THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series (65 page)

Amelia

I stood back and watched as Colin ran some sort of electronic device over my things, my clothes spread out over the couch, including my underwear. He was trying to be respectful, but I could tell it was a struggle for him.

“Will you please finish? They should release Kyle from the hospital soon.”

“Of course.”

Colin sped up, but then he came to a lacy pair of my underwear and slowed down, moving the device so slowly that I was pretty sure I was going to burst a blood vessel as I watched. But then he finally moved on and he finished up fairly quickly. He left the loft, and I began throwing things into my duffle bag, aware that it was only going to fit about half of what I had to take. The dresses, slacks, and jeans I’d bought at the mall the other day were too numerous to fit into the duffle. But I wasn’t sure I wanted them anyway.

I was packed in ten minutes. Colin knocked on the door and informed me that a car had arrived to take me to the airport.

I just…I couldn’t do it.

If he wanted me out, he was going to have to come and escort me out himself. Until then, this was as much my home now as it was his. We were married and there was no prenup. No one could tell me I couldn’t be there.

“Tell them I’m not going.”

“Mrs. Callahan, Kyle was specific with his instructions.”

“Then call him and tell him that I’m not leaving until he comes here and tells me himself.”

Colin’s eyebrows rose, but he only nodded as he backed out of the door.

I unpacked, putting everything where it would have belonged had I bothered to unpack sooner. I’d been living out of bags and my duffle since I arrived. No more of that. I pushed Kyle’s things to the side, rearranged his dresser drawers, and made room for my things. I even emptied a drawer in the bathroom for my things. Then I curled up in the middle of the bed and waited, daring him to come and force me to leave.

This was the life I chose now. I wasn’t going anywhere.

Kyle

He was gone. His things were packed in a hurry, his room at Pops and Cassidy’s house a mess. Drawers were open, hangers scattered over the floor. It was pretty obvious his departure was unplanned.

That was just another nail in the coffin that pointed to Kevin’s guilt.

We drove around the city, but there really was no point in it. We knew where we had to go. We knew the next step was breaking Pops’ heart.

We walked into the hospital and found Stacy sleeping with the baby on her chest, Brianna trying to get comfortable in a corner, and dozens of Jack’s men hanging around, waiting impatiently for word on their boss.

“Anything?” Killian asked.

“No. But the nurse said it shouldn’t be much longer.”

I walked across the waiting room and took Brianna’s hand. She seemed a little confused, but she followed me down the corridor to a quiet, secluded corner.

“Do you know where Kevin is?”

“No. Why?”

I didn’t know Brianna well, but I studied her face, trying to gage if she was telling me the truth. She must have sensed the urgency in me and realized that there was something big happening. She crossed her arms over her chest and backed up a little as she chewed on her bottom lip.

“What’s he done?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because of the way you’re looking at me. And because…he’s been acting sort of odd lately. Excited, but odd.”

“The two of you…?”

She blushed, her eyes falling to the floor. “He’s a good guy.”

“I thought he was, too.”

That made her look sharply at me, her eyes narrowing just slightly. “What do you mean?”

I went to her and touched her face lightly. “I met him in juvie. I was there because I stole a couple of cans of beans from a store. It was stupid because I was already living with Abigail and Pops, but there was this part of me that couldn’t believe they weren’t going to kick me out, you know?” I cleared my throat, not really prepared to walk down that road again tonight. “Anyway, he was my roommate. It was something of a mystery why he was there at first. I believed him when he told me it was for stealing money from a neighbor, but when I found out that he’d actually killed his mother and prosecutors didn’t know what to do with him, I believed it. If not for Abigail, he would have remained in that place until he turned eighteen. But Abigail…you know the stories.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah. We don’t talk about it. Kevin probably had it worse than the rest of us. And I don’t think he ever lost that mentality, you know? That survival, you have to do anything, sort of mentality. I think it remained with him all this time.”

“But he was so gentle with me. He would tell me things…”

She blushed because it was slowly beginning to dawn on her that the things he told her were likely lies. And that he’d manipulated her.

“Did you ever tell him anything you overheard Pops and Cassidy talking about? Anything to do with the Irish or business? Anything to do with Pops and Jack?”

She nodded. “Little things. He’d ask if I knew about this thing or that thing and I’d tell him everything I knew. I didn’t think there was a reason not to.”

“Neither did I.”

“Please tell me Kevin didn’t…he wasn’t behind Brian’s arrest, was he?”

“Why?”

She turned sideways, her arms wrapped so tightly around herself that she was practically touching her fingers together across her shoulder blades. She paced for a minute, then she slowly turned to look at me.

“He asked. He wanted to know how long a federal warrant would keep someone in jail. He asked what the RICO statute was. He asked…he asked everything he needed to know to make that arrest happen. And I remembered that when Brian was arrested, but Kevin, he was so devastated that I couldn’t believe he could be behind it.”

“Sean’s pretty sure he was behind it. There was a witness, and everything he said, only you or Kevin could have known everything said and we knew it wasn’t you.”

“He did this?”

“He did it all, Killian and Stacy, the shooting tonight. Your kidnapping.”

I thought she would fall. She nearly did, but I caught her.

“Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t I recognize his voice?”

“Because he was very careful. He’s incredibly intelligent, Brianna.”

“But…my mom could have been killed! You could have been killed. And Killian…”

Tears were streaming down her face now.

“I’m sorry.”

It was all I had to offer.

***

Pops didn’t take the news any easier. He paled dangerously when we explained the evidence to him, so much so that I was concerned he might have a heart attack before it was all said and done. But then he straightened up and nodded.

“We’ll deal with this. There are only so many places Kevin can go without access to his trust fund.”

He was on the phone before the words were fully out of his mouth. Kevin was technically not at the critical age to access his trust fund, but Pops had granted him access through orders to the executor when he went to Paris to learn how to paint. But that access was easily revoked. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure Kevin would have seen that particular maneuver coming. However, it gave Pops something to do.

“There’s not much we can do now,” Ian said. “I can do a check on his computer and try to figure out what he was up to. And we can call the credit card companies, the airlines. But that’s about it.”

I knew it wasn’t going to help much. Kevin was in the wind…and he’d remain there until he was ready to be caught. But he
would
be ready eventually—and we’d be waiting for him.

Cassidy came to the waiting room as we stood there feeling useless, a big smile on her pretty face.

“Jack’s out of surgery. He’s going to be okay.”

That was a bit of good news, anyway.

I elected to go back to Pops and Cassidy’s with the rest of the family and crash in my childhood bedroom rather than return home to an empty loft. No one questioned me because I was pretty sure word had already gotten around to everyone who mattered. It was weird being back in there, though. It made me think of Abigail and the little things she did for me that meant so much more than the big things.

She read me a book every night before bed even though I could read since I was five.

She brought me warm milk when she knew I couldn’t sleep.

She found my stash of food, but she didn’t throw it out, didn’t chastise me. She simply asked that I keep everything in a plastic tote so that it wouldn’t cause a rodent problem.

She understood me in a way that no one else did.

If I thought Pops killed Abigail, if I believed that he’d taken her away from us prematurely out of some sort of selfishness, I would probably be just as angry as Kevin was. But I knew Pops wasn’t capable of that. He might be able to stand up to a criminal without batting an eye, but Abigail had him wrapped around her little finger. He wanted to keep her around as long as possible. If Kevin would just think about it, he would see that, too.

No one killed Abigail but the pancreatic cancer that ravished her body in those final weeks of her life.

Kevin was off his nut. I should have seen it. Of all us kids, I was the closest to Kevin. I should have known. This was my fault.

And I would fix it.

Amelia

Three days and Kyle didn’t come home. I didn’t know what to think, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to wait for him to come back to me.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t have issues of my own that I needed to resolve. I called Brian Callahan on the second day and asked him for my mother’s address.

“Of course,” he said kindly.

“How’s Kyle?”

He was quiet for a moment. “They’ve been out searching for Kevin. I don’t know if he told you, but we have reason to believe that Kevin was behind the shooting the other night.”

Kevin. How awful that must have been for Kyle.

“And Jack?”

“Doing very well. It’s kind of you to ask.”

There was some distance in Brian’s voice. Had Kyle told him the truth of our relationship? Did they all think that I’d used him for my own personal gain? If that was the case, I wouldn’t want to talk to me, either.

The address was in a part of town I hadn’t yet visited. I stepped out of the loft, the key pressed hard in my palm, expecting Colin to be standing in the hallway. He wasn’t. I supposed Kyle had called him off of sentry duty.

An Uber took me across town, kindly pointing out a few landmarks when he learned I was new to the city. I barely heard him. I was thinking about where I was going, but also of Kyle. Would he simply never come home as long as he knew I was there?

I missed him. But I was deeply afraid that he really didn’t care about me and he really did want me gone.

The Uber pulled up to a small, brick home on a quiet residential street. It wasn’t very big, just a two-bedroom home, I guessed. But there were lovely rose bushes and lilacs in the front yard. I stepped out of the car, moving slowly as I tried to figure out what I would say. But even as the words struggled to form in my mind, the front door opened and my mother came rushing down the steps to pull me into her embrace.

“Amelia!”

I closed my eyes, shocked at how much I’d missed this. My mom gave the best hugs.

We stood there like that for a long time, both of us crying, our tears wetting out clothing. But it didn’t matter. I would have stood there all day if it meant finally finding the comfort I’d been searching for far longer than I’d realized.

“You look so good,” she said, brushing tears from my face when she finally pulled back. “What are you doing here? Did he finally tell you where I was?”

“Who?”

“Your father. He told me he’d never tell you, that he wanted to protect you from my new lifestyle.”

“No, it wasn’t Daddy.”

She frowned. “No one else knows I’m here.”

“Brian Callahan knows.”

A strange expression twisted her familiar features for a second. “Brian Callahan? I haven’t heard that name in years.” She took my hand and led the way up the front steps of the house. “I knew Brian when I was in college. He was dating my roommate. And then a couple of years ago he hired me to do some work for him, but…I can’t believe he told you where I was. How do you know Brian?”

“Why did you leave Daddy? Why did he tell me you were having an affair?”

Again a strange expression moved over her face. “Because I was.”

“But he said it was with Brian, but Brian denied it.”

My mom stopped moving, standing still as she clearly struggled with something. My mom was not the type of person to hold a grudge against anyone, but I could see anger snapping in her eyes.

“Your father…he couldn’t handle the truth. But I don’t know why he would choose Brian as his scapegoat.”

“Why would he need a scapegoat?”

“So that you wouldn’t have to learn the truth of who I was having an affair with.”

She took my hand again and drew me into the house. It was a nice little place, the furniture modern, but comfortable, the pictures on the wall telling the story of a lovely romance. And sitting on the edge of the couch, clearly nervous about meeting me, was a woman about my mother’s age with a long, dark braid and bright caramel-colored eyes.

“Amelia, this is my wife…”

And, suddenly, so many things made sense.