Page 69 of Grift

Patrick

The Kensington’s house where Jared and his roommate live is high-end. Sleek, modern, and expensive. All I see is the contrast to the small apartment Jessica lived in – lives in, I correct myself – in Cambridge.

Anger roils in my stomach. Yet another way they’ve let her down and failed to give her the same advantages they’ve given her brothers.

For a long minute, I search the neighborhood. The streets are mostly empty, lined with residential parking bumper to bumper. The windows the houses are dark, an occasional flicker of a TV screen lighting an upstairs window.

Across the street, a woman walks a small dog across the block hurriedly with her head down, completely unaware I’m just yards away.

It’s late, well after midnight. I’ve parked several streets away in an untraceable car. Once the night is done, there’ll be nothing to trace me back here. Once I get visual contact with my backup, I’m going in and getting this over with.

Once upon a time, this would have brought me joy. Now, I just feel cold but resolute in delivering justice.

That’s the price I’ll pay for having found real joy.

Real joy that I’m just moments away from letting go. Moments away from severing the ties that bind us together, and setting her free.

This could have gone down several ways. Ultimately, I could have made one phone call and had them both executed without ever getting more blood on my hands.

Unlike my father, I’m handling this myself and doing my own dirty work. Still, when I think about who to go to for backup, it isn’t my brother Callan. Normally, it would be; but not for this job.

Or Finn or Rory. I’m not getting them tangled up in this. Nothing would go wrong. But if it did, I need someone who can handle himself – and someone who understood the consequences of what we’d be doing.

I’d driven out to the apartment where my sister Siobhan’s boyfriend, Kieran Doyle, lived. He throws open the door, shirtless and grinning, a look that dies away in his eyes when he sees me. Doyle and I don’t exactly get along.

Don’t ask me why I’d hated him on sight.

Was it because he’s a Doyle? Partially.

Was it because I thought my sister deserved better? Definitely.

But maybe I’d also seen something of myself in Kieran. He and I have completely different ways of looking at the world. But we’ve both had to do difficult things in the name of our families, and for that, I’d developed a grudging respect for him.

But now, I know he’ll keep her safe no matter what.

“Can we talk?”

I keep it brief and cut straight to the point.

“Christ, and I thought your family was fucked up.” Then he gives me an apologetic, sad smile. “Sorry.”

He speaks to his brother Ronan. Ronan is the head of the Doyle clan, the de facto leader. He’s a tough son of a bitch and exactly who I need to have my back tonight. In the flesh, Ronan’s even bigger than me. One thing we have in common: we both hate scum that hurt women and aren’t afraid to deliver the consequences. He looks up at the house.

“Swanky,” he says sourly. “I’ll get the back.”

As I watch, he wordlessly disappears, dressed in dark clothes that blend perfectly into the night’s edge. He’ll guard the back and get anyone that runs. As for me, I go straight in the front door.

Music is blaring so loud that the neighbors must have to sleep with earplugs, a thought that makes me feel like a crabby old fuck. The entire downstairs is empty. I silently relock the door, throw the bolt, and slide a heavy table perched in the entry way to block it.

Front’s covered. Back’s covered. No one is getting in. Or away.

On the second floor, I find Carter asleep or maybe passed out. I’ll come back for him. The music vibrates down from the top floor, where Jared seems to be listening to music and watching sports with the volume turned way up. The place stinks of weed, and a line of cocaine dusts the edge of the table where his bare feet rest.

“This how you spend Daddy’s money on a Saturday night?” I growl from the darkness.

I don’t know if he hears me or just senses the threat. His head swings around, and I’m gratified to see his face is still horrifically bruised and battered from the beating I gave him. He’s reaching for his phone, tossed carelessly on the table in front of him, when I step into the room with a gun pointed straight at his head.

It takes a minute for his eyes to focus, but when they do, the huge pupils contract down in fear. “Fuck, Carney,” he mutters, but by the time he’s trying to stand, I’ve got a huge gloved hand wrapped around his throat. He gurgles and then goes quiet.

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