Almost Innocent (21 page)

“I am not a patient man.” He poked my chest. “You have one day. Tomorrow at noon, I’m taking Gabriella and Grady somewhere no one will find them. Including you. And then, I’m coming back for him.”

I
hadn’t said
good-bye to Gabby—I’d gone upstairs, quietly grabbed my shit, and left without waking her. I knew she’d be safe with Conall. I was questioning everything else in my life, every major event, but I did not doubt him.

I was coming back for her.

As I drove home, Conall’s words echoed through my mind, drowning out everything else.
“I’ve seen the monster you have inside. From your first kill to your last, I know the things you’re capable of.”
It was true. He didn’t come out very often, but when the monster did appear, even my father had been scared.

I was never supposed to be part of the business, and I sure as shit was never meant to end up as an enforcer. When my father taught me how to shoot, it was so I could protect myself. He never imagined I would one day hold that gun against a temple and pull the trigger.

I once thought that he had underestimated my loyalty to our family or that maybe he thought I was too weak to do what the rest of them could. Once I’d been sent to prison, I realized nothing could have been further from the truth. He’d just assumed that I would never be in a position to have to make that choice.

He’d been wrong. The day Logan was murdered changed everything.

My mother was crying silent tears as she gripped my father’s hand. Beside me, Fiona was completely still, unnerving me. I felt as if I would throw up.

“Tell me it isn’t true, Colin! Tell me!” My mother sobbed, and I knew exactly how she felt.

Uncle Logan and Aunt Erin couldn’t be gone. Just last night, they’d been sitting at this table. He’d been laughing at some private joke with my dad and complimenting my mom on the food while Erin and Fi talked about wedding plans. There was no way they could be dead.

I slid my gaze to my father sitting rigidly at the head of the table, gripping my mom’s hand with one of his, the other fisted. He wasn’t crying though, not shedding a tear for his only brother. Shock, I realized. My father was in shock.

Dustin stood, slamming his hands on the oak table, and made everyone jump. “What the fuck?” He turned to Bron, one of my father’s men and the unlucky bastard who had just delivered the news. “Where in the fuck were you?”

“Dustin.” Dad’s low warning went unheeded.

“How did you let this happen?” Dustin seethed.

Bron narrowed his eyes, not intimidated. “I was doing my job.”

“The fuck you were!” Dustin screamed, slamming his hands down again. Turning toward our father, he lifted a hand. “You need to order a strike, right now. You need to hit them back.”

“This is not the time or the place—”

“The hell it isn’t!” Dusty interrupted. “Your brother and his wife were just murdered. Killed in cold blood! We both know who did it. Logan told you this was coming. You need to send the message that if you fuck with the Callaghan clan, you end up dead.”

My father yelled back, but I drowned them both out. I didn’t know what was going on or who they were talking about. Dustin helped my dad and uncle at Callaghan Industries, but I was excluded because I had no place there. I had never wanted to be a part of it.

Today though, I wished I knew more.

Uncle Logan was gone. I’d just really started to get to know him. We’d been spending more time together since I’d stayed at their house, and he’d become more than just my uncle. He was like my second father.

Shit. He was Mark’s dad. Mark’s dad was dead. Fuck. Did he know?

We’d just started our senior year of high school. Our parents weren’t supposed to leave us yet. Logan and Mark had plans—big plans. Jesus. Life would never be the same.

And Aunt Erin? She’d been everything my own mother hadn’t been. I couldn’t believe I’d never hear her laughter again, or have her pull me into one of her comforting hugs.

“Bull-fucking-shit!” Dustin bellowed, dragging my attention back to their argument.

My father’s eyes turned to steel. “I’m not ordering a kill until I have all the facts. I will not start a war over this.”

“Over ‘this’?” my brother fumed. “This isn’t some douche ripping you off. Someone butchered your brother. That is something you start a war over. If you don’t have all the facts, you get off your ass and bust heads until you get them.”

“That is not how we do things.” My father glared at Dusty, barely controlling his anger. “It happened in public.” The words caused me physical pain. “If we retaliate now, it will turn the attention on us. The police are going to investigate. When they finish their work, I will decide what we’re going to do.”

“They’ll be fucking gone by then!” Dusty screeched. “Never thought I’d see the day that Colin Callaghan was too much of a pussy to avenge his blood. If you’re too scared to do something, I will.” Kicking his chair out of the way, he stomped out of the room.

“What does he mean?” My mother’s voice was frantic. “Colin?” She practically pawed at my father with her free hand. “What is he going to do?”

Dad simply shook his head. “Nothing, Moira. He just needs to blow off some steam, process what’s happened.” My father looked at Fiona and me, and I saw the worry lines etched around his eyes. “Fiona?” His voice was light but firm, bringing her out of the daze she’d been in. “I need you to call Gabriella. Get her here. Before he gets to her.”

Fi nodded, pushing out of the chair quickly. We all knew what happened when Dustin got like this, and I was ashamed that Gabby’s well-being hadn’t been my first thought. Maybe my father was worried about nothing—I was almost positive that Dustin hadn’t laid a hand on her in months. Not since my father’s men had beaten him within an inch of his life.

Before anyone could say anything else, Dustin stormed back into the dining room and slammed my M9 on the table in front of me. Leaning down, he shoved his face into mine. “They killed our family.” His teeth grit as he practically spits the words at me. “They stole Logan’s life. Mark’s father is dead. Are you going to let them get away with it? Or are you gonna let them know that if you fuck with a Callaghan, retribution is quick, and it’s fucking brutal?”

Fi clutched at me as I stood, as if she was trying to push me back down. Shrugging her off, I picked up the Beretta. The metal was cool in my hand, but familiar.

Something inside me snapped. Loss, anger, and hatred moved through me, until pain was all that was left. I had to do something. I loved Logan and Erin.

“Sit back down, Declan!”

I met my father’s eyes, his disapproval and disappointment easy to see.

This wasn’t about him though. This was about Uncle Logan and Aunt Erin—two people who had given me a refuge the summer before when I needed to get away. This was about Mark. My best friend was now fatherless.

If someone shot my father, I’d want to know the prick who’d pulled the trigger was meeting his maker. Immediately. Dusty might have been instigating revenge, but I was a Callaghan. I never really had a choice.

I ignored the family I loved and followed my brother out of the house. I might have hated him, and I’d never trust Dusty, but I was loyal to Mark to the core. He’d had something taken from him, and I was going to make it right.

My mother’s sobs and the sound of glass shattering were the last things I heard before the front door slammed behind us.

I shook my head at the memory. That was the day I had transitioned from stupid high school kid into cold-blooded killer. My brother, his friend Jason, and I had tracked down every possible lead. We manipulated, threatened, and beat name after name out of my father’s business associates. No one knew who was behind the hit.

We did, months later, discover who had been hired to pull the trigger. A corrupt cop with a coke habit who was looking to make an extra buck. The night we found him was the start of a future I’d never planned.

Dustin made his mark on the man’s wife, ensuring that she would remember him forever, but I knew she’d never forget me either. Not after she watched me help my brother torture her husband for hours, trying to pull the name from him, doing things I never thought I was capable of doing.

When his heart finally gave out, I’d been relieved. Infuriated that he’d refused to tell us who’d hired him because I wanted revenge, but so fucking happy that the nightmare was over.

I had become a monster. A man I didn’t recognize. A man who struggled to remember who he really was. A man I hated.

We never found out who had ordered the hit.

You’ve only ever seen what you want to see—you don’t see the big picture.

Conall’s words made me narrow my eyes, thinking over each detail of that night. Why had we never discovered who was behind their deaths? I hadn’t known it at the time, but I learned in later years that people blab extremely easily. Pain and fear were great motivators. Threaten someone with physical pain, or make them think their worst fears would come true, and they’d tell you anything you wanted to know.

Yet no one had broken. We’d never gotten the asshole who had pulled the strings. Which meant I’d missed a vital piece of the puzzle. It was either someone who people were truly afraid of or someone who had earned such a degree of loyalty that his people would rather die than turn on him. Or both.

I reached for my coffee, pausing midway. Holy shit. No.

I replayed the scene in my head. My father had been home that night, but he wasn’t supposed to be. When Bron had charged in, interrupting the meal, Dad hadn’t looked surprised. In fact, he’d looked relieved. At the time, I’d chalked it up to realizing it was only Bron and not someone else.

After Bron had given us the news, Moira had turned to Dad and begged him to tell her it wasn’t true. What if she hadn’t been talking about their deaths, but instead asking my father if he’d been responsible? Bron had told Dustin that he was doing his
job.
Had my father ordered him to turn a blind eye while my aunt and uncle were murdered?

There were other things too. Dad’s refusal to go after whoever had done it should have raised red flags. Any other time, Colin Callaghan had been quick to retaliate. Logan was his brother, for Christ’s sake. He should have threatened to tear the town apart until the murderer was delivered to our front door. Instead, he’d insisted we wait for the police to investigate—the same police department that he had insisted was full of corrupt officers trying to make a quick buck.

I hadn’t seen it because I hadn’t wanted to. Dustin’s theory that a rival from Boston had declared war on our family had made sense. It added up. I didn’t think about looking to see if another scenario also added up.

Fuck.

Why in the hell would my father take out his own brother? They’d always been so close. Then my mother’s words from the day before hit me like a ton of bricks.

“Your uncle Logan called in the hit.”

That hadn’t made sense yesterday. Hell, it still didn’t make sense. Why would Logan have Graham Forte killed? And why would my dad get revenge almost ten years later? I was missing something.

Dustin had been a fucking prick, but the only reason I’d ever wanted him dead was because of how he treated Gabby. I would have tolerated anything else from him, simply because he was my blood. Add Gabby into the picture though, and nothing else mattered.

I would have killed my brother over a woman. Would my father? I thought back through my childhood, examining the way Logan had looked at my mom. He’d respected her in a way I’d admired—I always thought it was because she was his sister-in-law.

But little things, like the way he had watched her, suddenly stood out. He looked at her the way I was sure I looked at Gabby. As though he wanted something he’d never have. Fucking Christ.

I yanked my truck into the first parking lot I saw, turned around, and headed back south. I didn’t have a lot of time to waste, but I needed to know.

This time, Moira opened her own door, completely dressed and in full makeup, despite the early hour. I didn’t see Tank or her goons anywhere, but I knew they were here. She wouldn’t be alone.

I didn’t bother with fake pleasantries. “Did Dad have Logan killed because of your affair?”

My mother let the door shut before she turned to me. I half expected her to deny it all, tell me that she’d never had an affair and that my father hadn’t been the one behind Logan’s death. I fucking hoped she was going to tell me I was nuts and kick me out of her house.

Instead, she only said, “No.” Then she walked away, leaving me there.

No what? No, my father hadn’t had him killed? No, there was another reason entirely for Logan’s murder? No, she hadn’t had an affair with him?

I needed answers, so I followed her around the corner and into a small kitchen. Nothing about the room seemed like Moira—it wasn’t sterile and aluminum and cold like the one I’d grown up with. Instead, it was bright and homey. She stood at the counter, motioning me to sit at the table.

I hesitated.

“You want answers.” She shrugged. “I want to have coffee with my son.” She nodded her head toward the table. “Sit.”

I had a hundred different arguments why I couldn’t stay—the most important being that I had no desire to sit at a table and talk to her. But I wanted answers.

I sat.

She carried over two mugs, handed me one, and eased into the chair across from me. I braced for the small talk bullshit that Moira loved so much. Instead, she took a sip of her coffee and set it down.

“I wasn’t having an affair with Logan when he was killed.” She pushed her shoulders back, sitting up straighter. “Our affair had been over for twenty years. So no, that’s not why he was killed.”

I watched my finger tap on the table as I tried to digest her words. My parents had problems, as every couple did, but they were solid. Dad wasn’t always warm and fuzzy and Moira was, well, Moira, but they had loved each other. One of my earliest memories was coming down the stairs after a nightmare and finding them dancing in the living room—he’d had his arms wrapped around her, and he was nuzzling her neck while she clung to him and laughed. I’d sat and watched them for what felt like hours.