Owned by the Beast Page 3

  I spent a couple of days beating myself up over it before I finally pulled myself together. I vowed to do whatever it took to get Mama and Papa out of their predicament. After a lot of thought, I could only come up with one possible option: I would go straight to the capo of the mob and throw myself on his mercy. Whatever it took to square my debt and save my parents, I was willing to do.

  ***

  And that was how I ended up in that little room with Dario Moretti, waiting for him to tell me what he wanted.

  “I’m going to give you very specific instructions,” said Moretti. “If you follow them to the letter, I assure you, your debt will be paid and your parents will have nothing to fear from us.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded. Whatever it takes, I reminded myself.

  As it turned out, what he wanted was the last thing I ever expected.

  Chapter 3

  Duncan

  The early crowd was just starting to file into the Vines as Gael and I arrived. There were usually two types of patrons on weekend nights, the early crowd and the late crowd. The ones who came in before nine o’clock were the people associated with The Outfit who were familiar with what we did and who may even have done certain jobs for us. They enjoyed the feeling of status that came with being our associates, of drinking near us and hanging out with others like themselves. They’d spend the evening spinning bullshit stories about fights that never happened (which they always won, of course) and girlfriends who were all gorgeous nymphomaniacs that never seemed to be able to join their men at the Vines because of prior commitments. In truth, they either didn’t exist, or if they did, the guys came to the club to get away from them.

  The late crowd was how the Vines made its real money. They were the ones who had money and were willing to spend it on high-end booze. They didn’t know or care about the Outfit, and that was just how we liked it.

  As we made our way through the crowd, they all looked up and waved at us, calling out greetings to show their respect. As usual, I ignored them while Gael grinned his carnival barker grin, acknowledging everyone and making sure they felt like they’d been seen. He was truly a master of manipulating people. I have no doubt he could have charmed Sinatra himself.

  But his smile vanished as soon as we got into the back lounge that served as the Outfit’s inner sanctum; this meeting was going to be all business. Liam and Kieran Shea were already there which we expected. The two of them were thick as thieves, and acted as a sort of counterbalance in the Outfit to Gael and myself, except that we were sharks and those two were more like dolphins. Sure, we all might have looked alike from the shore, but one pair of us was a hell of a lot deadlier than the other.

  Liam and Kieran nodded in greeting as we sat down. Kieran poured us each a drink from the bottle of Johnny Walker’s Kilmarnock that Liam had brought as a peace offering when he returned to the fold with Kieran and Kaila. It was good stuff, over a thousand bucks a bottle, and Gael and I sipped it with the appropriate respect. It was all a ritual that helped us work together despite the fact we neither liked nor trusted each other.

  One thing we could agree on, though, was the reason we were there. At least, the reason Liam and Kieran thought we were there.

  “This meeting has been a long time coming,” said Liam, raising his glass. “Eamon belongs in the inner circle.”

  The rest of us raised our glasses in return, then sipped again. Eamon Lynch had been one of the Outfit’s foot soldiers for more than ten years, and he’d proved himself to be an asset. He started out as one of the early crowd outside, then worked his way up. If he’d been book smart, he could have parlayed his huge size into a college football scholarship, maybe even gone on to an NFL career, but he wasn’t. Instead, he became our top enforcer, collecting payments and making sure that the Vines was completely secure whenever we met here.

  But then he took a bullet a few weeks earlier defending our turf from some bikers who came in from Columbus. That was enough to elevate him from trusted soldier to a member of the inner circle. The meeting was a formality to cast our votes and then induct Eamon.

  “Hear, hear,” said Gael, knocking back the rest of his whiskey. “He’ll be a welcome addition.”

  I admit, I was surprised when Gael had told me he agreed with Liam’s proposal. After all, Eamon had joined Kieran in helping Liam escape from us. That had been enough to turn me against him instantly, but as always, Gael told me not to take things personally. As much as we pretended to be a family, the Outfit was really a business, and you don’t take things personally in business.

  “All right then,” said Liam. “How do you vote on bringing Eamon into the circle?”

  Gael, Kieran and I all answered “Aye.”

  “It’s unanimous, then,” said Liam. “Let’s bring him in.”

  Kieran opened the door and Eamon entered, dressed in the navy blue suit he usually wore while handling security at the club. The faint limp he’d been sporting since being shot was fading but still noticeable.

  “You need something?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

  Liam poured another round of the Kilmarnock, adding a fifth glass for Eamon and handing it to the big man.

  “Welcome to the inner circle,” he said.

  Eamon’s eyes were wide. “Are you serious?”

  The rest of us raised our glasses in a toast, and he followed suit, though he still looked shocked. He finished his whiskey in a single swallow.

  “Steady on there, big guy,” Gael chuckled. “That’s the good stuff. You don’t chug it.”

  Eamon blushed, but Liam laughed and slapped him on his beefy arm.

  “You’ve earned it, my friend,” he said. “You’ve proved you’re not just muscle. You’ve got brains and you’ve got heart, and the Outfit needs both.”

  Eamon was fighting hard to keep his emotions from showing on his face. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then don’t say anything.” Gael stood up and refilled his glass. “Because we’ve got important business to attend to, and now that you’re here with us, and officially in the circle, we can get down to it.”

  “Business?” Kieran looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

  Gael shot me a quick glance before continuing. I’d seen that look a hundred times over the years: it told me to keep my mouth shut, but to back him up if needed.

  “As we all know, the Outfit is currently in the shit books with the Russians,” he said. “And that is not a place we want to be.”

  I watched a shadow cross Liam’s face as the implied insult sank in.

  “Where are you getting that from?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even. “You know as well as I do that Sergei Kalashov was a loose cannon, even for the Russians. We haven’t heard anything from them since I took him out. They’re probably glad they didn’t have to do it themselves.”

  That was true, at least as far as I knew. But Gael always had more information than I did because he had a network of people constantly feeding him intelligence. Technically, Liam was the head of the Outfit by birth, but in practice, it was Gael who did all of the work.

  “We haven’t heard from the Russians, no,” said Gael. “But Dario Moretti and his people have, and what they told me is sobering.”

  “Wait a minute.” Liam gave Gael a piercing look. “What the hell are you doing talking to the Italians?”

  “I’m saving your ass is what I’m doing. You think the Russians are just going to roll over and let us take out Kalashov without retaliating?”

  “They haven’t responded yet,” Liam protested.

  “Of course they did!” Gael was showing some anger now, too. “You honestly think your girlfriend’s boss died of natural causes? That was just the Russians trying to keep the heat off. But they’re not going to stay quiet for long.”

  “Wait, wait,” said Kieran, holding up his hands in an obvious effort to calm things down. “You’re saying the Russians killed Andrew Smit
h?”

  Liam was staring intensely at Gael now. “No way,” he said. “That’s not how they operate. Besides, Andrew had a heart condition. He told Kaila about it months ago.”

  “Moretti got the intel from a source he trusts,” said Gael. “And he passed it along to me as a favor.”

  “We get favors from the fucking Italians now?” Liam snapped. “Since when?”

  “Since you led the Outfit into a war with the Russians!” Gael roared. It was loud enough to send a jolt of adrenaline through me, and it appeared to shock the others, too. “All because you had to get revenge on Kalashov for your girlfriend!”

  “Leave Kaila out of this,” Liam warned. “It has nothing to do with her.”

  “It has everything to do with her, Liam! She brought this on us, and I’m the one who has to deal with it, since you seem to be incapable of even paying attention to what’s going on! You’re so far up your woman’s cooch that you’re missing the big picture!”

  It was true; I’d noticed it myself. Liam and Kaila had been spending all their time together for weeks now. I thought it was because her boss had died, but that didn’t really explain things.

  Liam’s gaze was suddenly fiery, and I tensed up, ready to pounce if he tried anything with Gael. He must have seen me, because he let himself relax just a bit. He knew he was no match for me. But before Liam could say anything, Gael beat him to the punch.

  “I apologize,” he said. “That was disrespectful of me. But you can see how I’m a little agitated about having to clean up your mess for a second time, Liam. This is the reason I had to meet with Moretti, and it’s the reason why the two of us came up with a plan for our two families to come together.”

  Liam and Kieran looked completely gobsmacked by what they’d just heard. Eamon’s face didn’t betray anything, but I assumed he was surprised, too. It wasn’t every day that someone suggests you team up with your enemy.

  “Wait a minute,” said Kieran. “Why would the Italians do us any favors? I can’t see why they’d even tell you about Smith, let alone offer to take on the Russians with us!”

  “My father would never have stood for this,” Liam said coldly.

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Gael. “Your father understood that, even if you don’t. If the Russians go to war with us, we’re dead. We can’t take them on here in Cleveland on our own. Maybe we could have back in the day in Boston, but we just don’t have what we need now. And Moretti understands that if the Outfit goes down, they’re next in the line of fire.”

  There was silence for several seconds as the men digested what they’d just heard. Meanwhile, Gael glanced over at me and gave me a faint smile.

  “Anything this big has to be put to a vote,” said Liam. “I vote no.”

  “So do I,” said Kieran. “There’s got to be another way.”

  Gael nodded, not betraying any emotion. “Two nays. Obviously, I vote yes, and so does Duncan.”

  It irked me for a moment that he didn’t even ask before he spoke for me, but the feeling soon passed. It had come down to a tie, as I assumed Gael knew it would. He turned to the newest member of the inner circle, Eamon. How would he vote? Part of me thought he’d go along with Liam, but another part of me knew that Gael wouldn’t take a step like this without knowing the outcome first.

  “Well, Eamon, it’s your first day and you’re already casting the deciding vote,” said Gael. “And it’s as important a decision as the Outfit has ever had to make. What say you?”

  Eamon appeared to mull it over for a few moments before nodding. “I say yes. I think we need to do it.”

  Liam and Kieran both looked like they had been gut-punched, but instead of smiling over his victory, Gael looked grave.

  “As you know, the vote is binding,” he said. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to associate directly with the Italians. I’ll work out the details with Moretti and keep you all apprised. With any luck, the Russians will hear about the alliance and back down, knowing they can’t take on both of us. But we can’t count on that.”

  Liam was scowling as if he had a mouthful of skunk spray, but he kept quiet. I wondered what was making him so agitated—was it the fact that Gael had beaten him, or something else?

  Surprisingly, Gael put a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, son,” he said. “I’ll make sure there’s a security detail on Kaila twenty-four hours a day. If there is a war, I promise you she won’t be one of the casualties.”

  That seemed to placate Liam. He let go of the breath he’d been holding and nodded.

  “I appreciate that,” he said, his voice low. “Kaila was victimized enough by Kalashov and his people.”

  With that, he and Kieran settled in a corner to talk while Gael walked over to me. Eamon stood by himself, seemingly unsure of who he should be standing with.

  “Follow Liam when he leaves,” Gael said in my ear.

  I did as I was told, and when Liam finally made his exit, I tailed him into the hallway and stood in an alcove as he pulled out his cell phone. He called Kaila, as I suspected, and told her what had happened, with Andrew Smith and Moretti and the possibility of war with the Russians. Gael probably would have gone ballistic if he knew how much Liam was telling her, but I decided to keep it to myself. Now wasn’t the time for even more internal fighting.

  “I can’t believe Eamon,” he said into the phone, anger in his voice. “I never would have thought he’d vote against me like that, and on his first day in the circle. It hurts. Hell, I was the one who brought him into the Outfit in the first place. The only reason he had a vote in the first place was because of me.”

  I shook my head. It was no surprise to me that Eamon voted the way he did, and Liam’s shock really highlighted just how out of touch he’d been lately.

  “I know, I was shocked when he told me about Andrew, too,” Liam continued. “If this thing with the Russians is real, and we end up going to war, things are going to get ugly. But Gael swore to protect you, and that’s what I care about most right now. I know he’ll keep his word.”

  Again, he was putting a woman ahead of the Outfit. It grated on me. Of course, that was before I met Aria and everything changed.

  I went on listening to Liam’s side of the conversation for a few more minutes before deciding to leave. I was just about to sneak out of the alcove when I heard something that stopped me cold.

  “No,” Liam said into the phone. His voice was lower now. “I didn’t tell Gael, or any of them.”

  Didn’t tell us what? I wondered, but the answer came almost instantly.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “none of them need to know that we’re having a baby.”

  ***

  Of course I thought about telling Gael when we met up in the lounge alone later on, but something deep down told me it wasn’t the right time. Looking back, I’m glad I kept it to myself. Besides, there was so much going on at once that I had to stay focused on what I had to do.

  “You’re ready for tonight?” Gael had loosened his tie and was downing yet another glass of the Kilmarnock.

  “You know I am,” I said. The details were as fresh in my mind as they were when Moretti had passed me the folder hours earlier.

  “Good, because everything is going to hinge on tonight. Once that’s out of the way, we’re free to get moving on the plan.”

  Maybe it was just the stress of the day, but I suddenly found myself annoyed at Gael.

  “What is the plan, boss?” I could hear more than a little anger in my voice. “If we’re going to war with the Russians, I need to prepare. And if you want me to work with the Italians, I need to get on top of that, too.”

  Gael grinned and patted my shoulder, just as he had that day he met me in the vacant lot back in Boston.

  “Don’t worry, son,” he said. “After tonight, it’ll all be clear to you, and together we can start taking the Outfit in the direction it needs to go.”

>   “Whatever you say, boss.”

  He grinned. “That’s right: whatever I say. And right now, I say it’s time for you to go to work.”

  Chapter 4

  Aria

  It’s not easy to concentrate when you’re sitting in a tiny, dark closet, but that’s what I did.

  I went over the story at least a dozen times, trying to focus as I breathed in the carbon dioxide I’d just breathed out. The closet was barely enough to accommodate my crouched frame. It might have been a little better if I wasn’t almost six feet and built like a volleyball player, but I was. And the tight dress wasn’t making things any easier.

  His name is Cliff, I repeated in my head. Cliff Esterhouse. We’ve been dating for three months. He’s a businessman. I don’t know what he does, something in import-export with Canada.

  The rest of the story I knew by heart, so I didn’t have to repeat it. The hard part was going to be acting it out, but I was determined to do it. Just in case I wasn’t, Dario Moretti made sure to tell me, right before I left with one of his men, that my parents’ future depended on it. Something about the way he said it sent a knife through my belly and made me wonder if he was just talking about the money or something worse.

  I checked my phone in the dark and the clock told me I’d been sitting in the closet for over an hour. Moretti had been adamant that I get in the closet as soon as his man let me into the apartment, and that I stay there until I got “the signal.” When I asked him what the signal was going to be, he just smiled and told me that I’d know it when it came.

  The apartment itself—at least as much as I got to see of it before I rushed into the hall closet—was amazing. It had high ceilings and ultra-modern furnishings that practically screamed rich bachelor, and there was a panoramic view of Edgemont. Whoever lived there (Cliff, I reminded myself, his name is Cliff) had a lifestyle I could only ever live in my dreams. But I pushed all that aside as I took my perch inside the closet, hunkered down under Cliff’s jackets, and started going over the story in my head. I had to stay focused.