KYLE: A Mafia Romance (The Callahans Book 4) Page 13

  Chapter 20

  Amelia

  I was curled up on the couch when he came into the loft. I’d been sitting there longer than I’d like to admit, my thoughts going back and forth from my family drama to the secrets I’d been keeping from Kyle. I so wanted to tell him the truth. And now I wasn’t sure there was any reason not to…except for the fact that if I lost him, I’d lose everything.

  He threw himself down on the couch and tossed an arm over his eyes.

  “Long day?”

  He didn’t answer. His thoughts were clearly somewhere else, anywhere else.

  “Cassidy called. She wanted to know if I’d go shopping with her tomorrow morning.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told her I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “You’re a grown woman. You can make your own choices.”

  His tone was a sharp as a knife, cutting through me almost as completely as the things my father had made me see today had done. I climbed off the couch and began to pace, angry with myself for allowing these little comments to get to me the way they did.

  He moved his arm and watched me move.

  “I’m sorry, Amelia. I just—”

  “No, you’re right. I was…I thought maybe if you were home tomorrow…it is Saturday, after all.”

  “I’ll be home in the morning,” he said with a sigh.

  “I thought you might want to share the day with me.”

  He leaned forward, resting his hands on his thighs. “I would like to. Yes. But if you’d rather go shopping—”

  “I’d rather be here with you.”

  He reached for my arm as I paced in front of him and tugged me onto his lap. He ran his hand over the side of my face, brushing back my hair and running a fingertip over the trace of tears left from earlier in the day. There was compassion on his face now, an understanding that hadn’t been there before.

  “Tell me what happened today.”

  “Nothing.” But he knew that wasn’t true. But I wasn’t sure I knew how to talk about this. “I just…I called my dad, and I guess I realized a few things about him that I hadn’t seen or hadn’t wanted to know before.”

  “Like what?”

  “He’s not the man I thought he was.”

  “None of us are.”

  “But he’s my dad.”

  I started to cry, unable to keep it in. It wasn’t that big of a deal, really, but it felt like my world had split open and I’d fallen into the crevice. Like everything I’d done for the last few years had been to perpetuate a lie. I hated it; I hated that my dad allowed me to believe in his innocence. And I hated that he allowed me to be angry with all the wrong people.

  “I’m sorry, babe.”

  Kyle ran his hand down the length of my spine, trying to comfort me as best as he could. I curled up closer to him, embarrassed that I was falling apart in his arms, but feeling as though that was the safest place in the world to fall apart.

  “Tell me about your dad,” he said against my cheek. “You know so much about me, but I still feel as though there is so much I don’t know about you.”

  “Have you ever heard the name Robert Clark Wallace?”

  He pushed me back a little, his eyes studying mine. “The Bernie Madoff of Oregon?”

  I blushed, but nodded. “He’s my dad.”

  “Oh, hell, Amelia!”

  He lifted me onto the couch and began to pace in my place. I watched him for a minute, a little confused.

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Do you realize that my father was one of his investors? Did you know that if that got out, or news that I married that man’s daughter in some temporary, quickie Vegas wedding, my father’s reputation may not survive the mess he’s already in? To be connected with Robert Clark Wallace after everything that’s been going on…”

  “Is that what this still is? A temporary arrangement?”

  “People will think I did it in some misguided attempt to get revenge, or to hide something. It’ll ruin my father.”

  “But your dad knows who I am, and he didn’t seem too worried.”

  Kyle turned and looked at me. “What do you mean?”

  “He knows my mother. We talked about it last night.”

  Kyle’s eyes narrowed. “You spoke to my dad about all this?”

  “No. I…I talked about something else with him. Something to do with my mother.”

  I didn’t like the way he was staring at me. It was as if he was accusing me of something, but I wasn’t sure what crime I’d committed.

  “I have no intention of hurting your family, if that’s what you’re wondering. I didn’t know your father invested in my dad’s business. I never saw his name on any of the documents.”

  “Because he’s always careful. He probably used one of his many corporations to do it.”

  “Then why—?”

  “Because people have a way of figuring this stuff out, and someone’s been setting my family up over and over again, trying to hurt my father.”

  “Kyle, I—”

  “Brianna was kidnapped nearly two years ago. Did you know that? And Cassidy nearly found herself in the ground when she was taken by the same people. Then Stacy’s fiancé was murdered. She thought Killian did it, so six months later she seduced him and then hired a hit man to take him out. When she tried to cancel it, someone paid the hit man twice as much to go forward with it. Then Pops was arrested on charges that would never have stuck, screwing with his reputation, leaving him vulnerable to the illegal activities of a few bad federal agents. And now…”

  He stopped, still pacing, but clearly not willing to admit to what he thought was happening now.

  “This stuff with the Italians?”

  “That’s part of it, I’m sure. But I’m beginning to wonder if it’s a distraction to something else. To something bigger.”

  “Like?”

  “If I knew, I’d…”

  Again he stopped, as though he didn’t want to admit to what he’d been about to say.

  He stood silently in the middle of the room for a long time. I wanted to go to him, but I could see the tension in his shoulders and I was afraid that he would pull away from me if I tried to comfort him. And then he began to speak.

  “I had no one. I was the child of a woman who regretted a little flirtation with a good-looking man, a woman who got a little drunk and found herself in a situation she couldn’t control. She resented me because every time she looked at me she was reminded of that man who made her lose control…and she did not lose control. If she’d had a mother, a father, someone in her life, maybe things would have been different. But she had her work and me. And she couldn’t stand to look at me.

  “She expected perfection. She expected me to be a small adult even when I was a toddler, doing things that toddlers did. She resented that I needed her, resented my attempts at sharing just the smallest gestures of affection. She had demons, and she buried them in anger and resentment and a bottle.

  “I’ve never had anyone who gave a shit about me until Abigail. She was there when no one else was. Even when I screwed up and landed myself in juvie, she was there.” He laughed softly. “She not only stuck by me and brought me home, but that’s where she found Kevin, too. My roommate, the crazy twelve-year-old who’d killed his mother.”

  “What?”

  He spun around and looked at me, studying my face with this expression that was a combination of laughter and horror, of the merriment of the insane.

  “You have no idea what you’re getting into here, Amelia. I have done things that are far worse than anything you could possibly imagine. There is no comparison for the things I’ve done. I had to survive, and I did it the only way I could. So did Kevin. So did Ian. We all did.”

  He came toward me, perching on the edge of the coffee table, and took my hands.

  “My point is, I owe the Callahans everything. Not many people have earned my respect and my undying loyalty, but they have. I w
ill not let anyone hurt them. Not even you.”

  “Is that what you think? That I want to hurt you and your family?”

  “Why else?”

  I crawled into his lap, ran my hands over his skull. “I’m here because I want to be.”

  “Yeah? For how long?”

  There was such pain in his voice when he asked that. But he didn’t wait for me to answer. He lifted me up and lay me on the couch, trapping me under his body, my hands caught above me in a steel grip. And he kissed me, such need in his kiss that I couldn’t catch my breath. But I never tried to pull away. If this was what he needed, I wanted to be the one to give it to him. I wanted to be the only one who could give it to him.

  His touch was rough, rougher than it’d ever been before. Things were torn, skin bruised. But I kept up with him…and I brushed the tears from his cheek…and I held him close as he moved against me. And when it was over, I cradled his head to my breast.

  And when he left, it was my heart that shattered with the slamming of the door.

  Chapter 21

  Kyle

  The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Literally. I could feel it weighing on my shoulders, making it feel as though lifting my gun out of my holster would be a super-human feat. But maybe that was just the lack of sleep and the weight of my own problems weighing on me.

  “We won’t give up any of the new territory we’ve managed to acquire,” Carmine Rossi was saying.

  “But that territory was acquired by stealing it from us.”

  Carmine shrugged. “Half the territory you have now you stole from my predecessor.”

  He was right, but I knew that Jack wouldn’t admit to it.

  “What do you want?”

  I saw eyes light up on the other side of the room. A few of Rossi’s men elbowed each other, each thinking that they had us over a barrel. But they didn’t know Jack. Jack McGuire was not the kind of guy who would just hand over what they wanted. He was the kind of guy who let them feel comfortable, and then he snatched it away and went for the kill.

  “We want the McKinnon warehouse, the Burnett warehouse, and the Dunlap warehouse.”

  I wanted to laugh out loud. That was three of our major warehouses where we did business. There was no way in hell Jack was going to give them up. It would also mean giving up half of our territory. No way that was happening, either.

  “We want the Harbor Point Bloods working for us. And we want half the gun business.”

  Jack inclined his head slightly. “And what will you give us for all that?”

  Carmine seemed surprised by the question. “Why should we offer you anything? We’re not the ones who called for this meeting. If we wanted, we could just take what we’re asking for.”

  We were walking a fine line here. Jack could get mad and tell him the truth, that there was no way in hell the Irish was going to let them take any more than they already had. In fact, they’d be lucky if they walked away from this negotiation with coffee money. Or he could be humble, pretend that he understood the situation, and then manipulate them into giving up almost everything but the coffee money.

  I knew Jack. He’d go up the high road.

  “I understand that you don’t feel that we deserve anything. But we’ve been rivals for a long time now, Carmine. Don’t you think my men and I deserve a little more respect than that?”

  “It seems to me that your men are disappearing at an alarming rate. And Brian Callahan getting himself arrested a few months ago…that’s not good, either, Jack.”

  “Brian’s arrest was a mistake on the part of the feds. You should know that if you read the papers.”

  “I saw that. But I also saw the mug shots.” Carmine leaned forward a little. “Things have been rough for you this past year, Jack. You should thank us for taking a little of the pressure off of your shoulders.”

  “Who’s been informing on us? Can you tell me that?”

  That was a direction I hadn’t expected Jack to go in. However, I saw that the question caught Carmine by surprise, and keeping Carmine off his feet was a good negotiation tactic.

  “Informing on you?”

  “How did you know about those warehouses? How do you know about the Bloods? Who’s telling you about our every move?”

  Carmine shrugged. “My men are observant.”

  “It’s clearly more than that. Someone’s telling you things.”

  Someone—one of Carmine’s many lieutenants—leaned close and whispered in his ear. Carmine shooed him away and focused on Jack again.

  “I think we’re done here for tonight. We’ll meet again next week.”

  Carmine stood and so did his men. Jack stayed where he was, allowing Carmine to feel somewhat superior by towering over him. But Carmine would have towered over Jack anyway. He was a big man, both in height and girth.

  Carmine’s men headed toward the back doors of the wide warehouse. Jack had agreed to come here, to one of their warehouses, as an act of faith. The next meeting would take place on our territory, but I didn’t think it would make things any easier. This was going to be a long, drawn out process and no one was going to get what they wanted. But Jack had already stated that he was okay with losing a warehouse or two and part of the gun trade. And that was probably what it would come down to.

  I was approaching Jack when gunshots suddenly rang out. And then chaos erupted. I grabbed Jack by the collar and pulled him out of the folding chair where he was sitting, dragging him to the ground.

  “Who’s shooting?” he demanded. “Is it the Italians?”

  “No. But I can’t…”

  All I could see was bullets flying just outside the doors the Italians had just walked through. Some of Carmine’s men were still inside the warehouse, returning fire from positions of semi-protection. I couldn’t see where Carmine was, but it was clear his men were in trouble.

  “Go,” Jack said.

  “But what about you?”

  “If they all die, the rest of their people will blame us. You have to go stop this.”

  I gestured to Killian. He came over immediately and grabbed Jack, pulling him toward the back of the warehouse out of the way of stray bullets. I ran, my head down, to the doors. I gestured for some of Jack’s men to follow me and they did, without question.

  “Where are they?”

  The Italian on the door gestured to a building across the alley. I immediately spotted a man with a rifle on the roof. I aimed carefully and he fell.

  “Where’s Carmine?”

  The man pointed again as though his voice was damaged by the scene in front of him. Carmine was on the ground, bleeding from a wound in his belly. Three of his men were around him, each one hit. Two were hit in the head and clearly dead, but the other was still alive. Barely.

  I started out the door, but the man grabbed my jacket and tugged me back.

  “It’s suicide to go out there.”

  “Then I guess I’ll meet my maker tonight.”

  I jerked away and ran out the door, doing what Carmine’s men should have done, but weren’t brave enough to do. Carmine was hidden behind the front wheel of his car, crumpled like the napkin Ian threw at me just the day before. I felt the wind of bullets passing around me as I ran toward him, but if one hit me, I wasn’t aware of it.

  “You alive?”

  Carmine looked up at me, anger in his eyes.

  “Damned right!”

  “Good. I need you to get up. We need to get you out of here.”

  “Where are my men?”

  I gestured at a few lying on the ground. “Mostly dead. There’re are two or three in the warehouse doorway.”

  “Why aren’t they here?”

  I shrugged. “Because they aren’t crazy Irishmen.”

  I grabbed his arm and pulled it over my shoulders. It took several attempts to get him to his feet. Each time he moved, the blood gushed from his belly. He wasn’t going to make it if we didn’t get out of here fairly quick. Once he was on his feet,
however, we had to figure out how we were going to get back inside without taking several more bullets. He wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to avoid the shooters.

  That’s when my Pops showed up. He and Ian came running from the other end of the alley. Thank God! Ian managed to get Carmine’s other arm over his shoulder.

  “There’s another door down there.”

  “Any more shooters?”

  “We’ve only been able to identify four.”

  “Who are they?”

  Ian shrugged. “No idea. Could be a local gang, but we don’t know for sure.”

  “No one knew about this meeting,” Carmine mumbled. “How could they have found us?”

  “Probably the same way you found all our warehouses and managed to hit the majority of our shipments last year,” Pops said.

  Carmine opened his mouth to say something, but then he simply nodded. “Probably.”

  We stumbled together, Ian, Carmine, and I, dragging the big man to the back door to the warehouse. We were nearly there when one of the gunmen figured out what we were up to. He moved, taking a shot as he reached his new perch.

  That one I felt.

  Killian and a couple of Jack’s men came running as we appeared in the doorway. They took Carmine from us, leading him across the room to the table where the negotiations had been taking place just a few minutes before. Carmine looked even bigger splayed out on that table. And the blood pouring from that gut wound didn’t look good.

  “We’ve got to get them out of here.”

  Pops gestured toward the front of the warehouse. “The street’s clear as far as we can tell.”

  “We need spotters. They’ll know that’s the direction we’ll go next. They’ll be prepared.”

  “I know.”

  “We should load them in Carmine’s SUV. If we draw attention to the front, have some of Jack’s people go that way, then sneak Carmine and Jack out the back, maybe we can get out of this without too much trouble.”

  Pops slapped his hand against my shoulder. The pain was excruciating. I was pretty sure the bullet had gone straight through, but it still hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. I groaned, and Pops looked at his hand.

  “Shit! You’re hit.”