Now he wanted to bring Tara into the fold, and to mine her for whatever secrets she held about what her father did for a living.
But she didn’t know a goddamn thing. I was sure of that, surer than anything else, and the Don didn’t realize it. He lay in his hospital bed, thinking Tara held the key to unlocking the sex trade, and all he had to do was sacrifice my dignity to get it.
I squeezed my eyes shut then opened them again and put the car into gear.
“Where are we going?” Tara asked.
“Moving down the block,” I said then leaned across the seat and put my hand on her leg. I pulled her hair toward me and made her tilt her chin up. “You’ve got to promise me something.”
“Yeah?” she asked, voice slightly strangled.
“Never talk to Ronan again,” I said. “Stay away from him. Don’t leave my sight until this is over.”
“I won’t,” she said. “I didn’t mean to. Now let me go, you’re hurting me.”
I kissed her and tightened my grip in her hair. She gasped and made a slight moaning groan while I held her there. I broke the kiss off and released her, leaning back in my seat.
She stared at me, chewing on her lip. “What now?” she asked.
“Now we watch for Ronan to come back out then follow him,” I said.
“Are we going to hurt him?” she asked, sounding slightly worried.
I shook my head. “No, he’s not my target. But I might hurt someone around him.” I glanced at her and wondered how much she gave a shit about Ronan, and what they’d talked about. Maybe he would be worth picking up if I got the chance, though Ronan was not some common street soldiers. He was dangerous, and I thought I could take him in a fight, but it wouldn’t be easy.
Better not to risk it then. Find an easier target, and go from there.
She didn’t answer, and we went back to waiting for them to come out.
16
Tara
The rest of that night was a frenzy. We tailed after Ronan until midnight, when he finally disappeared into a house a quiet neighborhood deep in West Philly. Ewan watched the front for a while before calling it a night.
We didn’t talk much back at the apartment, and I fell asleep not long after that. I had vivid dreams of Ewan breaking into my house and burning all my things, then burning me in the process, and the whole time I liked it, the fire felt like pleasure on my skin, like feathers tickling the hairs on my arms, and I wanted him to keep burning me forever.
He woke me up early the next morning. “Wear something comfortable,” he said, and left to make coffee. We drove out not long later and parked near that house again. It looked nicer in the daylight, with a black front door and matching shutters. The front stoop looked new, and the facade was clean and fresh, like it’d been refinished in the last few years. The rest of the neighborhood was in decent shape, but not as nice as that house.
“You think he lives here?” I asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’m not sure though.”
Another silence. I sipped coffee. He stared at the door. I wanted to crack his head open and read his mind like a book.
I couldn’t understand his obsession with all this. It was like he didn’t care about life and death. He talked about killing only the bad people, but he had to see how absurd that was. All these men were bad, including his own Valentino family, and if he had cared at all about justice or any of that crap, he’d go after them all, or he’d join the police, or something like that.
Instead, he went right on killing. “I want you to admit something to me,” I said, watching his reaction carefully.
“All right,” he said. “But I don’t know if I can do that.”
“You kill people because you love your family,” I said. “Not because of some sense of justice or whatever it is you think.”
He tilted his head. “You’re not wrong, but believe it or not, people can have more than one reason for doing something.”
“But I don’t think you do,” I said, pressing. “I think the Don took you in as a boy, and now you feel like you owe him your life and your soul. But I don’t think you owe him all that, Ewan.”
“Yeah?” He turned to me, eyes suddenly hard. “What do you think, then?”
“He saved you back then,” I said, looking away, unable to take his angry, hurt glare. “That doesn’t mean he owns you. I feel like I owe you a debt, but do you own me?”
“No,” he said. “Although I didn’t save you.”
“You showed me what my father really is. Living with him and not knowing—that would’ve been worse than this.” I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears.
When I opened them again, his expression softened, and he touched my knee. “I know you’re struggling with this,” he said. “There are no easy answers. I am what I am, and I don’t think I’ll ever change.”
“You could,” I said.
“But I don’t think I will. I kill for my family for a thousand reasons, and I’ll keep on doing it until I can’t anymore.”
I nodded a little and had to stare out the window again. I believed him, really heard the conviction in his voice, and it broke my heart. He was a good man, deep down, I had to believe that—otherwise he wouldn’t have cared so much about trafficked women. He knew what it meant to suffer, and he went through some horrible things as a child, but maybe he was simply broken, and no matter what happened, nothing would put him back together.
I couldn’t do it. I knew that, knew it with all of
