Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
He’s the man who could ruin everything.
And the father of the baby I swore I’d never have.
The air inside his office is colder than the Boston streets.
Mickey O’Halloran -- Irish Mob royalty.
Deadly. Untouchable.
And now, my new employer.
I took the job to stay afloat.
He hired me to keep me close.
But every glance burns.
Every touch unravels the rules I swore I’d follow.
Behind closed doors, he claims me like I already belong to him.
And maybe I do.
But now I’m pregnant.
And Mickey is about to find out.
Because in his world, betrayal is blood for blood.
And I’ve got everything to lose.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
MICKEY
“I’ll ask you one time. Where the fuck did you get them?”
The idiot doesn’t answer. Not even when Carlos shifts beside him and I hear the crack of Tito’s shoulder.
Lightning flashes, a snap of scorching light that rips the darkness for a second, followed by a heavy rumble of thunder that bellows as soon as we’re plunged back in darkness. His face, visible for that instant, is in an ugly mix of pain and terror. If he hopes a summer storm will distract me, he’s in for a disappointment.
“I’m done here,” I say with a shrug and climb in the waiting car. Carlos nods. He’ll finish up.
In less than fifteen minutes, I shrug on the jacket, fix the tie and take the stage at the charity gala to accept an award. If the foundation knew that the pediatric oncology expansion’s platinum sponsor just ordered the extermination of a drug dealer, they’d be shocked. Or they might not care that it’s dirty money.
People shock me all the time, what they’re willing to do to get what they want.
If you don’t have a code to live by, you’ll do damn near anything and find a way to justify it. That’s why I stay between the guardrails. The gambling business is profitable enough for my organization. Street drugs may be lucrative but they’re not worth it. Too many unstable characters involved in the distribution, and it trashes the neighborhood bringing that junk onto the sidewalks and alleys.
It’s too hard to control and does too much damage. I’m a man who likes a calculated risk with a predictable payoff. Junkies get irrational about a fix, go around robbing gas stations and stabbing each other. Nothing would convince me to get involved in that garbage.
After my acceptance speech, I pose for pictures with some board members and shake hands. A grateful woman approaches me and grabs my hand and weeps, thanking me for her son’s life, for the facility that gave him life-saving treatment. I nod, tell her I’m glad it worked out. She shows me pictures on her phone, some little kid with a bald head and a Batman cape. There’s a tube coming out of his nose taped onto his face. My chest hurts when I see that picture.
I want to tell her something, reassure her. Promise her this kid is going to grow up in a place where nobody’s pushing meth at the bus stop. There isn’t a good way to say that—to tell her that I’m the head of a criminal organization that dates back to tea smuggling in the colonies and I’ll keep the streets safe. Kids around here—a blue-collar chunk of Boston—don’t grow up rough if I can help it.
And I damn sure can afford to smooth the way.
“The physical therapy program has helped him so much, getting his strength back,” she continues. I nod. “I know the nurse said it’s a financial relief program, but I looked it up online. You’re the one who sponsors it, the PT and OT and art therapy and the service dogs—everything that made this a little more tolerable for my son and the other kids. I can’t ever thank you enough.”
“You don’t need to thank me. It’s enough to know it helps even a little bit,” I say and stride toward the canapes like I’m starving.
A corporate sponsor who owns a bunch of gyms, claps me on the back. He nods toward the mom.
“She was into you. You not lookin’ for a grateful woman who’d show you a good time?”
I narrow my eyes, “She has a sick kid. She was just saying thanks.”
“I bet she’d like to show her appreciation,” he says broadly.
“What is wrong with you?”
“What? Nothing wrong with it. She’s young and easy on the eyes—”
“Her kid has cancer. Jesus, Will.” I shake my head and walk off.
This is what the legit businessmen act like—like everybody owes them something. Even the weary and weeping mother of a sick child looks like an eager piece of ass to him. He was honored by the Greater Boston Food Bank last week and made an inspiring speech. I used to think they were a bunch of pricks giving money away out of guilt. I miss the days when I didn’t know better.
Will and his cronies think they’re the good guys, that they’re on the up-and-up. Predatory jackasses every one of them, out for what they can get and looking to be congratulated on acting like a hero when they write a check.
I leave early. Most of these people disgust me. Tito calls to confirm that Carlos took care of the two guys we caught pushing pills in our territory. He didn’t get a name out of either one of them.
“I bet there’s a mad mom or a mad girlfriend that’ll tell us what was going on. I always tell you, if you want info, you find an angry woman and she got a long story to tell you,” Rory says.