Exploding: A Mafia Romance (The O'Keefe Family Collection #1) (19 page)

F
allyn finished
up her custom cakes on autopilot since it was the third baker’s day off, barely greeting Rina as the second shift began. When it neared noon, she started in on making the men some lunch she could take to the hotel. It was a feat finding things among her ingredients in the bakery to construct a meal with, but she managed with only a quick trip to the grocery store for a few items.

Carrigan stopped into the store’s café area, expecting his sister to come out to greet him when Jen sent back word he was there. Perplexed at his lack of a warm welcome, he moved back to the kitchen without invitation. He saw the usual pleasant amount of chaos Fallyn created as she baked, but her eyebrows were pushed together and her usually smiling lips were weighted down with a heavy frown that mirrored itself on his face when he saw it. “Hey, Fal. What’s got you down?”

Fallyn did not bother to look at her brother. “Just busy. What’s up, Carri?”

“Killian called a meeting. I came to pick you up to take you to his restaurant. Didn’t you get my message?”

Fallyn kept her attention on the lunch she had been concocting. “No. I’m working, so I try not to be on my phone while I’m on the job.”

“Kill invited the D’Amatos to come into the territory to talk about a plan for tonight.”

“Fine. I can drive myself. Thanks anyway.”

“Are you pissed at me or something?”

“Are you serious?” Fallyn banged her tongs on the pan, casting off the extra drops of water and accentuating her anger all in one go. “I’ll pack this up and see you there in a few.” Fallyn ignored any other attempts her brother made to break the tension and set to work tripling the lunch she’d been making. She ignored Rina when she waved Carrigan away with a “Fallyn’s in a mood” expression of warning.

Fallyn finished up and drove to her brother’s restaurant, spending the whole ride trying to calm herself so she didn’t rip her brothers a new one. When she walked into the gentle green hue of the restaurant, childhood and adulthood converged in her senses. The familiar scent of lamb and rosemary teased her into relaxing, while the gold-framed pictures of her youth smiled out at her in welcome.

Killian greeted her at the door, arresting the takeout dishes she carried. “You know we serve food here, right?” he teased, hoping to get a smile from her.

“It’s a peace offering for the D’Amatos. You’re welcome.”

Killian took the large aluminum dishes past the customers and down into the basement, where family meetings during business hours usually happened. The basement had a lower ceiling than the restaurant above, and was decidedly less decorated. The white walls were broken up by several couches lining the perimeter of the west side of the room. The long banquet tables were pushed together so the whole family could eat with their new guests.

To his credit, Vince did not look like he was in pain. Other than his split lip, black eye and his stiffer movements, he kept his cool demeanor, leaning back in his chair and observing with his ice blue eyes as he calculated the exits and possible threats with a bland non-expression on his face.

Killian and Declan brought down a small feast and laid it on the table, but the D’Amatos came to life and discarded their on-guard demeanors when Fallyn peeled the foil off her deep tray. “Is that what I think it is?” Joey asked, his eyes wide. “Where did you get that?”

“I made it,” Fallyn replied, affronted. “It’s Papa D’s recipe.”

“How’d you get Papa D’s recipe for handmade pasta with red wine? He never wrote anything down.”

“I pay attention. He taught me how to make it with the reduction when I was a little girl. Thought you guys could use a little comfort food after the night you’ve had.”

Angelo met her eyes to convey the appreciation for the attention to detail. “Thank you. This is… This is a gesture, and I see it.”

Killian threw up his hands. “I’ve been trying to show you guys that we want to extend the olive branch for months! All it took was for Fally to make a little spaghetti?”

Vince remained in his chair, both unable to move properly and unwilling to get up and risk kissing Fallyn in front of her brothers. He hadn’t had the heart to make handmade pasta since his father had passed, and the luxury of the pampering Fallyn provided without being asked was too much for him to process.

Her brothers noticed her stalwart expression and inability to hold eye contact with them, so they tried various ways to draw her into conversation, failing each time. Seamus grew frustrated and slammed his fork down on the table three minutes into lunch. “You’re being a pill, Fal. So we picked on James a little. If he can’t handle the hazing, better ditch now than later.”

“Well, he did ditch, so thanks for that.” Fallyn huffed at having to have this conversation in front of the D’Amatos, but she guessed she would get little peace until it was all laid out on the table. “Thanks to all your performances this weekend, James and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.”

This was met by high-fives and applause at having vanquished the evildoer, all of which entertained the D’Amatos to witness the inner-workings of the odd family’s dynamic.

Fallyn was livid, standing to smack her hand to the table to rein them all in. “However, that was the last time you get a say in who I date, and it’s the last time I put my life on hold because you all think I need eight dads. I just need the one, and I can’t even get him half the time.” She started talking with her hands animatedly. “So, new regime. I recently got myself a boyfriend, who none of you are going to meet. He’s a new guy I’ve been seeing for a few weeks now.” Her brothers erupted in angry rants, but she held up her hands and spoke over them. “You’ll know nothing about him, and you’ll never meet him. Thanks to you all, I’ll have a whole life you can’t be involved in.”

“What’s his name?” Finn demanded, ready for a new challenge.

“Ted Bundy,” Fallyn retorted, her tone acerbic. “It’s serious, and the next thing you’ll hear about him is when I tell you all that Teddy and I eloped.” Her cheeks flushed at saying all of this in front of Vince, who hid his amusement and borderline fear behind a mouthful of the best pasta he’d had in ages.

Danny was red with anger. “Don’t talk like that. Who is he?”

“Charles Manson. He’s one heck of a lover. Sexy beard. He tells me what to do, and I can’t help myself. I’m so mindless when I’m around him with none of you lot telling me what to do. I just follow him around like a sweet little dummy, hoping he’ll make an honest woman of me.”

Seamus glared at Fallyn. “Who is he?”

“Jeffery Dahmer. Explosive personality, that one. It’s only love if you put out on the first date, right? That’s what he told me, anyways. He’s so dreamy.”

Killian, who rarely raised his voice to her, yelled across the table. “You’ll stop it right now and tell us who’s messing with your head like this!”

Fallyn turned to Killian as if in slow motion, her face composed. “Am I allowed to be happy?”

“You don’t know enough about it all to know what’s going to make you happy. What happens if you pick a guy who wastes everything that’s good about you?” Killian glowered at his sister.

Fallyn pounded her hand flat on the table, jerking the men to attention. “I’m tired of making pasta for my brothers! I want to be happy for once, so let me! Dammit, let me be happy! Love me enough for that! You all raised me. Trust that you did a good enough job that I won’t ruin my life on the first gamble I make on my own.”

Carrigan stood next to his sister, proving himself to be the only brother capable of rational thought. His arm went around her shoulders in solidarity. “Okay, Fal. We’ll back off for a while. We just want what’s best for you.”

“What’s best for me is to decide for myself on this.” She caught Carrigan mouthing to Declan that he’d keep watch to see if he could catch the guy. Fallyn shrugged out of his hug, picked up her steak knife and pointed it at Carrigan without remorse or hesitation. “I see your patrol car on my street, and you don’t want to know what, Carri.”

Seamus stood from his seat on the other side of the table. “You know? I think I
do
want to know what. What are you going to do if we watch out for you like Dad asked us to?”

“If you follow me like a crazy stalker, I’ll put sugar in your gas tanks, and you can kiss your tires goodbye. I’ll mess you up, Carri. Don’t test me on this! Ted Bundy’s mine! I vouch for him, so hands off.”

“What’s his real name?” Carrigan demanded. “We should know who’s messing with you.”

“Enough!” Killian roared. “Fallyn, we’ll have words about this later. For now, let’s deal with the west side problems.” Everyone sat back down, but Killian was on edge, which did not bode well for an amicable discussion on how best to be helpful.

“I still think we have every right to…”

“I said enough!” Killian shouted at Seamus, slamming his hand down on the table. “Not another word on this, any of you. Vince? Do your thing. That’s why we’re all here, right?”

Vince laid out a map on the table, drawing red Xs on the problem streets to indicate the dealers, and green Xs on the map to show where the crack dens were. The teams were divided into four, with a D’Amato leading each group. When the O’Keefe men were split up among the groups, Fallyn spoke up. “Which one am I with?”

The response from her brothers was predictable, but unintelligible due to them all protesting at the same time with varying degrees of indignation. Vince held up his hand, not needing to shout to be heard. The men fell silent as Vince gave his ruling. “You’ll be home base. We need somewhere to land and one person to communicate with to send us out to the next stop, or to head over for backup if one team needs it.” Before anyone could give their opinion on this, Vince pointed to his house on the map. “She’ll set up at my place. After every sting, call Fallyn and she’ll send you on to the house that needs cleaning out next. It won’t do to have us all calling each other in the heat of things. This way, the communication’s all centralized.” He locked eyes on Killian, who nodded his gratitude. “Fallyn will be safe. My windows are bulletproof on the house, and it locks down like a fortress. If you’re injured, make it back to home base. We’ll start off and end up at my house. You good with that, Little Keefer?” he asked without looking up at her.

Fallyn nodded, knowing falling in line was more important than her pride. She was grateful he at least gave her a job to do. “Sounds good, boss. I’ve got a couple suggestions, though.”

“Now’s the time for that. Soon as the sun sets, we’re going out.”

She pointed to Carrigan. “Vince is injured, so he should go out with Carri, who’s a better shot than Finn.”

“Hey!” Finn protested, but then gave in when Carrigan raised his eyebrow at him. “Okay, fine.”

“Anything else?” Vince asked, leaning over the map.

“Kevlar,” Fallyn suggested. “Tonight they die, not us.”

Carrigan shook his head. “You know we only have enough vests for our family. I don’t think yours’ll fit any of them, Fally.”

“No, but you can get Daddy’s vest. He won’t be needing it. And Mama’s old one might fit Jo-Jo.” She motioned to Joey’s thinner frame.

Joey rolled his eyes at Fallyn. “I’m not wearing a woman’s bulletproof vest.”

Vince was grateful she found a way to protect his baby brother. “You’ll wear it and be grateful, Joey. Thanks, Fal.”

Fallyn met Vince’s gaze with a nod of solidarity. “I got you.”

F
allyn was
a ball of nerves as she sat in the backseat of Killian’s SUV, crammed between Declan and Seamus, who took up too much space in their bulky Kevlar. Killian pulled straight into Vince’s spacious garage, quickly followed by Carrigan’s car that transported the rest of the O’Keefe clan.

They walked with tensed shoulders into the home they’d spent many a weekend playing at growing up. The scent of oak and butter reached Fallyn’s nose, invoking a thousand memories of making a mess in the kitchen, playing in their in-ground oval-shaped pool in the backyard, and slurping popsicles on the wraparound porch on hot summer days clad in dripping swimsuits. Fallyn had been so much younger, so they’d all treated her with care, wiping her face when the heat got too zealous and melted the popsicles prematurely. They’d carried her in the swimming pool until she learned to swim. They’d rode their bicycles slower so she could go with them on their adventures while she still had her training wheels on. For the first six years of her life, the D’Amatos had been her big brothers every bit as much as her own had.

The merriment of the sheer irresponsibility of youth accompanied with the freedom of childhood was marred by the ammo being divvied up on the kitchen table where they’d shared many a meal as two families that felt more like one. The sun had set, and everyone gathered around the table, deferring to Vince to set the tone of authority. “It ends tonight, guys. You see a dealer, shoot to kill. They’ve had plenty of warning, and I want a new neighborhood before dawn. Silencers on, so we can get farther before the cops get called.” He turned to Carrigan. “Officer O’Keefe, you hear sirens and you ditch. Hide at the home base and wait it out, you hear? I don’t need you catching heat if you get found out.”

Carrigan nodded. “Roger that.” He set a black box down on the table. “Police scanner. Fally, you listen to this, and if you hear the cops coming our way, send out a notice so we can scatter.”

Fallyn gave her brother a thumb’s up. “On it.”

Vince addressed Fallyn head on, making sure she caught the pertinent information. “Fal, you only open the doors if you hear this knock.” He banged four times, paused and then hit the table with his fist once more. “Got that? Lowlifes are gonna be crawling all over this place once things get going if we don’t move fast enough, so everything stays locked up unless you hear that. Don’t even check the peephole if the knock doesn’t match. Got it?”

“Got it. First aid kit? I brought my own, but if I run out of supplies, do you have another?”

Vince nodded to Tony, who retrieved it for her, setting it on the gray couch in the cozy living room just off the kitchen where they were all congregated. Vince grabbed his guns, tucking two into holsters and holding the third. “I won’t forget what you’re all doing for us tonight. Papa D never should’ve let the drug trade in, and I’m sorry for the mess you have to help us clean up. Hopefully it’s all over tonight, and we can start in the morning as allies.”

Killian acted on behalf of his family and shook Vince’s hand, bringing him in for a kiss on both cheeks. “Brothers.”

Fallyn kept her game face on until her brothers were suited up and reaching for the front door in their respective groups. “Wait!” She reached up and kissed her nearest brother on the cheek. “For good luck.” She moved down the line of her much taller brothers, and then pressed her lips to Angelo’s cheek, to Tony’s, Joey’s and finally Vince’s. “Come home to me, all of you.”

Killian was the last one out, and before he left, he turned to Fallyn and clutched her head to his chest. “Lock this and don’t answer it unless you hear the knock,” he reiterated. “We’ll be right back, sweetie.”

Fallyn wrapped her arms around her eldest brother, melting into him as she always did. “I love you, Kill. Keep Danny safe.”

He kissed the top of her head and released her before she was ready to let go. She locked the door and waited by her cell phone, hoping the next call she got wouldn’t be to report damage unfixable.