Honored: An Alpha Mob Romance (City Series Book 4) (2 page)

Before we got far, I heard a voice cut through the din of chattering parents and screaming children.

“Mister Sullivan?”

I turned and looked back, and then I stood there blinking. Walking toward me through the crowd was this young, gorgeous blonde. She was wearing a simple white button-down shirt and a beige cardigan, and her hair framed her pretty face perfectly. Her lips were pink and full, and her eyes were an intense shade of green that I had never seen before. She was probably around my age, maybe a year or two younger, and her body was fantastic. I couldn’t help but eye her nice tits and curvy shape.

“Who’s this?” I said to Richie softly.

He glanced up. “Miss Boucher,” he said.

“Not helpful,” I muttered to him.

“Mister Sullivan?” she said again, getting closer.

I gave her my best “responsible parent” smile. “Yes, hey there, Miss Boucher.”

“It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Richie’s teacher,” she said, extending her hand.

That made sense. I took it and we shook. I blinked for a second and took off my sunglasses, surprised at the way her hand felt. It was soft but firm, and I wanted the touch to linger. I almost felt bad about wanting to fuck Richie’s teacher on her desk.

But not really.

“I’ve heard plenty of good things about you,” I said, laying it on.

She laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure. Richie is such a good student.”

I nudged him. “Hear that?”

“Yeah,” he said, not looking up.

I grinned at her. “Polite, too.”

She laughed again, and her expression turned more serious. “Mr. Sullivan, can I talk with you for a second?”

“Sure, but call me Liam.”

Her expression softened and she looked at Richie.

“Richie, why don’t you go sit over by the wall for a second?”

He looked at me and I nodded. He shrugged and walked back to where he had been sitting, plopped down, and resumed playing.

“What did he do?” I asked her, cutting to the chase.

She laughed softly and moved a step closer. I loved the sound of her laugh: melodic and gentle. I thought I could feel something between us, but I wasn’t sure. The place was crowded, practically teeming with kids and their parents, and my head was still buzzing with partial flashbacks.

“What makes you think he did something wrong?”

I shrugged. “Whenever a teacher wanted to talk to my parents, it was always because I messed up.”

She nodded softly. “Well, Liam, he got into a fight.”

“Richie got into a fight?”

“With a boy in his class, yes.”

I was surprised. Richie was one of the quietest kids I knew, and had never been in trouble before as far as I knew. I couldn’t imagine him getting mad enough to fight someone.

“What happened?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t see the whole thing. Richie says the other boy, Joshua, was saying things about his mother. Joshua says Richie hit him for no reason, but who knows.”

“Riche wouldn’t just hit a kid for no reason.”

“I think you’re right. But he can’t fight, for any reason, you know?”

I nodded, but inwardly I was glowing with pride. Richie wasn’t a weak kid, exactly, but it was about time he stood up for himself. He always had his nose in a videogame or a book, and I was worried that the son of one of Philly’s most notorious Mob bosses was going to grow up a target. He needed to learn to defend himself sooner rather than later.

“Of course not, Miss Boucher.”

“So you’ll talk to him?”

“Yeah, definitely. I’ll talk to him.”

She smiled. “Thanks, Liam.”

“Any time, Miss Boucher.”

She paused, looking me in the eye. “Call me Ellie.”

“Okay, Ellie.”

She glanced over at Richie and then back at me, a thoughtful look on her face.

“Can I ask you something else, Liam?”

I shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“I was told by the administrators that Richie’s home life is a little different, and that you’d be the one taking care of him, but I wasn’t told why.”

She looked at me, her face so earnest and sexy, and I almost wanted to tell her the whole truth. I wanted to tell her that my little brother’s mom was a pill-addicted whore who could barely take care of herself, left alone take care of Richie. I wanted to tell her that Richie’s dad was one of the most dangerous bosses in the whole Irish Mob, and that I was both older brother and protector. That I walked the path of the Right People, hoping Richie never would have to.

Instead, I settled for a partial truth.

“Richie’s dad passed two years ago, and his mom’s going through some stuff. So I’ve been helping out.”

She nodded. “That’s really good of you.”

“It’s what you do for family.”

“Well,” she said, smiling. I had the urge to grab her by the hips and find out how she tasted, but that might not be appropriate to do outside an elementary school. “I’ll let you get going, Liam.”

“Sure, and I’m sorry about the fight.”

“Just make sure you talk to him.”

I nodded. She smiled again and walked off, and I stared at her ass as she picked her way through the crowd, greeting parents and waving to kids. I shook my head softly, laughing to myself.

Of course Richie’s teacher would be a knockout.

I looked over at the kid and waved to him. He glanced up from his game, stood, and walked over. He fell into step with me as we headed down the block, walking back toward his mom’s house.

“Your teacher told me you got into a fight,” I said after a short silence.

“Yeah,” he said.

“What happened?”

“He called mom a whore, so I punched him.”

I stifled a laugh. “Kid, you can’t do that in class.”

He looked up at me. “You say I need to defend myself and my family.”

“Yeah, and you did the right thing. But don’t do it at school anymore.”

He shrugged and went back to playing his game. I looked out over the block, smiling to myself, imagining quiet Richie punching some asshole kid in the nose for insulting his pill-head mom.

Richie may have been a pain in the ass, but I was proud of the little shit.

I patted him on the back of the head, and he swatted at my hand, annoyed. I smiled, and we walked slowly together back toward his mom’s house.

The blood still felt like it was caked underneath my fingernails, but it wasn’t so bad. I could handle it. I would have to handle it, for my sake, for Richie’s sake, and even for his mom’s sake.

I had shit to take care of.

I
was exhausted. I never thought I’d work with fourth graders, let alone fourth graders at an inner city public school. But there I was, day in and day out, and I couldn’t have been happier.

Life wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty close. I loved teaching, loved going to work every day, and loved my neighborhood. I had a great dog named Petey and a perfect best friend. No boyfriend, though. No real prospects, either. My job wasn’t exactly conducive to meeting new men, unless you considered the dads of my students.

There was one guy I was interested in, but it would never happen. He was the older brother of one of my students and was more or less the kid’s caretaker. He was gruff and sexy, all ripped muscles and cocky smiles, but it wouldn’t have been appropriate. Plus, there were rumors about him, rumors I didn’t want to get involved with.

Still, the way he looked at me. It was hard not to fantasize about him, at least a little bit. I had never met another guy remotely like him.

The day was warm, only a few weeks into the school year, and I felt good walking back to my apartment. That was another amazing perk: easy commute. I passed by Sarcone’s bakery, the smell of fresh bread overwhelming the sidewalk, and I breathed it deep. I moved south, away from the school, and turned right at the corner ahead.

I briefly wondered what Chelsea was up to but decided against calling her. Chelsea had just moved into my neighborhood and was also starting a new job at a law firm downtown. She wasn’t a lawyer, at least not yet, but she was working as a legal research assistant and was doing pretty well. I loved Chelsea more than anyone in my life. Even a few years ago, when things were pretty dark and I was struggling to make it through the day, she was there for me. When other people from those days slowly drifted away, she stuck around, no matter what. There was only one other person like that, but I hadn’t talked to him in a while.

Yawning, I climbed my stoop, unlocked the front door, and walked upstairs to my apartment. At the sound of my keys in the lock, I heard Petey run up to the door excitedly.

“Okay, Petey, don’t jump on me,” I said, pushing the door open.

Petey was a big black lab, three years old, and a rescue. When I got him from the pound, he was a skinny little thing, but over the last year I had rehabilitated him back into shape. He wagged his tail, excited to see me, sniffing my body and running around me.

“Hi, Petey,” I said, petting his shoulder and moving into the apartment. I pushed my door shut behind me and looked around, sighing.

My place was small but comfortable, the best I could afford on a new teacher’s salary. Clothes were draped over almost every surface, and I was thankful that Petey hadn’t ripped anything up. I felt bad leaving him alone all day, but I stopped by the apartment on my lunch break to take him for a quick walk. I ruffled the hair on his side and patted him as I walked farther into the room.

“Okay, Petey, feeling bored?” I asked him. He sniffed at me in response, running around in circles. He knew it was almost time for his nightly walk.

“Just a second, bud, let me get settled,” I said.

Living alone could be hard sometimes, but Petey made it better. Anyway, it definitely beat finding some strangers on Craigslist, or living with Chelsea. I loved her to death, but she was a slob, and that said a lot coming from me. Plus, she was allergic to dogs, and I couldn’t imagine living without Petey.

I dropped my bag on the couch and walked into the small bedroom, Petey nipping at my knees. I changed into more comfortable clothes, yoga pants and a loose-fitting sweatshirt. I went back out into the kitchen and grabbed a yogurt, pulling off the tab and taking big mouthfuls. Petey was practically having a seizure from anticipation, his tail wagging like crazy. I grinned at him as I finished my small meal.

“Okay, bud, walk time,” I said, and he went nuts.

I picked up two plastic bags from the small container I had on the kitchen counter and pushed them into my sweatshirt pouch. I grabbed his leash from the small wooden pegs I had nailed up next to the front door and looked at him.

“Sit down,” I said. He obeyed, tail wagging like mad. I knelt down next to him and fastened the leash onto his collar.

“Okay,” I said as I opened the front door. He excitedly went out into the hallway and stood there, tail wagging, as I locked the door. I grinned down at him.

“Let’s go over to the art museum today,” I said.

We walked down the steps and pushed out into the cool evening air. I looked down the empty block and started to walk north toward the river.

As we moved along the sidewalk, my thoughts drifted back toward college and the friends I’d lost. I wasn’t sure why, probably because Richie’s older brother reminded me so much of the guy I hadn’t spoken to since we graduated. There was something about the way he held himself, with such easy confidence and grace, and how quickly his cocky smile appeared on his face. Even when that guy Liam was trying to do his best parent impression, he still seemed like an arrogant, caged animal. But like my old friend from school, there was something more to him, something I didn’t really understand.

Back then, I was an addict. Well, I was still an addict, but I was recovering one day at a time. I was two years clean, and although I had slipped a little on going to meetings regularly, I still made it a point to get there at least twice a month. Without AA, I don’t know where I would have been. More importantly, without my friends encouraging me to get help, I would never have even found the courage and the desperation to get help. I was a mess, popping pills and snorting coke and who knew what else, barely sleeping and failing all of my classes. It took one horrible night, one blacked-out and dark moment to force me to turn my shit around, but I did and I never looked back.

It all felt so long ago, but talking with Liam had dredged those memories back up. They weren’t all bad, though they mostly were. More importantly, I had made it, I had survived those awful years. I had been on the path to self-destruction, but I took control of my life and surrendered myself to the program.

Petey squatted down next to a tree and did his business, pulling me out of my memories. I made a face.

“Must be nice, having a human pick up your poop.”

He looked at me and seemed almost guilty. I cleaned up the mess and dropped the bag off in a nearby trashcan, and then I looked around. We were a block away from the art museum, and although Petey had already done his nightly duty, I decided we might as well finish my planned walk. I started moving again, with Petey right next to me, his tail wagging, sniffing every random spot he saw.

Sometimes, I imagined the world through a dog’s eyes. There was the regular layer of everything we usually saw—shadows thrown from a flagpole, heavy green grass, granite shimmering slightly in sunlight, the scarlet red of the sunset—but there was also the smell world. Dogs existed in an entirely different place than we did.

I needed to get out more.

We hugged the sidewalk that curved around the art museum and took a left and headed up toward the river. Statues dotted the walk, but I didn’t bother to look at them. I’d read their plaques a hundred times already, at least. Petey wanted to smell them, but it was getting late and I didn’t want to let him pause for too long.

The place was surprisingly abandoned as we made it down toward the old water company. The sunset looked gorgeous reflected off the water, and the grass and bushes blew softly in the breeze. I shivered for some reason, although I wasn’t very cold. Something felt weird about the scene, but I had no clue why. I glanced around, noting how empty it was, as I made my way up to the railing that overlooked the Schuylkill River.