The Untouchables (21 page)

I didn’t even try and stop myself. Instead, my fist connected with his nose and I reveled in the pop that sounded after.

“You are walking a fine line!” I screamed, as he held his nose, the blood dripping down his hand. “Nothing you say, and no matter how loud you say it, will change my past, nor do I want it to. Did I sleep with Jinx? Yes. Was in love with him? Did I draw hearts around our names and daydream about marrying him? No. It was sex. It was years ago.”

“Have you slept with all of them?” he asked, wiping the blood from his face with his sleeve.

“Fuck you,” I hissed as someone knocked. “Go away!”

“Come in!” Liam countered.

We glared at each other before Fedel opened the door.

“Have you ever fucked my wife?” Liam asked.

“Don’t answer that and get OUT!”

“STAY!”

“I swear to God Almighty, Fedel, I will cut you up and feed you to the damn chickens if you answer that question!”

He could only stare wide-eyed between us before turning to Liam. “We found the Briars, they’re in the foothills just north of here. Monte went ahead to make sure they didn’t try to flee.”

With that, he left as quickly as possible, leaving only silence between us.

“You want me to be ashamed of myself? You want me to say I’m sorry? No. I won’t, because then I would be lying to you.”

“If you will excuse me,
wife
, I have to go find out about my mistress, at least with her I can expect to be screwed over,” he said before leaving. “And I’m taking Jinx with me!”

Sighing, I ran my hand through my hair. “Aren’t I supposed to be the hormonal one?”

“Don’t mind him,” Sedric laughed, walking down the stairs with Evelyn at his side. “He’s cursed with the Callahan jealousy.”

“First, the what?” I asked. “And second, where are you both going?” It was the middle of the afternoon and they were both dressed as though they were going to see the queen.

“We’re going to the festival tonight in town and the curse is more of an excuse Sedric uses to justify why he always lost his mind when another man touched me when I was pregnant.” Evelyn laughed, as she slipped her ruby earrings into their place.

“I did not lose my mind,” he huffed, trying to fix his bow tie, “I expressed my displeasure with those who came too close.”

“You almost broke the hand of a host who took my coat!” Evelyn chuckled.

“The only reason why a man would take that long to help you out of your coat is if he had a shoulder fetish.”

“I was seven months pregnant, Sedric, it took him so long because I could barely move.”

Shaking my head, I took a seat at the table. “I’m sorry I asked.”

They both turned, as if they had forgotten I was there. They very well could have on their stroll through memory lane.

Gliding over to me, Evelyn kissed my cheek. “What we’re trying to say is, Liam is going to get a little more possessive of you with your child on the way. He doesn’t mean to be, and he probably has no idea why he’s acting this way.”

“Can’t I just sedate him for the remaining six months?” If not, I might not make it.

Sedric snickered. “And deal with all of that rage at once? You’re safer taking it in doses.”

“If that fails, marijuana cookies work wonders,” she grinned, causing Sedric’s face to drop.

“You drugged me?” he yelled.

Standing quickly, Evelyn strode towards the door. “Come, love, we don’t want to be late. I’m sure Mel would love some quiet time.”

“Evelyn.” He stalked forward, but she was gone, running as quickly as she could, laughing all the way. He winked at me before running after her.

“This is one fucked up family,” I alleged, rubbing my stomach. I tried to imagine its future with us, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t see how this would work…especially if I killed its father.

“You’re not allowed to be crazy, you hear me?” I murmured down to it before standing. However, I froze, staring wide-eyed at my stomach.

“Mel?” Declan and Coraline called, stepping in also dressed to impress. What kind of festival was this?

“Are you okay?” Coraline exclaimed, rushing beside me.

“No. Yes. I’m fine, the baby just moved… I think it heard me.” No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the large smile from blossoming.

It felt weird, but a good kind of weird.

“Can I feel—”

“No,” I snapped, harsher than I meant to. “Liam’s already in a prissy mood, he should feel it next. Declan, is the Internet working again?”

“Yeah, so are the phones. The wiring in this house is shit, but it should be more stable now.”

“Well then, when you’re done dancing in the streets, check up on our friend Roy.”

LIAM

I could easily slit his throat from here,
I thought as I stared daggers into the back of his skull.

He touched her. He was with her at one point before me, and it made my blood boil. The way he stared at her on that cliff, and the very fact he had touched her waist was enough to make me want to rip his head from his neck.

“This is it.” Fedel parked and Jinx stepped out, opening the door for me with no emotion displayed on his face. He stood shoulder to shoulder to me.

“I’m inclined to kill you,” I told him, rolling up my selves.

“Yes, sir.”

“Give me a reason not to.”

“I was so drunk I don’t remember a thing,” he stated. “And I’m a damn good pilot.”

Monte stepped outside the sorry excuse for a house, holding the door for me to enter. “So you say, but this isn’t over.”

Walking forward, I couldn’t help but notice that the Briars had downscaled quite drastically. It had taken us a week to find them because we had thought a family as uptight and aristocratic as the Briars could not bear to spend time in the countryside. And yet, here they were, in a tiny one bedroom, rat infested cabin with a hole in the roof and floor. It was as if they were hiding from Hitler. Gone were the opulent foyers and gilded frames. Now they had nothing but the clothes on their backs and I needed to know why.

They sat quietly in the living room, facing the door as I walked into the kitchen. Sighing, I grabbed the last beer in the fridge and took a seat before the very stupid family who had tried to run from me.

“Natasha is dead, Mr. Briar,” I told him, popping the top of my beer with the edge of his table.

The aging man frowned and simply nodded. “Did you come all this way to tell me that, Liam? A letter would have sufficed.”

Before I could speak, Fedel’s pistol connected with his jaw, unleashing a small river of blood and a tooth from his lips. I felt his pain. Mel’s punch hurt like a bitch and it would look worse in the morning.

“It’s Mr. Callahan to you,” Fedel sneered, pulling his head back up.

Whoever said good help was hard to find obviously wasn’t looking in the right places.

“Let me rephrase my question:
why
is your daughter dead?” Not that the bitch wasn’t playing with her luck anyway.

“You killed her.” Mr. Briar spit out another tooth and blood at my shoes.

“Sorry, wrong answer.” I nodded at Fedel, who took his cue to bash Brair’s face in with his fist.

“Let’s try this again.
Why is your daughter dead
?”

“I don’t know! If you didn’t kill her, I don’t know! Just leave us be,” he begged. Grown men shouldn’t beg. Not even for death.

“Fedel.”

Fedel drew his gun and fired into the man’s stomach. I sat back and sipped my drink impassively; he didn’t know anything, and as my wife would say, he was wasting words. His wife and second daughter all stood by the stairs watching in horror as he fell back in to the chair.

“DORAN!”

“DAD!”

They screamed. I’m not sure why though. “He will bleed out and die right here if I don’t get answers, ladies.”

“You MONSTER!” his wife yelled.

“If I got a dollar for every time someone called me a monster, I could end world hunger.”

“Just leave us alone! Whatever you want, take it, just leave us the hell alone!” She sobbed, falling to her knees near her husband’s body. His blood soaked her jeans and jacket, while her daughter seemed too shocked to even move, let alone speak. She just sat there, staring at the pool of blood as it crept closer to her.

Rising, I pulled her to her feet by her hair before turning to her mother and father; she was shaking against Jinx’s knife so badly, it was cutting into her neck.

“I want answers!” I declared stoically in her face as her daughter struggled against me. “I swear to you, you will not only have to bury your husband, but your remaining children as well, so find your fucking voice!”

I released her daughter, and she fell to the ground, sobbing as she went. Stepping over her, I glared into the withered old eyes of Natasha’s mother as tears ran down her cheeks.

“He…he said… he said he would kill us all,” she uttered to me.

Putting Jinx’s knife away, I wiped her tears. “He won’t hurt you like I will if I don’t find out what I need to know.”

“It’s all your father’s fault!” She declared wide-eyed. “He was supposed to marry me. Shamus made a deal with Ivan. Everyone made a deal with Ivan DeRosa because that’s what you were supposed to do!”

She began to shake, dropping her head as she wrapped her arms around herself. Fuck, I was losing her.

“Go on,” I spoke, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to meet my gaze. She looked right through me. “What do you mean, that’s what you were supposed to do?”

“To keep order. The drug business is a big one. No one man can control it all. There has to be a balance; you can only be so powerful. There is only so much crime the world will ignore before they call for justice. Ivan is the scale. He has the power and allows you to have pieces of that within reason. Shamus was too powerful, too cocky, and the feds caught him. But Ivan made it go away, he can make anything go away, all Shamus had to do was get Sedric to marry me.” She whispered to herself as she rocked back and forth.

This made no sense!

“Why? Why you?”

“Because my family knew the game but weren’t players. We couldn’t make him any more powerful than he already was. But he married Evelyn. Ivan didn’t like that but Evelyn’s family wasn’t anything. He let it go because there was balance. But you Callahans always marry the wrong people!” she yelled, spitting in my face as she did.

Stepping back, I wiped the side of my cheek and allowed myself a moment to think. This was the craziest shit I had ever heard. Both Jinx and Fedel stared at me waiting; they were not really fazed at all by her words. But they should have been. Everything we had been fighting to figure out was because of this.

“Ivan doesn’t run a mafia monopoly!” I couldn’t help but laugh. Not only was this stupid as fuck, but just unrealistic!

“And not only did you stupidly marry his granddaughter, but you married the head of the Italian mob! Every single cop, lawyer, and judge you pay off around the world, he gets a cut. If you and your stupid wife control everything, you will be placed on everyone’s shit list! It’s a chain reaction…”

“Jinx. Fedel. Clean up this shit, I’m heading back to my wife. This was a waste of my time.” Grabbing my beer, I stepped out just as she yelled.

“Ivan’s the game maker, not you!” she said. “You’re a player, find a way to meet him halfway.”

Turning, I raised my bottle to her. “I’m Liam Fucking Callahan! I don’t meet anyone halfway. They bend my way, Mrs. Briar.”

Monte stood outside, holding open the door to the Range. Sitting back in my seat, I finished my drink.

“Well, this was anticlimactic,” I whispered, staring at the fading brick house among the green hills. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it. My “mistress” was a bitch, my wife was driving me insane, and all I really wanted was an aspirin.

NINETEEN

“Kings kill for empires, madmen for applause.”

—John Dryden

MELODY

I knew it was him, and he knew I was awake. How could anyone sleep with him slamming the drawers of our dresser so loudly? I wanted to give him a baby update and ask him what had happened to trigger his anger, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. He was just pissing me off!

SLAM!

“We’ve been here for a week,” I said. “There is nothing in the damn dresser! So either chop it up for firewood or leave it alone.”

“Of course, your highness! God forbid I make you feel uncomfortable.” He slammed the dresser so hard the books on top of it fell over.

Sighing, I bit my tongue, trying my best not to explode again.

SLAM!

“URGH!” I screamed, grabbing the pillow behind my head to throw at his face. He caught it with ease then dropped it as I rose from our bed. But he pretended that he didn’t even notice me.

“You men and your stupid fucking double standards. How many maids have you screwed, Liam? How many of them still work in our house? I am not yours—”

“That’s where you’re wrong!” he barked, finally acknowledging me. “You
are
mine! You are so hell bent on reminding me that you belong to no one but yourself. But that’s bullshit. It’s my last name attached to yours.
You
belong to
me
! And I belong to you, and the sooner you get that through your thick skull, the less grey hairs I will have!”

“I have a thick skull? You’re the one—” I stopped, quickly grabbing onto my stomach as the movement became worse.

“Love?” Liam rushed, grabbing hold of me.

“Oh
now
it’s ‘love’?” I hissed, pushing him away as I wobbled over to the bed. “Damn it, kid, you can’t be on his side already.”

“Mel,” he called, pulling me closer to him on the bed. “What is it?”

Sighing, I laid back holding my stomach. “The kid moved right after you left. It didn’t hurt then, but it does now.”

Lying next to me, he rubbed my stomach slowly. “Are you drinking the tea?”

“Ugh, I’m so tired of drinking that crap. But if it will help, then I will drink some in the morning.” I was not a tea person, but the last thing I needed was more pain.