Exhaling: A Mafia Romance (The O'Keefe Family Collection Book 3) (11 page)

Fallyn’s tears fell easily these days. The slightest thing made her well up. Vince had done his best to keep her away from emotional movies, shows and even commercials, but even the smallest thing, like when he’d bent down to help her put her shoes on, often earned a waterfall of gratitude in the form of incoherent sobbing. Getting off the couch was a task, so she scooted and rolled forward until Vince took her hands and lifted her up. “You gave me my brother? You got Keenan back for us?”

“If everything goes as planned, yes. There are still some hiccups that might happen, but I’ll stay on top of it as best I can.”

Public kissing was not a thing Fallyn’s brothers appreciated, but they were in such a state of shock that no one said anything about it when Fallyn held her husband’s face and kissed him so passionately, he nearly forgot his audience. His hand wrapped around her pregnant form to grip the small of her back, bringing her tighter to him so he could relish every bit of her she offered up for his enjoyment.

That night when everyone dozed off with night-before-Christmas joy in their hearts, Vince spooned his wife on the mattress they’d pulled off the futon to lay on the floor. He lightly rubbed her back until she drifted off to sleep, laughing to himself about the quiet snore she’d acquired in her third trimester that she denied was there. While she dreamt, he palmed her belly, stroking from top to bottom as he made plans for their family and said silent prayers for a healthy child.

Vince watched Fallyn sleep until the irksome itch that someone was watching him pried his eyes away from the prize he’d stolen fair and square. “What?” Vince whispered to Carrigan, who studied the two with his eyebrows pushed together in frustration.

“You love her,” Carrigan answered, stating with confusion the thing he’d taken far too long to understand. “What you did for Keenan? I won’t forget it.”

Vince kept a solemn expression and answered Carrigan with a solitary nod.

“When I found out about you two? I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry I…” Carrigan didn’t know how to apologize for beating Vince so harshly. He didn’t have much practice with contrition.

Vince pried his hand off Fallyn’s belly and used it to stop Carrigan. “It’s done with.” Vince turned back to his wife, holding her while she slept and counting his lucky stars that finally the heavenly bodies in the sky above were all aligning for them.

T
he baby was turning
somersaults when Vince left to bring Keenan home. Of course, there were hearings and paperwork to deal with, but at the end of the process, Vince had come out on top, which meant Keenan would be on house arrest instead of lockdown for the next year of his sentence.

Fallyn remained in the bed until she knew Vince was gone, and then she got up just to be able to move around. The bedrest she tried to avoid had become inevitable once again, confining her to their bedroom for a week straight. Fallyn wobbled down the steps, reveling in the rebellion that came with such freedom. She poked around in the kitchen and pulled out ingredients to make chicken and cauliflower enchiladas – Keenan’s favorite. Deducing that her brothers would most likely come the second they got the call Keenan was free, she made five casseroles.

She turned on the Italian opera, not bothering to reduce it to a reasonable volume. The soprano’s bell-like voice rang through the large home, declaring such heightened emotions that, though Fallyn did not understand everything about the opera’s story, she finished assembling the pans with tears in her eyes. The opera turned off her internal clock that might distract her. She wanted to stay near the moment, live in it and be moved, so she started peeling potatoes and dumped them in a large pot. She couldn’t remember if it was Keenan or Killian who liked their mashed potatoes with celery bits, roasted garlic and far too much butter, but she made a giant pot full of them anyways. She assembled a salad in the biggest bowl they owned, knowing that when everyone showed up, it still wouldn’t be enough.

Once she was out of bed with no one telling her to lie back down, she was on fire. She pounded dough to make fresh pizza the way Vince liked it, tossing it just as they’d been taught in the kitchen of their favorite restaurant in Italy. When that task was done and the pizzas assembled, her fingers itched to do more, so she started in on dessert. They always made passionate love the nights Fallyn made Vince a cannoli cream cake with a caramel cayenne drizzle. Though the doctor had taken sex off the table for them to reduce her chance of having the baby early, she made it anyway just to remind him she would not always be so pregnant.

When the cake was finished, she still had too much energy, so she started baking oatmeal butterscotch cookies. They weren’t pretty enough to sell in her bakery, but they tasted heavenly. Keenan had taught her how to make them when she was too young to use measuring tools in the kitchen without supervision. The house began to smell so delicious, Fallyn stuck her spoon into the mashed potatoes to satisfy a craving.

She took the opportunity to walk around her house – a thing Vince did not like her to do since her doctor had really cracked down. Their cleaning lady did an immaculate job, so there was precious little to do around the house as far as upkeep. She waddled into the room that would soon be Keenan’s on the opposite end of the house on the ground floor. That room had been chosen specifically because, try as he might, Vince had never learned to keep a reasonable volume during sex.

When her phone rang in her pocket, Fallyn turned off the opera booming through the house to answer. “Hey, honey. Are you on your way home?”

“Yeah. Killian called your brothers, and they’re on their way over. They know not to ring the bell or knock, since you’re in bed and the house is locked up. They’ll wait outside till I get there.”

“Oh, right. Okay.” Fallyn knew there would be no hiding her excursion once he came home and saw the works of her busy hands.

“A cop is dropping us off at home to fit Keenan with an anklet and check the house for anything fishy.”

“‘Anything’ like the second office we don’t talk about?” Fallyn thought through all the notes and records of very fishy things Vince was trying to work through to bring his family’s legacy more toward the legal end of things than they had been under Papa D’s rule. It was a long journey, though, and there were several businesses that still required upkeep and backdoor deals to keep things afloat.

Vince’s reply came back quiet. “When we get home, Angelo and Killian are going to run upstairs and take care of that before the cop gets up there. Hopefully they can work quickly.”

“Okay. Sounds good. I know you’ve got everything under control.”

“I do. I love you for saying that. Be home in twenty.”

Fallyn waddled as fast as she could up the steps. She passed her bedroom and the first office, moving down the hallway to the office at the end. Vince kept it locked now, but picking locks had been sort of a rite of passage for the O’Keefes, and was an art form Fallyn only needed a pin from her hair to take care of.

She drew in a deep breath as she entered and tried not to take in too much information, knowing plausible deniability was a thing her husband worked hard to give her. She brought the laundry basket in from the bedroom, laid a blanket in the bottom and started taking things off the desk to lay inside. Words like “hit” and “collect on” were quickly dismissed as she cleared off the desk, making sure to keep everything in the order she’d found it in until the desktop was cleared completely. The laundry basket was hastily put away inside of her closet, with dirty clothes laid atop it.

Fallyn went downstairs to the kitchen and threw four of the pizzas in the oven. She put both leaves in the table to make sure there was enough room for everyone. She was debating whether or not she should bring up more chairs from the basement when the key rattled the front door.

Angelo’s face was grim when his eyes fell on Fallyn, but Killian found his words first. “You’re supposed to be on bedrest. What do you think you’re doing?” He inhaled a deep whiff of the dinner that made his mouth water. “Tell me the housekeeper’s been working on her day off. Tell me you didn’t do all this.”

“I didn’t do all this. In fact, I’m laying down like a waif right now. I did not make dinner for everyone. I did not clear out Vince’s second office for you. I did not get out of bed.”

Angelo jogged up the stairs to check Fallyn’s work while Killian steered his sister toward the couch in the living room. “You’re laying down right here, kiddo. I mean it. I appreciate the dinner and all, but the doctor said bedrest, which last time I checked didn’t mean climbing stairs, cooking, and cleaning up after things you don’t need to know about.” He slid a throw pillow under her head and then pressed another between her knees as she lay on her side. “Got it?”

“Thanks, Dad,” she griped, not feeling bad even when Killian stiffened at her slight. “You know, I’d like to see you lay around for weeks and be totally useless. How would you like to be treated as if you can’t lift a finger for yourself?”

Killian touched the tip of her nose. “I didn’t sleep with Vince, so luckily I won’t ever have to know what that’s like. Pay the piper, kiddo.”

Angelo called down to them, “Where did you put everything, Fallyn?”

“It’s all in the laundry basket in the back of our closet buried under dirty clothes. Have fun with that.” She tried to get back to the happiness of the grand day when Killian reached out and held her hand. She’d missed her big brother, who’d been busy helping Vince this week. “Did you get to see Keenan?”

Killian nodded with new light in his eyes. “He looks so shell-shocked. You should see his face. I mean, they have time in the yard where they go outside, but when he stepped out into free air? It’s like he’d never seen the sun before. It all happened so fast for him, so he’s still reeling. The guys are waiting two streets over so the parole officer can do a check of the house without the usual suspects creeping around.” Killian squeezed Fallyn’s hand. “I still can’t believe Vince did all this. I really hope there’s not an angle I’m not seeing.”

“There’s not,” Fallyn ruled with some amount of confidence. “How goes the hooker roundup?”

Killian scratched his jawline before answering. “Slow, actually. We got the ones to move that Vince needed us to, but he’s right. They’re driving away business and driving down property values. Almost as stubborn as the dealers, returning to their usual haunts days after we chase them out.”

“That sucks.” Fallyn made to sit up when she heard Vince’s key in the front door, but Killian laid her back down.

“Clearly I’ve got this. You relax.” Killian hugged his lost brother again when the door opened, clutching him tighter than drawing a full breath would allow. “I don’t think I’ll get used to doing that for a while, so you might want to just grin and bear it.”

Keenan sat at the kitchen table and submitted to the parole officer securing the anklet to his leg, looking down at the leash with only a small amount of forlorn. The officer excused himself and moved through the house to do a check. After a thorough search that turned up nothing incriminating, the officer left with a grave warning to Keenan not to violate the terms of his parole.

Fallyn didn’t want to wait for them to come to the living room, so she got up and padded slowly to the kitchen, eyes wide at the brother she had not seen in anything other than an orange jumpsuit in years. He wore a green t-shirt and jeans, looking every bit like the brothers he was anxious to rejoin.

Vince was the first to see his wife poke her head around the corner. He greeted her with the absence of the smile he usually saved only for her. “I see you’ve been busy.”

Fallyn didn’t have it in her to apologize or make excuses. She saw nothing else except for Keenan, and closed the distance between them in the next breath. “You look a little more like you again.” She waited for him to stand and then wrapped her arms tight around the brother she’d not been permitted to touch for years. “I… You… I missed you so much!” Her eyes brimmed with tears that quickly spilled over onto her cheeks.

“I still don’t totally understand how I got here. I mean, they explained it all. I stood for the hearing, and now I’m out? It all happened so fast; it still feels like I’m dreaming.” Keenan gripped his sister tight. “This is real, right? I’m in Papa D’s house right now, not prison, right?”

“It’s real, Keenan. You’re right here with us, and that’s where you’ll stay.”

Keenan shifted her so her belly was off to the side. “I don’t think I’ve ever hugged a pregnant woman before.” His eyes flicked down to her, finding his first genuine smile since he’d walked into the grand house. “Can I feel the baby? My niece or nephew?”

“Of course.” She took his hand and placed it to the left of her belly button, where the baby had taken up residence. “Feel that lump? That’s the butt. Totally freaky, right?”

Keenan’s eyes were wide. “Whoa! Seriously? That’s crazy! There’s a whole person growing inside you! And I get to be here for everything? I mean, you’ll come home from the hospital, and I’ll get to see the whole first year.” Then Keenan did something no one expected. He forsook the lure of the belly and made a beeline for Vince, ignoring his noise of surprise when Keenan engulfed the deadly man in a hug. Keenan held on longer than Vince had ever been hugged by a man, squeezing tight as tears brimmed in his eyes at the reality that he was free and with his family. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Vince looked to Killian in alarm when Keenan started crying, and Killian silently urged him to just let the affection happen. “Um, it’s fine, Keenan. Really, no trouble.” Vince patted Keenan’s back awkwardly.

“I take back everything I said about you to Fallyn to warn her away. That you made this happen? I’ll never forget this. I’m in your debt. You name it, and I’ll do it.”

Killian and Vince both shook their heads. “No. I didn’t do it to get a slave in my house. I did it so Fallyn would be happy. You can look after your sister while I’m working,” Vince explained, wondering when the hug might end. “Your parole’s pretty strict, so there’ll be no fighting for you for a long time. Just helping Fallyn is all I need from you.”

Keenan kept holding onto Vince, the tears that welled now spilling onto Vince’s shoulder. “You have no idea what you’ve given me. Our family? We live for each other. When one of us is cut off? It’s like losing a lung. I could barely breathe in there! You busted me out just to make my sister happy? You really do love her.”

Vince smiled at Fallyn through his discomfort, relaxing when his wife grinned back at him. He gusted out a breath of relief when the doorbell rang and Keenan released him, announcing the grand entrance of the rest of the O’Keefes. Vince shook off the hug like it might be infectious. “From now on, only you get to hug me for that long,” he said to Fallyn.

In that moment, all Fallyn saw was the love her husband had for her, to get her brother out of jail just so she wouldn’t be scared for him. Vince glowed for her, his intimidating demeanor shedding itself with a single look cast in her direction. “You brought my brother home,” she whispered, leaning up on her toes to kiss his lips. Each movement of her lips was filled with gratitude and appreciation for the man who would move heaven and earth, bending the legal system just so she didn’t get upset. “You love me.”

“You’re just now figuring that out?” Vince teased, stroking her lips with his once more before the O’Keefes started to filter into the kitchen. His eyes fell on Patrick O’Keefe being escorted to the dining room by Nurse O’Malley. He kissed Fallyn’s fingers. “I’ll be right back.” Vince caught Killian’s eye and nodded him over to the corner of the kitchen where they could converse. “Patrick’s welcome here, of course, but he hit Fallyn before. I won’t stand for that under my roof. If you want this to work where he comes back, you have to keep Paddy away from Fallyn. I mean it, Kill. I won’t see my wife knocked around in my home.”

Killian nodded stiffly, looking like he wanted to argue, but knowing he had no leg to stand on. “Understood. I’ll take care of it.” Killian waved Carrigan over after he’d received a bone-crushing hug from Keenan. “I need you to watch Fallyn. Stay on her the whole time Dad’s here, got it? Vince won’t let Dad come back here if he hits Fallyn again, so intervene before anything gets out of hand.”

Carrigan met Vince’s eyes and shook his hand. “I got it. We’ll make this work.” He turned with a big smile and arms outstretched. “Fallyn! It’s been too long since I’ve made a wish on your belly.”