Page 15 of Black Sheep

Reluctantly, I refocus on the macabre words written for a child who could still be alive. After a few sick lines celebrating Gary’s life, I force myself to return to the beginning. I notice the date set three weeks from now.

Relief punches through me, and my whole body trembles with it. “He’s not…” I stop and swallow. “He’s okay?”

“For the time being. He’s joining his father and me for golf next week. I promised Bob I would teach Gary how to swing properly. But I could just as easily be helping Bob arrange a double funeral for his wife and son if you don’t get me what I want.” He nods to the screen.

This time it’s Sheila approaching the driver secretly filming her. The gun with the silencer is in his lap as he asks for directions, which she happily supplies. I detest the snooty, know-it-all housewife, but the last thing I wish for is her death.

“Okay.” My voice is as weak as my legs. I clear my throat before I say the words he wants to hear. “I’ll give it one more try.”

Finnan’s smile is sinister personified. “I need you to do more than try, my dear. My son needs to be brought back into the fold sooner rather than later. Make it happen or Sheila and her son will only be the start of your worries.”

I drag in a breath. “Okay, you win. I’ll get you what you want.”

With a flick of his wrist, the TV retreats into its panel. Finnan’s features settle back into the twisted, deceptive affection.

“Before you think me unreasonable, I have another way to get you access to Axel.” He slides a file across the desk. “That’s a membership to one of his clubs. Have to hand it to the boy, when he’s not busy being a fucking pain in my ass, he has a half-decent brain. At least he did when he came up with the idea for this club.” His gaze rests in the middle distance for a moment, a memory slowly hardening his face. “Shame he can’t see that he owes it all to me.”

I pick up the file. “Can I go now?”

He focuses on me. After a moment, he nods. “I’ll let you exercise your discretion as to when you want to use that. But whatever you do, I want to hear from him by this time next week.”

I stumble out of the den on weak legs. Shutting the door behind me, I gasp in a breath, the sound echoing in the long, silent hallway. My lungs burn, and my vision blurs. I’m crying. I lift hesitant fingers to my face, surprised.

Dear God, when was the last time I cried? The day I buried my father?

No. On that particular occasion, shock and horror were the paramount emotions. With my universe shifting relentlessly on its axis, there had been room for very little else. But I’d also harbored deep resentment against my father because I knew that, had he stayed put on his side of the mob divide in Boston, he would still be alive and my mother would be safe.

Michael McCarthy’s greed was what brought us onto Finnan Rutherford’s radar in the first place.

An upper-level Southie mafia jock from the roughest part of Boston, he rose in the ranks very soon after marrying my mother, the daughter of the head of the Boston Irish mob. The fact that my grandfather died shortly before that marriage happened isn’t a fact I dwell on, even though I’ve heard the rumors that my father killed my grandfather to grab the throne and got my mother pregnant almost immediately to solidify his position. Except the empire he usurped was already on its last legs when he assumed the throne.

With the rise of Eastern European mafia outfits on the East Coast, not a lot of attention was paid to the once prominent, but now dying, Irish mob. My father made a few rash attempts to gain back that prominence, losing a few of his men through defection, a few more through old-fashioned shootouts, and a whole load of money and real estate in the process.

That was when he foolishly decided to look beyond his immediate borders and chose to make clandestine moves in Finnan Rutherford’s New Jersey and Connecticut territories.

As Finnan took pleasure in informing me years later, he’d let my father encroach, slowly drawing him into his trap. Predictably, my father grew bolder, greedier, not realizing he was dealing with a much more cunning, even greedier opponent.

Ultimately, Michael McCarthy paid for his miscalculation with his life. My mother barely escaped with hers. That life still hangs in the balance depending on whether I toe Finnan’s line or not.

Which leaves little room for stupid tears now. I swipe my hand over my cheeks and lurch away from the door. The sweeping staircase leading up to my room on the third floor feels like it’s a million miles away. Halfway there, I stop and kick off my shoes. Scooping them up, I run the rest of the way. Attempting to flee my demons will only make them laugh louder, but I don’t care.

In the false sanctuary of my room, I slam and lock the door, a useless action since I’ll have no choice but to open it again should Finnan demand entry. I drop my shoes and the file on the floor. My dress and underwear come off next, and I stumble into the bathroom naked.

The scalding water pounds me for fifteen minutes before my trembling ceases. With a vicious twist, I yank the tap to cold and will clarity back into my mind.

Tears won’t save me or any other person on Finnan’s sadistic radar. For now, all I can do is find a way to give him what he wants.

Axel.

The full-body shudder that runs through me has nothing to do with the cold water. It’s a physical manifestation of the raw hate that burns in my soul for the youngest Rutherford son.

I don’t delude myself into thinking hate is the only emotion I feel for Axel. From the moment I set eyes on him, my sensation cauldron was set to overflow. Even at age nine, I knew that the boy with intense, unnerving gray eyes, staring at me from across the Thanksgiving banquet table in my parents’ house, held my very existence in his twelve-year-old hands.

That boy grew into a man I was prepared to lay down my life for.

The man whose name I happily etched on my skin in a twisted fit of rebellion and ecstasy, never once guessing he was merely playing a role in my life. That the black sheep Rutherford was staging a sick, brutally evil game that was destined to end one way. With my father dead, my mother on life support, and my soul in tatters.

He succeeded. Then he walked away, leaving me at the mercy of those who were too eager to finish me off.

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