.
Was it better to believe your son was dead, or that your son didn’t give enough of a fuck about you to contact you for years?
I gnawed on my bottom lip at the thought and accidentally raked over the tissue where Finn had bitten earlier.
“We’re almost there,” the man himself grated out, and I could sense he was pissed because the phone had buzzed, and whatever he’d been reading had a storm cloud passing behind his eyes.
“O-Okay,” I replied, hating the quiver in my voice, but also just hating my situation.
This was. . . .
It was too much.
How was it that I was sitting here?
This morning, I’d owned a tea room. Now, I didn’t.
This morning, I’d been exhausted, depressed about my mom, and feeling lost.
Now?
I was the epitome of lost.
A man was going to use me for sex, for Christ’s sake.
But all I could think was: did I still have my hymen?
God, would he be angry if he had to push through it?
Should I tell him?
If I did, it would be for my benefit, not his, and why the hell was I thinking like this? I should be trying to convince him that normal people did not work business deals out by bribing someone into bed.
But, deep down, I knew all my scattered thinking was futile.
I wasn’t dealing with normal people here.
I was dealing with a Five Pointer.
A high ranking one at that.
It was like dealing with a Martian. To average, everyday folk, a Five Pointer was just outside of their knowledge banks.
Sure, they thought they knew what they were like because they watched The Wire or some other procedural show, but they didn’t.
Real-life gangsters?
They were larger than life.
They throbbed with violence, and hell, a part of me knew that Finn was cutting me some slack by asking to sleep with me.
Yeah, as fucked up as that was, it was the truth.
He could have asked for so much more.
He’d have a Senator in his pocket, and to the mob, what else would they ask for if not that?
Yet Finn?
He just wanted to fuck me.
My throat felt tight and itchy from dryness. I wanted some water so badly, but equally, I wasn’t sure if it would make me puke.
Not at the thought of sex with this man—a part of me knew I’d enjoy it too much to even be nervous.
No, at what else he could ask of me, that had me fretting.
Was this a one-time deal?
How could I protect my dad from the Five Points when . . .?
I shuddered because there was nothing I could do. There was no way I could even broach any of those questions since I wasn’t in charge here.
Finn was.
Finn always would be until he deemed I’d paid my dues. Whether that was tomorrow or two years down the line.
Shit, it might even be forever. If my dad hit the White House, only God knew what kind of leverage Finn could pull if my father tried to carry on covering up my existence. . . .
“We’re here.”
Something had definitely pissed him off.
He’d gone from the cat who’d drank a carton full of cream, to a pissed off tabby scrounging for supper in the trash.
“We’re going to go through to the private elevator, and I’m going to head straight down the hall to my living room. You’re going to slip into the first door on the right—that’s my bedroom.”
“O-Okay,” I told him, wondering what the hell was going on.
“You’re going to stay quiet, and you’re going to try to not hear any fucking thing I say, do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“You’d better,” he ground out, his hand tightening around his cellphone. “Coming to Aidan O'Donnelly’s attention is the last thing a little mouse like you wants.”
A shiver ran through me.
Aidan O'Donnelly was in his apartment?
Fuck, just how high up the ranks was he?
CONTINUE
THE FIVE POINTS’ MOB COLLECTION
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CONTINUE
A DARK & DIRTY SINNERS’ MC SERIES
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www.books2read.com/StormSerenaAkeroyd
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Meg’s love life was missing a spark until she discovered her need to be dominated. When her fiancé shared the same kink, she thought all her birthdays had come at once, and then she came to learn their relationship was one big fat lie.