“That just put a dirty visual in my head of you playing a naughty nurse who has to blow life back into Jamie. Talk about a whole new meaning to resuscitation.” Could I be crude and crass with a potty mouth that would make a sailor blush? Yes, I grew up surrounded by men who were criminals.
I'd had to constantly watch what I said around Tom. The few times I'd slipped up, he’d looked at me with such disgust. With Jamie and Louie, though, I could spew as many vulgar things as I wanted with zero judgment.
Louie’s smile fell, but I caught the corner of Jamie’s lips twitching.
“Why am I the nurse?” Louie asked, sounding offended, but the gleam in his eyes gave him away.
“I don’t think Jamie could pull off a naughty nurse outfit as well as you, Louie. At least not the one I’m picturing you wearing.”
Louie threw his head back, laughing. “I’m glad to see that beautiful mouth of yours hasn’t changed. When I heard you were dating a brief, I was worried you’d be all prim and proper now.”
At the mention of Tom, I cringed. It didn’t go unnoticed. Jamie narrowed his eyes in an assessing way.
“How’d you know he was a lawyer?”
I was answered with silence.
Louie looked to Jamie, telling me he'd heard it from him. How did Jamie know? I hadn’t even told Stefan he was a lawyer. Looking to Jamie to push for my answer, I paused before the words could leave my mouth. It was the way he was staring at me, eyes fixated, appearing contemplative, like I was a puzzle he was trying to figure out.
“Was?” he questioned with a slight tilt of his head.
I shouldn’t have been surprised Jamie had caught that. He’d always been perceptive, just like Stefan.
Jamie and I had grown up together under the same roof. His father Liam had been Stefan’s best friend and used to be the family’s head enforcer until he'd been killed when Jamie had been three years old. After the tragic loss, Stefan had stepped in as a father figure, helped raise him, and groomed him to one day take his father’s place.
“Was,” I repeated, pushing from the door frame. Jamie’s eyebrows rose. Why else would I have asked for him and not Stefan to come get me? Why not just drive home instead of asking for help, which was something I didn’t do? These were the questions I knew were running through his mind.
With the barrel of my gun I pushed my front door open wider, an unspoken gesture for them to come in. I took a step backward before turning on my heels, shoving my gun into the back of my jeans in the process.
“Maura?” Jamie’s voice was just as I remembered—deep and smooth as silk. Hearing it again after so long made me feel a mixture of emotions. Relief, regret, nostalgia.
Ninety-nine percent of my memories growing up included Jamie. He had been a constant in my life. He had been my family, even though we weren’t related by blood. As children in the care of Stefan, all we'd had was each other. No one understood what it was like to be born into a family like ours.
I walked across my living room to the foot of the stairs before turning back to face them. They stepped inside with Louie shutting the front door behind them. Their eyes roamed, taking in everything. The room wasn’t big, but there was enough space for a couch, end tables, a coffee table and a flat screen TV before it flowed into the dining room, then into an open kitchen. The furniture was nice and newish. I didn’t have anything hanging on the walls, but had pictures of Tom and I on the end tables next to the couch.
I tilted my head toward the stairs. “Upstairs, master bedroom… you’ll see it when you reach the top.” They both glanced at the stairs behind me before looking at each other.
I stepped away, giving them access to the stairs, to sit on the couch. They passed by me silently. I didn’t follow. I just poured myself another bourbon.
CHAPTER 3
Louie’s whistle traveled downstairs. Only he would make light of two dead bodies. I scrunched my nose, envisioning them walking into my bedroom. I was sure it was a sight—a scene right out of a horror movie with a dead naked woman sprawled out on the bed and a bloody corpse on the floor.
I could hear them talking to each other but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Not that I cared what they thought, nor was I worried about their ability to make it all go away. This wasn’t their first clean up job. It wasn’t the first time I’d killed either.
I knew they were coming back downstairs when their steps caused my walls to shake like a small earthquake.
Louie was the first to enter the living room. He looked at me with laughter in his eyes, then shook his head as he walked by, heading for the front door. “Remind me never to piss you off,” he snickered before closing the door behind him.
I caught sight of Jamie in the corner of my eye. Turning, I found him standing next to me, glaring. Someone wasn’t happy.
“Are you judging me, mob man?” I asked, bringing my glass back to my lips. I didn’t look away as I tilted the glass back, sipping at the warm amber liquid.
“Did you kill them because he was cheating?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. The sound was dry, lacking actual humor. He didn’t care that I'd killed them. I was positive he didn’t care about the motive either. He was fishing. Instead of just asking me outright what he really wanted to know, he was going about this in a shitty way. The jerk was playing me.
Jamie was very perceptive. However, sometimes it took more than just a keen eye to get what you wanted. Sometimes you had to play the game.
I knew this game. I'd grown up learning it from the master, Stefan. The goal of the game was to gain information or control. The weapons of choice were manipulation and deception. You always had to be one step ahead of your opponent if you wanted to win.
The game was why I'd chosen to study behavioral psychology. I liked to read people, know how they’d act or react, understand how they thought. I'd been able to hold my own at playing the game before I'd left home, but with what I knew now, I wondered how I’d fare.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “It definitely looks that way, doesn’t it?”
His features turned cold. “Is that a yes?”
The thing about Jamie and I was that we'd promised we’d never play the game with each other. If either of us wanted to know something, just be straightforward and ask the other. We'd gotten enough of the shitty game from Stefan and the rest of our messed-up family. Why was he playing with me now? My best guess: this was the damage of six years of distance. There was uncertainty between us.
“Let’s just get to the point, shall we? Am I a liability to the family?” I tilted my head and tapped my chin with my finger, pretending to really think about it. “I wonder.” I clucked my tongue. “Daughter of Irish mob boss kills cheating boyfriend and mistress.” I gasped, mocking shock. “That is by far the most scandalous thing someone in our family of killers, drug traffickers, and arms dealers has ever done. How will we get past such a blemish to the family name?”
His eyes were still narrowed as he stared down at me, but his features seemed to have softened. “The dramatics really don’t help your case, but I see some things haven’t changed. You’re still as theatrical as ever.”
Help my case? Interesting choice of words. Hmm. He thought I'd snapped. Maybe I have.