A Bloody Kingdom (Ruthless People Book 4) (38 page)

I understood the words coming out of her mouth, I just didn’t like them.

“Why…we have always talked through our plans together…why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you love me too much, and you love our children just as much as I do. If I told you…shared this…you would have told me to wait until they were older. Or worse, you would have agreed and not been able to fake the pain. I saw you when Sedric died; you could barely function. I didn’t go through all of this just for there to be doubts. Not just with the city, but with our family. Declan would have caught on within the day, he would have spoken to Cora. Cora would be relaxed and Neal and Mina would understand. I needed you to sell it. Yes, I used you, and I’m sorry. This wasn’t a nuclear bomb, it was a drone strike….I even had to kill Frankie. It’s just me, you, and Evelyn who know.”

I rubbed my face, my brain feeling like it was going to explode. “So what am I supposed to do, fake my death too and we run away together?”

“I said I’m cold, not heartless. You can’t leave our kids now. They are still too young, plus people would suspect something was off.”

Yes, my dead-alive wife was insane; I was now positive. “So you want me to stay with our kids until they are ready? And where will you be, eating gnocchi while I play single dad?”

She made a face at me. “You are really taking the fun out of my gnocchi.”

“Melody!”

“Yes!” she snapped back. “I’m going to be in the shadows, watching you and our kids grow up but never there. And when you think Ethan’s ready, we will leave. I won’t leave you unless you ask me to…I hope you don’t. You are looking at the small things; I’m looking at the big picture. The only way we get out happily is if we get out early.”

“Melody, you’re talking about years!”

“I can wait for you Liam because I plan on living a very long life. With no one searching for me, I can watch over all of you—”

“I need air,” I whispered, getting up and moving toward the door. Like a vampire hiding from the sun, she moved toward the corner.

“No one can see me,” she said again.

Rolling my eyes, I opened the door and closed it behind me.

“Perfect timing, I made your favorite snack,” my mother said to me, holding up the red Jell-O in a glass jar.

“Mother, the world has just shifted under my feet—”

“Let’s talk privately.” She linked arms with me, taking me toward her room. She whispered, “Pretend to still look sad.”

Dear God…help me, I’m surrounded by madwomen.

When I walked into her room, the first thing I noticed were all the photos she had pinned up on her wall. Every family event and school portrait were up there, a lot of them with my father. I hadn’t gone into her room in…I couldn’t even remember.

“I look at this every morning to get me through the day,” she said, taking a spoonful of Jell-O. “It works on most days now, but other days it’s just as bad as the day your father left me. You understand that pain now, correct?”

I took the bowl from her. “She lied. You both lied. However, for her to come up with something like this…it’s the most selfish thing she has ever done. It negates all the good she has ever done as a mother. No good mother could do this…it’s cruel.”

“Don’t speak for mothers until you carry a child for nine months and go through hours of labor just to push their fat head out,” she snapped before taking a deep breath. “It’s hard to see now when you look at Ethan, Wyatt, and Dona. Their pain trumps everything. They’re still young. I ache for them and just when I feel like I cannot bear to look at their faces, I remember your father. He didn’t become the Ceann na Conairte without almost losing everything. You suffered as a child, were hunted so many times—”

“What are you talking about?”
Was I hunted?

“Your father wanted you all to go school. Do you know how many times he stepped in to stop snipers, kidnappers, people who hated us so badly and just wanted to spill Callahan blood? The world is cold, dirty, painful, and bloody. Your kids need to know that or else they will die, and I refuse to put anyone else from this family in a grave before I go. My guilt over your father keeps me up sometimes.”

“Guilt?”

She nodded, reaching out to touch his photo. “Remember when I said your father gave me the best gift?”

“Yeah, you never said what it was, though.”

“Control,” she answered. “What Melody did, he planned to do years ago. ‘Just tell me when you are ready to say goodbye and we will disappear.’ He said that from the very beginning, and he would have left everything. We would make it out of this life when no one else in this family could. Each time, he was ready to leave—your sixteenth birthday after you got better, your eighteenth birthday when you were an adult, your twenty-first birthday, even the week after your marriage to Melody—he said we should go, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave you all yet, not after missing so much of you as children. I told myself just a little bit more time. Let’s wait another day, which became another year. Then next thing I know your father’s blood is all over me and he’s gone. No more days of anything. Every last child of Shamus and Margaret Callahan murdered. If your father came back to me today after all these years, told me he did it for me, I’d slap him, yeah, and then I’d kiss him and never let go. For the first time in my life I’m jealous of my own son, because if I could choose, it wouldn’t be Melody who came back…”

She bit her bottom lip and blinked back her tears, placing her head on the wall over his picture. I said nothing; there was nothing I could say. Placing the Jell-O on her dresser, I hugged her. I wasn’t sure if it was her or me who had lost weight, but I didn’t like how tiny she felt.

“Go, Liam, please, it’s been a long day.”

“Ma…okay.” I didn’t know what else to say to her, so I just kissed her head and gripped my cane as we limped to the door.

When I stepped out, Declan was waiting for me, leaning against the wall with a bottle of brandy in his hand and Irish cakes.

“When my parents died, I remember you brought me these…” He forced a smile.

“I remember bringing fruit punch, not brandy,” I whispered.

He shrugged. “I figured you’d want something stronger.”

For the first time, I didn’t want to drink. My mind was too hazy as it was…I knew he wanted to comfort me, but I couldn’t accept it right then.

“Later, Declan.” That was all I could say before turning from him.

“You turned the cameras off in your room,” he stated. I hadn’t done that, but I had a feeling I knew who had. “Don’t do anything…don’t make us bury you too.”

I tried to think of the right words.

“Liam.”

“I promised my kids. I’m going to be here in the morning. Just…go,” I said, but I was the one that wandered back into my room.

Locking the door behind me, I glanced around but she wasn’t there. Part of me believed I had lost my mind, that she had pushed me too far. This hurt too much…and yet I still searched for her. She was an obsession. We were both insane. The way we lived our lives, the way we took others’ lives, the way we loved…none of it was normal.

“How did you know I would be in here?” she whispered, sitting the corner of her closet, a bottle of wine in front of her, though she wasn’t drinking it.

“God knows you love your shoes,” I replied. “You aren’t going to drink? Tell me the new plot of
Las Pasiones de Melody
.”

She smiled, brushing her hair behind her ears. “I want to, but if I get drunk, I’m going to go to the kids; I’m barely holding on. It isn’t like when I disappeared last time, Liam. There is no hope. I deleted myself.”

“At least you went out at the top of your game,” I muttered, staring down at her. The whole city loved her even more now than they had while she was alive…people were cruel like that.

“The first day, I almost gave in and came back,” she confessed.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Your mother stopped me.”

Thanks for that, Ma…
I huffed, gripping the cane beside me tighter.

“If you’re against this, Liam, I’m not going to make it—”

“So you figured you’d force me? Like always? Just act first and he’ll forgive me? Is that what you thought? Everything we had, you destroyed it…you destroyed me. Every time I look back, I see myself chasing after you. I’m exhausted. I’m tired of chasing you, Melody.”

“Okay,” she whispered, getting up and walking past me. “I’ll be out of the city—”

Grabbing her arm, I wanted to smack her. “How is it possible for you to keep walking away from me so easily, goddamn it?!”

“Easy?” She ripped her arm away. “Nothing is easy for me, Liam. NOTHING! You—”

Kissing her was like coming up for air. Feeling her body pressed up against mine jump started my heart and in that moment, nothing was important because she was there…she was alive.

MELODY

DAY 8

Throughout my life, I had been called a lot of things.

Bitch.

Whore.

Cunt.

Monster.

Devil.

Witch.

Heartless.

The list went on. Since childhood, I pushed myself. For my father, for the family business, for everyone, I hardened myself to the point that even I wasn’t sure if I had a heart anymore. Then I met him, and bit by bit, the stone surrounding me cracked. I fought it. I fought him because I need to be strong. The world was not meant for women. The last thing I ever wanted to be was one of those women in romance novels that needed to be rescued or who ruined themselves for men.

There is no riding off into the sunset.

There are no happily ever afters.

Life was pain and you had to deal with it.

Those were the lessons my father had taught me, and I’d never once questioned them until the day I met him. It was disgusting and horrible…after all the fighting and blood and training, I was a woman just like everyone else and I wanted my happily ever after. I wanted him.

“How am I supposed to hide you away?” he whispered as his head rested on my bare chest. I ran my hands through his hair.

“We’ll figure it out… Eventually, everyone will think you’ve just gotten a mistress,” I replied.

He laughed. “You’ve been claiming to be my wife and mistress since we got married.”

“That’s because I knew I would stress you out more than having both. Melody Callahan, I’m like a box of chocolates: you never know what type of woman I’ll be next.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“How can you know when I don’t even know?”

He sat up, looking down at me. “No matter what happens, you are still my woman. That is a very special, single edition box of chocolates.”

Placing my hand over his chest, I bit my lip.

It’s okay. We’re going to make it.

“I love you, Liam. I’m sorry I made you suffer…I love you. I really love you.” I couldn’t stop saying it.

He kissed my head and then my nose, eyes, and cheeks before his lips hovered over mine. “I love you too…my beautiful mistress.”

EPILOGUE

“There once was a woman from the state of gold

Whose heart was far too cold.

She met a man, joined his clan, so the story is told.

They fought and bled,

Ruled and fooled,

Yet all things must come to an end.

Her heart she gave, and went to the grave,

Ending their ruthless crime wave.”

~ J.J. McAvoy

A FEW YEARS, THREE MONTHS, AND FOURTEEN DAYS LATER

MELODY

The helicopter touched down on the landing pad as I leaned against the side of my motorcycle, arms crossed as he came out dressed in jeans and a black V-neck shirt, carrying only a duffel bag over his shoulder. His hair had a little gray at the temples, and he had a few wrinkles here and there, but he was just as—no, even sexier than when I first met him.

“You’re late.” I glared. “A couple days late.”

“You haven’t been standing here this whole time have you, babe?” He grinned, dropping the bag at my feet before gripping my waist.

“I have in fact. I think I’ve even put down roots,” I said, wrapping my arm around his neck. “I’ve missed you, Mr. Callahan.”

“Just Liam; Mr. Callahan is our son now.” He smiled, kissing my lips softly. It had been a month since I’d seen him last, but it had felt like years. He must have felt it too because he cupped my breast through my shirt and squeezed tightly.

“Down boy,” I said softly when I broke away.

“No,” He smirked, grabbing my ass and pushing me up against him. “I’ve waited far too long to hold back now.”

“Can you at least make it back to my place?” I reached back and handed him a helmet.

He groaned, but took the helmet. “If I must.”

“You must. Now come on, we have a long life to start living,” I replied happily.

“You promise?”

“I swear.”

“Then I guess there is no preventing it now. Lead the way, love.” He walked over to where his bike was parked and waiting for him, kicked his leg over, and sat down.

“Try to keep up, baby.” I pushed off the kickstand.

“Always,” he yelled, and we were off.

Would we be back? No.

Where were we going? I had no idea.

But we’d be there together.

My father had been right: as long as I was alive, I’d never have peace. So now that the world thought we were dead…

“Hey!” I screamed when he passed me.

“You ride like a grandma! Keep up!” he hollered back at me.

It might not have been a happily ever after for everyone, but it was everything I had ever wanted.

More by J.J. McAvoy

Ruthless People Series

RUTHLESS PEOPLE

THE UNTOUCHABLES

AMERICAN SAVAGES

DECLAN + CORALINE
(prequel novella)

A BLOODY KINGDOM

Single Title New Adult Romance

BLACK RAINBOW

SUGAR BABY BEAUTIFUL

THAT THING BETWEEN ELI AND GWEN

Child Star Series

CHILD STAR: Part 1