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)
Telling Mickey the truth is the right thing to do. I know it in my bones. But I’m scared, and the fear screams at me to flee. Go to LA and don’t look back. Ever.
21
MICKEY
Fury doesn’t even begin to describe it. The way I want to burn through the ranks of my organization until I root out every coward who’s paving the road to hell with coin they make pushing drugs on my streets. I don’t pump millions into the schools and community centers and hospitals in Southie just to be undercut by moneygrubbing traitors who don’t care what happens to the people in this town, to their own people. It sickens me.
We keep hitting dead ends. Whether it’s the money trail or the questions we asked Oscar it never goes far. Maybe we find two or three other people involved but not the whole drug ring, not the suppliers or the top guy, the ambitious asshole bent on carving out a name and fortune on the backs and chalk outlines of our neighbors.
Part of the rage I feel is righteous indignation over what street drugs do to neighborhoods, especially disadvantaged ones. Another piece of my anger is the disgust I feel toward disloyal members of my own organization and their betrayal. The last and most volcanic part of this puzzle, the agent that causes the explosive reaction inside me, is the danger Katie was in. I could have lost her. First when that dipshit dealer threw a rock at us and again in the parking lot when Oscar pulled a gun. She would’ve been caught in the crossfire, an innocent bystander.
The coal of this fury smolders in my chest all the time and keeps me awake. If I’m not actively pushing for answers, interrogating suspects or dispatching lieutenants to search the homes and offices of anybody with a red flag, I’m in for it. The pictures flip through my mind like a channel I can’t change. It plays in a loop and there’s no stopping it.
The grip of Katie’s fingers on the back of my coat and how she hid her face. The way she was when I held her in the car afterward, wild with fear and grief. The way she’d been laughing with me just before that, the thousand-watt smile on her beautiful face while we talked about going back to my house. The twist of her fingers in my hair or her nails down my back when I was within her, when we were joined body and soul as much as any man and woman could ever be. That connection shook me to my core.
The truth is, I don’t care what Rory knows or thinks. I don’t care what my organization thinks of my relationship with Katie Donahue. What does concern me is the impact on her career. How she’s worked so hard, finished two degrees and she’s in the thick of CPA testing, and if word got out that she was sleeping with a man so famously on the wrong side of the law, she’d be labeled as corrupt. No legitimate firm would hire her because she’d be tainted and viewed to be untrustworthy by association. It would undermine all her achievements and tar her with the same brush as me.
Maybe I deserve it, but she doesn’t. I have enough power and influence to tell everyone who doesn’t approve of my affair with my top lieutenant’s much younger sister to fuck off if they don’t like it. She’s more vulnerable to rumors, to attacks on her reputation.
The life I have to offer her was too much in the way of danger and instability and not enough commitment and peace. I grew up in this life and knew from the beginning it was the path carved out for me. I never resisted it or even considered walking away from it back when I still might have had that option. Once you’re in the business you don’t leave the business. Not unless you want to die an ugly anonymous death in witness protection. People leaving it behind and living a good life? That’s Hollywood shit, a fairy tale and nothing more.
Every time I see her at work, she’s pale and drawn with shadows beneath her eyes like she doesn’t sleep. That vibrant personality and sparkling eyes are dulled. I wonder if she misses me the way I miss her. If the reason she looks wrung-out like a disaster victim is because she can’t get over this. It’s too much to hope that it could be true. She’s young and resilient and probably has a new boyfriend who keeps her up all night wearing out that sweet body of hers. It makes me ill just to think of her with another man.
I told Katie that my work comes first, it’s a way of life. I have casinos, the car dealership, the entire cargo import and transport network. Even with capable managers working for me, I have a lot on my plate. Rooting out everyone involved in a drug ring may not have been on my bingo card for the year but it’s sure as hell my top priority now. I can’t turn my back on this, on running the show and making sure my people are taken care of, just because I met a woman I like. Grown men don’t quit their jobs to pursue a relationship or to make a girlfriend more comfortable.