11
Ewan
The park buzzed around me. Families moved together in small groups along the blacktop and couples lounged on blankets in the sun. A small boy in blue shorts and a t-shirt with dinosaurs skittered past, his knees covered in scabs and bruises, laughing as his sister in pink and green chased him with a bubble gun. I stretched my legs out and tilted my chin up toward the sunlight that dipped through the trees, dappling the ground.
I felt good. Last night I killed a man in a toilet bowl then spent hours fucking Tara until she passed out with exhaustion. This morning, she was distant and a little cagey, but I wasn’t surprised. She did yoga, drank coffee, and didn’t seem surprised when I told her I had some errands to run, and to sit tight.
I worried I pushed things too fast. She wanted it as much as I did, that much was obvious—when she came out in that towel and stared at me with her mouth hanging open, water dripping down onto the floor beneath her, I knew she wanted to me to rip her to pieces. I gave her what she needed and left her body aching and quivering with pleasure, and yet I was afraid that the trauma she went through in that bathroom, watching a man die for the first time, getting attacked, I worried it would leave a lasting scar.
Not that it would stop me from taking my pleasure from her. No, last night was the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. There was so much more I wanted from her, and so much more I’d have.
Dean appeared at the far end of the park and ambled toward me in a pair of tight joggers, sneakers, and an expensive-looking sweater. His hair was pushed back, and dark sunglasses obscured his eyes. He sat down with a sigh and crossed his legs. I didn’t look at him, and he put an arm along the back of the bench, scanning the people nearby.
“Heard you had an interesting night last night,” he said.
“Healys came for Tara,” I said.
Dean grunted. “Did you have to kill him?”
I ground my teeth. “He hurt Tara. That was his mistake.”
“Still.” Dean made a face. “Drowned him in a toilet? That’s pretty intense, even for you.”
“It was more convenient than anything else.” I looked at him. “What’s the word from your father?”
He waved a hand. “He’s not mad, if you’re worried about that,” Dean said. “Obviously, he doesn’t want you running around town murdering anyone you feel like, but this was a special occasion.”
I grunted a laugh. He made it sound like it was a wedding or an anniversary, instead of an ambush. “They’re going to keep coming,” I said after a short silence as a couple of young guys in boat shoes ambled past drinking coffee and looking hungover. “I think they’re following me.”
“That’s their mistake then,” Dean said. “What is it about this girl, anyway? She’s pretty and all, but I don’t get it.”
I didn’t answer that and stared over at the trees as the wind moved through their branches. I knew why I wanted her and what she made me feel, but I didn’t totally get why Colm Healy would insist on taking her away from me. He knew my reputation, and he knew it wouldn’t be easy, and yet he sent one of his soldiers to take what was mine.
All for Tara. She had nothing to do with her father’s business as far as I could tell, so it didn’t make all that much sense, unless Colm didn’t really give a fuck about her at all. The war was simmering below the surface, and this could simply be another attempt at making the Valentino family look weak. Colm wanted to move his family into our territory, but first he had to make the local guys, the street-level drug pushers and thugs and thieves, think that the Healy family could protect them better than the Valentino family could. It was a matter of showing strength and making them think the Valentinos would lose in a fight.
We wouldn’t, but maybe he thought if he could take Tara away from one of the Valentinos’ strongest killers, then maybe that would prove that his family had more guts and strength than the city realized.
Even still, it was a bad gamble, and one young solder already paid for it.
“I’m not sure you need to understand,” I said. “All I know is, your father wants me to marry her, and Colm Healy wants to steal her away. I’m in the middle of this shit, and I don’t like it.”
“It won’t last forever,” he said, and took off the sunglasses. He looked tired, with thick bags beneath his eyes. “The Healys will get bored and move on. And my father will accept that you’re as loyal at they come.”
I let out a long sigh and leaned my head back. “Remember when your dad said he’d pay for my college, if I wanted to go?”
“I haven’t thought about that in a long time,” Dean said, sounding amused. “You had good grades in school, right?”
“Yeah, I did. I applied to a few places. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No, you didn’t,” he said, sounding surprised. “Did you get in anywhere?”
“Temple,” I said. “Penn State. West Chester, Kutztown, and Pittsburgh.”
“Holy shit,” he said and laughed. “What the fuck were you thinking, staying here? You could’ve gotten out, man.”
“This was all I knew,” I said, not looking at him. He was like a brother to me back then, and still was in a lot of ways, but we’d grown apart over the years. We were still close, but not like we were back then.
I couldn’t imagine leaving the Valentino family, not
