Authors: K. Ryan
It all comes down to opportunity,
Jack told me once.
You have to know what your opponent's weaknesses are before you ever step inside the ring and then you have to use those weaknesses against him.
Today, my weakness becomes my strength.
Today,
his
weakness becomes
my
strength.
Jack's arms tighten around me like he can hear my thoughts and his lips brush my hair as if he's trying to coax me into staying in bed just a little bit longer.
"We should get going," I murmur.
"It's still kinda dark outside," he whispers hoarsely in my ear. "That means it's not morning yet. So
that
means I get to keep you here for awhile."
His bare skin muffles my laugh. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm pretty sure it's morning. You know what that means."
"No," he huffs. "I don't."
"Come on, Jack," I tell him as I pull out of his arms and slide out of his bed. "We have to get going."
"You don't have to do this, you know," he whispers into the air. "We could just leave like we'd planned before. It would take us ten minutes to pack and we'd be out of here. There's no shame in that, Rae."
"I know," I answer simply. "But we can't do that. You know that."
He pushes his head back against his pillow in a fleeting moment of agony and squeezes his eyes shut. I know the only reason he's even going along with this in the first place is because he knows there's nothing he can say or do that will stop me. "
Well,"
he told me last night after I explained my plan,
"there's no way you're getting anywhere near him without me."
I love him for that.
When the chips are down and with the odds stacked against us, he isn't running. He's here, he's with me, and he's not leaving me to face the mayor on my own, all the while putting himself at risk, too. If that's not love then I don't know what is.
Once we're dressed and ready to go, we eat breakfast and drink our coffee in silence. Like this is just any normal day in our lives together. Like our brother isn't sitting in a morgue after being murdered in cold blood. Like our entire world could be on the verge of ending. Like this might not be the last morning we get to share.
I glance at him across his tiny table and tears suddenly prick my eyes, threatening to seize hold of the control I'd had over my emotions. If these last few days are all I get with him, they've been a dream. A wonderful, stolen dream. It's not fair, but it has to be enough. I can't let myself plan for tomorrow because today might be all I have. It might be all we ever have.
I have to just focus on the present, on what I can control. I can't think about the fact that I'm essentially risking the safety of all the people I love—Jack, Lucy, Bennett, and Sean—by playing this game. They're willing to play along, in spite of the risk, and they're trusting me to succeed. Out of all the times in my life where I'd been cheated, lied to, and stolen from, this is the one time I can't lose.
"Hey," Jack calls out to me as he shoves out of his chair. He pulls me to my feet and grips both my hands with an iron-clad grasp. "You remember this?" He gestures with his head toward the thin rope tattooed around his right wrist. "You remember what it means?"
I nod. His
caim
tattoo is a symbol of sanctuary and protection. A reminder that you're safe and that you're loved.
"The Irish, back when they were still called Celts, used to perform the
caim
prayer all the time," Jack informs me hoarsely. His eyes water, but the strength in them prevails. "Any time a soldier would leave for battle, they performed this prayer around every single one of them. They did it at weddings, too. Whenever this prayer was performed at the altar, the bride would stand on the left and the groom on the right, so the groom's right hand would be free to grab his sword if he needed to defend his bride. It's meant to cast a ring of protection around the person or the couple, so that no evil and no darkness can get in their way."
He kisses the side of my head and points his right index finger down to my feet, moving slowly around me in a clockwise circle as he whispers, "Circle her, Lord. Keep protection near and danger afar. Circle her, Lord. Keep light near and darkness afar. Circle her, Lord. Keep peace within and evil without. Circle her, Lord. Keep hope within and doubt without."
When he completes the circle, standing in front of me now with cloudy grey eyes, he leans closer so his lips can brush mine.
"I love you," he murmurs against my lips.
I'm protected. I'm safe. I'm loved. I'm ready.
MY SISTER SITS to my left, Jack hovers closely to my right, and Bennett lingers somewhere behind me. We've sat here at Lucy's kitchen table for the last ten minutes, impatiently waiting for our imminent arrival. Finally, with five minutes to spare, Jack brings my hand up to his mouth and brushes his lips on my knuckles.
"Almost time," he tells us with a tight nod. "I better get out of here."
He rises from his seat, carefully pushing his chair back in so it doesn't look like someone's been sitting there and retreats to Lucy's bedroom to take his place. Bennett follows his lead and I can hear brief, muffled deep voices coming from the bedroom until there's just silence.
Lucy nods to me, her chin lifted high in resilient defiance. Her tears are long-dried, having cried most of the night—first, they were tears of agony and sorrow when she learned her dad was really the one responsible for my attack all those years ago. Then those tears turned into ones of sympathy for me, my mom, and all the people who'd gotten hurt along the way. Finally, her tears morphed into silver-tinged drops of anger, sharp and furious.
They're gone now. All that's left is her fierce determination to help me. To end this with me. To seek justice with me.
Not even a minute later, the doorbell rings.
Lucy rises from her seat to answer the door, just like we planned, and gestures for the mayor to come inside.
Thank you so much for coming, Daddy," she coos to him in that little baby voice she's honed so well. "My landlord isn't returning my calls and—"
"We'll get this straightened out," he tells her as he clears the doorway. "I won't tolerate you living in this apartment any longer if they refuse to repair the damage."
Just as he gets a good look inside the kitchen, he stops short.
It's a shrewd move in luring the mayor to Lucy's apartment. It's an even shrewder move to basically use my sister as a human shield, but it's the only move I have.
"Luciana is the reason I've decided to spare your life,"
he'd told me last night and so he won't hurt me in front of her—I'm sure of that. He'd admitted as much as well as a whole slew of other things last night, too. Everything hinges now on being able to continue that trend.
I roll my shoulders back, loose and ready.
Wait for the right moment. A hesitation. An opening. Something. Whatever you have to do to outsmart him.
"What are you doing here?" he bites out and glances incredulously at Lucy, who's resumed her place next to me.
I stand up straight and shift my weight from side to side. My bad knee aches, almost as if it can sense the imminent danger and the potential disaster, but I ignore the pain. I've done it for so long it's just habit now. Besides, the mayor is never going to see me in pain again.
"It hasn't been 24 hours yet," I start softly. This is part of the plan, too—reminding him that he thinks he's won. That he holds all the cards and the upper-hand.
His shark-like black eyes shift to my sister and back to me again, slow realization flickering across his face. She knows. He has to see that. He has to see the defiance in her eyes and the disappointment on her face. That's all part of the plan too.
When he speaks again, his voice is incisive and accusatory, just as it should be. "I don't recall giving you permission to contact Luciana, Raena."
"She wanted to say goodbye," Lucy answers for me. "Daddy...I don't know what to say. I just wish it didn't have to come to this. I wish Rae didn't have to go, but I guess I understand."
"So you lied to me to bring me here?" he practically barks, but neither of us flinch.
"Daddy, I..." she trails off and exchanges a glance with me. "I just wanted to help my sister. I understand why she needs to leave, but she came to me and wanted to say goodbye, to explain why she was leaving me. Can't you understand that, Daddy?"
On cue, I dig into my pocket and pull out a flash drive. The mayor blinks once, then twice, before narrowing his eyes dangerously.
"I know you said your men took the flash drive we'd used before," I tell him, making sure my voice sounds as shaky and timid as it needs to be. "But I made a copy. I put it in a safety deposit box just in case."
His eyebrows leap into his forehead and I can practically hear his thoughts as he tries to piece that particular kernel of intel together:
How did I miss this? How did I not know?
"It's the only other copy of all those files I have," I lie. All that practice has finally come in handy. "I thought...I thought if I gave it to you, that would—"
"You think this is some kind of insurance policy?" he snaps abruptly with an eyebrow cocked my way. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you made a copy and hid it away for safe-keeping. A wise choice, given the circumstances. Even smarter in choosing not to use it."
He's coming around because he thinks I'm playing his game and following his rules. So I dangle the bait in front of him, extending the flash drive out just enough so it's within his reach.
"I just want to know why," I whisper. "That's all I want. Just tell me why and I'm out of here. You'll never have to see me again."
His eyes narrow into tight slits as they flick to Lucy, who plays her own role. She sighs and lets disappointment cross her face, but not enough to make him believe he's lost her forever. Not enough to make him believe his back is against the wall. She's upset now because she's just learned her dad was responsible for the attack on her sister. But if he explains and if he defends himself, maybe she'll understand. Maybe she'll forgive him.
"Why can't you just tell her, Daddy?" she murmurs, her voice hushed and somber. "Doesn't she deserve to know why she got hurt?"
He pushes out a rough, exasperated sigh and scrapes a hand over his slicked back dark hair. This is the moment that will either make or break our entire plan. He'll either give us what we need or he'll leave and we'll be back at square one—and Jack and I will be as good as dead.
When the mayor's eyes flick up to meet mine, the disgust I find in them tells me everything I need to know.
"Like I told you last night," he starts coolly. "It wasn't about you."
"What was it about then? Why did you have someone take a tire iron and smash my knee apart? That's just crazy...that you would do something like to me. I don't understand."
He never breaks eye contact with me when he speaks again. "I needed to send a message. Several members of the press and one particularly ambitious FBI agent were adamant about proving some of my business connections weren't quite legal. It was meant to send the message that we were not, in fact, partners, but enemies. Why else would they hurt a
beloved
member of my family like that if we were actually business partners? It just wouldn't make sense and it nipped all those rumors right in the bud."
"And I was the expendable daughter, right?" I whisper. This time, the shaking in my voice isn't so fake. "You didn't care if I got hurt or not."
"Of course I didn't," he scoffs like the suggestion of the opposite is a personal insult. "But it needed to look personal. It needed to look like the attacker was trying to teach
me
a lesson and send
me
a message."
"What about Sean though? You just let him take the fall..."
The mayor's lips spread apart in a twisted grin that makes me sick to my stomach. "Yes, I hadn't anticipated your brother would be present for that event. But he was there and it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Everyone just conveniently forgot about my other supposed connections and jumped on the juicier story."
"I know it was really Nero Gianotti who attacked me," I tell him and push down the thickness in my throat. "I saw him last week at a club and I knew it was him the second I saw him. I remembered his eyes. And you told me that night when I was in the hospital that it was Sean. You made me to tell the police I only saw one person that night—when I saw two—and you made me tell them it was Sean."
"I didn't
make
you do anything, Raena," he sneers. "I simply told you what you needed to hear so you would name the correct person. I couldn't have you giving the police conflicting stories and creating doubt that anyone other than Callahan's son was responsible for what happened to you. Besides, the way everything ended up working out was much better than what I'd had planned."
Now
we were getting somewhere.
"But I told the cops...I remember giving a statement saying I saw two men. One before and one after the attack. I wasn't sure who I saw, I just knew I saw two."
"Yeah, Daddy," Lucy adds softly. "I remember her saying that at the hospital. How could—"
"Do you really think I'd allow that first statement to exist?" he shakes his head, like he can't believe how he managed to raise such a thick, dim-witted daughter. "I had it erased. That's all you need to know."