Dangerous Games (5 page)

I checked my phone while I waited at the baggage carousel and wasn’t surprised to find several messages, all but one of them, from my mother.

“How could you do this to me? Don’t you understand how embarrassing it all is? None of them give a damn about you and all they’ll do is ask you for money. I have already contacted your grandparents and told them to send you away when you show up so don’t expect a warm welcoming from them. When you come to your senses, call me back and let me know when I should expect you in L.A.”

I pressed the delete button and listened to the final message. “Hey, gorgeous, it’s Dylan, your cousin—remember me? I’m not staying in Dorchester anymore but own a cute little walk-up in the gentrified area of Charlestown.”

I smiled as I listened to the rest of the message before he gave me his address and instructed me to call him as soon as I was on my way. I grabbed the two Hartmann spinners I owned—both hard-sided to prevent damage to my precious clothing cargo—and walked out of the airport to flag a cab down.

It didn’t take me long to find one and I quickly hopped in before I gave the driver the address, some double-digit numbered house on School Street and wondered how well I would adjust to my new surroundings. It didn’t take too long for me to find out when less than forty minutes later we were pulling up to a swanky single-family, three-story home painted gray and obviously built within the past ten years. Although it only had a one car garage, there was obvious a vehicle parked inside and late-model, pearl white Cadillac Escalade blocking the garage.

I didn’t get the chance to ring the door before my cousin ran out barefoot in nothing but a pair of black stovepipe jeans and a matching wife-beater. I threw my arms around his neck as he twirled me around.

“How’s my favorite baby cousin been doin’?” Dylan exclaimed happily in that thick Bostonian accent of his that was pure Dorchester even if he was residing in Charlestown now.

“I’m doin’ good,” I replied before I held him at arm’s length to get a good look at him.

Dylan had always been thin but now he was firmly a man at twenty-five who obviously lifted weights though he was still lean. His skin, the color of alabaster, suited his short dark hair and piercing blue-gray eyes so prevalent in the McKenna clan though they firmly came from my grandmother’s side of the family. Before Cleona had been a McKenna, she’d been a Donahue, hence where my mother had gotten her stage name from. She thought Athena Donahue would sound better than Athena McKenna and she was right.

My cousin grabbed my suitcases, paid the driver and we walked inside. The place was complete with blonde hardwood floors and minimal furniture. There’d obviously been some kind of get-together the night before because the place smelled heavily of stale beer, marijuana and cigarettes.

I turned toward Dylan and stared at him as I cocked my head to the side. “The dope business must be good. How much did a place like this cost you?”

“Can you believe the yuppie bastards I brought this place from wanted nearly a mil for it but I Jewed ‘em down to eight hundred grand. I was payin’ in cash and they liked that a hell of a lot better than havin’ to deal with a bank and transferring mortgages and shit. It allowed ‘em to pay off the mortgage they had and I got this dope fuckin’ pad away from my parents.”

He walked towards me and I found myself backing up self-consciously until my back hit a wall. “What are you doin’ here? Your mother is raisin’ all kinds of stink about you being back here. Hell, even Patrick and Clara are frightened you’re gonna pay them a visit and take away their precious bundle. You didn’t come back to do that, did ya?”

I shook my head. “What the fuck am I going to do with a kid? I just couldn’t handle L.A. right now and the first place I thought about was here. I even transferred to Boston Uni because I didn’t want to stay in Seattle.”

“Good, just stay away from Fiona and her gang of friends, including Chloe. If you can manage that then you should be fine. I don’t want you turnin’ into a skank like my sister, you got that? It’s rough out here.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know it by the way you’re flossin’,” I responded sarcastically.

“What can I say? The Oxy and coke markets are good. Especially now those Oxyballs have gotten so popular. I try to stay from that Bath Salt crap—too much weird psycho shit I’ve seen people do when they are on it…but I got help and I am not runnin’ this organization alone.”

“No doubt you gotta give McGee a cut?”

“Well, you know how it is? The more things change, the more they stay the fuckin’ same.”

“You can say that again,” another male voice said and when I turned its way, the face and body I saw took my breath away.

F
inn heard her voice from the moment she’d entered the residence he and Dylan co-owned together but he was frozen in place. Recently dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans and short sleeved black-patterned flannel shirt, he wasn’t sure he was ready to see her again.

It wasn’t like anything had changed. Hell, it had been four goddamn years and 
nothing
 had changed for him. They were both older now—he was twenty-four and she was almost twenty—but other than that, he could tell from the sound of her voice she was still the same person. They had history and although it only seemed like yesterday when he and his mother had moved over from Northern Ireland, he and Dylan were still best friends and thick as thieves. That included running their lucrative drug trade of Oxycontin or “Blue” as it was known on the street and cocaine.

The two drugs were a powerful combination and most people trusted Oxy more than they did heroin because at least they knew what potency level they were getting. None of the guess work as they had beginners, intermediate and advanced they sold—according to the strength of the milligram—and a cousin who had a connection courtesy of being a drug rep for one of the most profitable companies in the country.

On the coke side, they had a sweet Dominican connection thanks to Dylan’s girlfriend who was half through her mother’s side while her father was a guinea but she was cool people. However, something told him she and Evie were not gonna get along.

Finbar Reilly—though everyone called him Finn—walked down the stairs and caught Dylan and Evie in a compromising position indeed. Everyone pretended not to know, though it was pretty much an open family secret, they’d had an affair after his mother had sent him back to Ireland after the incident four years ago. By the time he’d come back, the damage had been done and there was nothing left. Decisions had already been made and Evie was long gone, called back to L.A. by her parents.

Finn was a good looking guy and although he and Dylan could have passed for brothers with their identical tall, lean figures, matching complexions and accents that were damn near identical, Finn had blondish-brown hair and crystal blue eyes with perfect Irish features including a straight Roman nose, cheekbones most women would kill for and sensual slightly-full lips.

Once again he found himself mesmerized in the beauty that was Evie. Although she could dye her hair any color she wanted, she preferred honey-blonde with flaxen high-lights. Her eyes were definitely her most arresting trait for they were gray with blue striations one only noticed in certain lighting. She had a perfect peaches and cream complexion and the body that went with the face was no less than amazing.

She was slender with just the right amount of tits and ass, firm thighs and flat stomach. He had never liked super-skinny chicks and at a size six, she was perfect as far as he was concerned.

Before he could stop himself, Finn said something but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember once she looked in his direction. She moved Dylan to the side and walked toward him.

“Finn, is that you? Really you?” she whispered.

“Nah, Evie, you’re lookin’ at a mirage.”

She smiled at him before she bit her lip and ran towards him before collapsing his arms. He held her tightly. “I thought I would never see you again. I thought maybe my parents had you arrested or they barred you from the States for good. When you were sent back to Omagh it was the hardest time in my life. I hated my parents because I thought they did it just to keep us apart and that tore at my heart.”

“It’s all good. Nice thing about being sent back to Northern Ireland is I have both an Irish and British passport so I just traveled a bit and high-tailed it outta there as soon as possible. I spent some time in Tenerife, Thailand, France, Germany, Cyprus and everywhere in between. You weren’t too wrong about being barred though. I’ve only been back here in Boston for the past couple of years but Dylan and I kept in touch. As soon as I got back in town, McGee moved us up in the organization and we’re responsible for all the drugs on this side of town,” he explained in a soft yet masculine voice.

“You mean, you’re not dealin’?”

“A lot has changed, baby girl. I ain’t dealt since I was twenty-two,” Dylan interrupted as he grabbed a Marlboro from a pack on the coffee table and lit up. “Like I told you, we 
distribute
 to other dealers—
we
don’t deal.”

“Dylan, why didn’t you tell me we had company—who the fuck is this Barbie-lookin’ skank?”

The unmistakable hard-ass, Boston-accented voice of Carmelita Andolino rang out loud and clear. Finn turned his attention to her and wondered what his cousin saw in her. She was a decent lookin’ girl with dark olive skin, brown eyes and cascades of long dark hair liberally frosted with champagne chunk highlights identical to Gemma Teller Morrow on 
Sons of Anarchy
. Her slim body—bordering on being emaciated due to the amount of Oxyballs she did on a regular basis—was showcased in a pair of black Juicy Couture sweat pants and a pink, short-sleeved tee shirt with Juicy Couture written across her natural D-cup breasts.

“Lita, this is my cousin, Evie. Evie, this is my girlfriend.”

Carmelita smiled wryly as she placed talon-length nails with the requisite French manicure—though her tips were black with diamond Cs for Chanel—on slender hips. “I heard about you. You’re that famous bitch’s daughter, aren’t ya? I also heard about what went down between you and Dylan. Guess again, bitch, because I will 
kill
you if you lay a hand on my man.”

Finn rolled his eyes as he slid Evie behind him in a protective manner. “Why don’t you calm the fuck down with a goddamn blue or better yet shut the fuck up and snort another Oxyball? She didn’t come here for Dylan because Evie’s mine and she’s always belonged to me.”

Carmelita flashed dark eyes Evie’s way before she stared at Dylan again. “Is this true? Did she come here to be with Finn or what?”

“Actually, she’s transferring to Boston University, and decided to spend the summer here. You should treat my little cousin with more respect as she’s actually entered a university and not for the sake of keeping it clean,” Dylan replied in a wry voice.

Finn heard Evie stifle a laugh before he pulled her toward him and they walked up the stairs together. He took her to his room, which was surprisingly well kept but the guys did have a maid who they paid extra to come in three times a week to clean. Unfortunately, that meant moving all the drug paraphernalia out to the garage but it was worth it seeing as Carmelita didn’t lift anything more than a glass, usually filled with some sort of alcoholic beverage, to her lips.

As soon as he had her settled on his made-up bed, he went back downstairs, grabbed her luggage and brought it upstairs.

Evie removed her cute wedge-heeled sandals and lay back on the bed. “Thank you for what you did downstairs. Who the hell was that train wreck and how did she stick her claws into my cousin?”

“You know that old joke about a ‘stiff dick and a conscience’, right? Lita has been an unfortunate fixture for the past year and as much as I can’t stand her, she has a great connection to the people we need to deal with and so far, we have prevented a lot of bloodshed here in south Boston. It could be a lot worse than it is but right now it’s just a bunch of people who want their drugs gettin’ ‘em and that’s it.”

She sat up on her elbows and glared at him with those gorgeous gray-blue eyes of hers. “I still expected more from you, Finn. You could have gone to college and done something with your life. I didn’t expect to come back to find you dealing drugs with Dylan. Everyone
knows
 he is a lost cause but 
you
…” she trailed off.

“And what makes me so different from Dylan, huh? After what happened between us and when I was sent back to Ireland, all I could think about was getting here, back to you and making things right. Does that make sense? I didn’t give a shit how it happened, just as long as it did. You have no idea what it has been like for me because you have been off gallivanting from one fancy college to another and I was here, stuck—without you.”

Evie fully sat up as he kind of collapsed on the floor in front of the bed. Seeing her like this proved to be too much too soon. He loved her so much but he had no idea how she felt about him. She was his first and only love.

He wouldn’t lie and proclaim how he’d been a saint. He’d slept with more women than he cared to remember but he never went down on them and he always wore a condom because the thought of fucking another woman—bareback and without protection the way he and Evie had always made love—was an anathema. He just couldn’t do it.

There were one night stands that had lasted weeks with girls but Finn would never say he loved them and he would never allow himself to care for them the way he did Evie.

Most of them were just one step above the common skank who were excited about his drug-dealing status and had delusions of grandeur. They would accidentally get preggers with his baby and be set for life. However, he prevented this from happening by having his own supply of condoms, and no one ever spent the night in his bed.

Sheets were promptly changed shortly after a woman left his bed and they would be forgotten about as soon as they left his bedroom. Finn was extremely passionate but he could also be cold and withdraw at the drop of a hat. One didn’t grow up in a place like Northern Ireland and then later, south Boston, and remain soft. Not if they wanted to live to see old age. Both places were not for the faint of heart or the weak.

“Is there something you want to say to me?” Evie inquired as her leg rubbed against his arm.

Finn stood and collapsed on the bed beside her. Before he could get the words out of his mouth, his lips were pressed against her own and they kissed tentatively at first, afraid of where it might lead. Soon, the boldness of what he’d become used to returned and as her lips parted, he immediately sought her tongue out and when their kiss deepened into intimacy, she moaned and all resistance ceased as she allowed herself to swept into his arms.

He’d forgotten the petal soft skin, the smell of freesia and the fresh breath that had always accompanied her kisses. He’d forgotten she was so damn clean and yet touchable. He’d almost forgotten he’d been there with her because she was not the same person he remembered all those years ago. She was a young girl, barely in her mid-teens, at the time but now she was a full grown woman with desires and the accompanying beauty he knew she would turn into with such startling accuracy.

As they separated, he stared into her gorgeous eyes. “My God, you just reminded me of all the reasons why it was so difficult to let you go in the first place. Losing you was one of the most awful events in my life. I can’t go through with it again. If you don’t want to be with me then let me know now because I can’t deal with heartache a second time.”

Evie touched his face with her hands and kissed his lips once more. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan to break your heart again.”