Sparrow (11 page)

BY THE TIME I
finished my shower, Sparrow was already asleep, and not faking it this time. I slid into bed beside her and watched the rise and fall of her chest, but she was far from peaceful. I knew she was keeping a knife under the pillow. It amused and impressed me all at once. Not that she could do anything with that knife if she ever confronted me, but I liked her assertiveness.

She was nothing like her father.
Nothing
.

My initial expectation after the wedding—that she’d lock herself in a room listening to man-hating Taylor Swift songs on repeat as she cried her eyes out—was proving premature. She might be innocent, but she wasn’t stupid. Hardened by her circumstances and toughened by our neighborhood—Red was no pushover.

I turned my back to her and turned on my bedside lamp, taking my iPad from my nightstand drawer. I went through everything I had to do the next day—a meeting with an asshat who was running for governor and needed to find his bitter stepdaughter and convince her not to talk shit about him; an appointment with a local property tycoon who got into trouble with some Armenian gang members because he didn’t want to pay them protection money.

Fucking Armenians ran the underworld of Boston nowadays, and they were a grim reminder of what could have been mine had my father been more careful with the family business.

The Brennans were infamous in Boston not only as the royal crime family of the city, but also because we’d been smart enough to donate to schools, churches and local charities. We dropped enough cash to have hospital wings, bars and babies named after us. People liked us because once upon a time we’d been generous with our earnings, and we’d kept the city mostly clean of the bad stuff (prostitution and drugs).

Sure, we were criminals, but we kept the innocents’ innocence intact and never hurt a soul who didn’t deserve to feel the wrath of our fists. Loan sharking, extortion, illegal gambling and money laundering. We did it all, and we did it well.

Now, the Armenians and local unorganized gangs were ruling the Boston underworld, and it was a mess. No moral codes, respect or honor. Just a bunch of fucking bullies who got their hands on unregistered guns.

After going over an email from another client and cursing the Armenians again, I put my iPad back in the drawer. Taking one last glance at Red, I noticed her cell on her nightstand was glowing with a new text message. It was four a.m. Who the fuck would text her this late?

My eyes shifted to her face, and back to her cell.

Don’t do this.

Do this.

Don’t do this.

Fuck it.

I’d only seen this woman on a few occasions, when she was just a girl, playing kick the can with the other dirty kids when I was busy scoring chicks, smoking cigarettes and leaning against muscle cars that weren’t even mine. For all I knew, Red could be a snitch. Work with the police. Could be a serial killer.

Ha.

I reached over, my arm stretching above her nose, and picked up her phone.

Then I started digging. Deep.

Sparrow Raynes didn’t have many friends. She’d always been an odd bird, no pun intended, and I guess her social life reflected it.

Based on her incoming messages, a girl named Lucy appeared to be her closest friend. (But not close enough for Sparrow to invite her to the wedding, God forbid.) There was a guy named Boris, her culinary teacher, who’d already been warned off. There was also a girl named Daisy who I remembered from our neighborhood.

What struck me as peculiar was the timing of the most recent conversation with Lucy. The timestamp was after our little encounter earlier, downstairs in the living room. While I was in the shower, Sparrow had been on her phone. In fact, the flashing of her cell phone was Lucy answering Sparrow’s last text.

Lucy:
Drinks tomorrow? Usual spot. Just got paid. My treat.

Sparrow:
Wish I could. Got a job interview.

Lucy:
What? When? Where? Why am I out of the loop all of a sudden? Spill!

Sparrow:
It’s for Rouge Bis. That super-expensive French restaurant we always promise we’ll go to and dine and dash.

Lucy:
No way. Isn’t the owner Troy Brennan? The only Brennan who isn’t dead or locked up. Haha.

Sparrow:
Yeah, they didn’t get to him yet. Hopefully they’ll wait until after my interview. I’ll keep you posted. Wish me luck
.

Lucy:
Don’t make friends with him. They call him The Fixer for a reason.

Sparrow:
I know he’s a fishy guy. He’s my dad’s boss, remember?

Lucy:
I remember, I’m just making sure that you do too.

Sparrow:
Love you.

Lucy:
Love you more. Xx

Then there was the final unanswered message.

Lucy:
P.S. Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it. Rumor has it he’s a world-class asshole.

Guess this was the reminder I needed. She hated me, wanted to use me, and thought I was scum, just like my dad.

And just like that, any resolve to make her life a little less hellish disappeared.

SPARROW

I SCURRIED MY
way to the kitchen at dawn. Confused about my last encounter with Troy, I wanted nothing more than to be on his good side.

Fine, I would just admit it—I wanted that job.

And let’s face it, it moved something inside me to know that he’d noticed me at church. That he’d noticed me at all. So I decided that I was going to give Troy Brennan an honest chance not to be a world-class jerk.

I fixed him breakfast, fluffy blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and a cup of hot chocolate—my personal favorite—and greeted him with a big smile when he walked down the stairs, squinting away the morning sun. He was still wearing his briefs and sporting some serious morning wood. And when I said “wood,” I meant more like a forest.

My curiosity got the better of me and I peeked down, trying to calculate the size of him as I pretended to straighten the silverware and napkins I’d set out on the island.

I was no expert, but his junk looked like something that could comfortably fit into the exhaust pipe of a truck and not, so help me God, into my vagina. I might have taken a moment or three to stare, interest and fear flickering in my eyes.

“Don’t worry, Red. It doesn’t bite.” He yawned into his forearm, nudging me out of the way to reach for the coffee pot on the counter behind me.

“But it can spit,” I offered over my shoulder, smiling coyly.

He sent me a crooked, condescending smirk. “Not at you, with the way you’ve been treating it so far.”

He was being an ass again, but I kept trying, not letting my ego get the better of me. I pointed at the large dish on the island. “Pancakes. Right here, hot and fluffy. And hot chocolate, too. Do you want some whipped cream?”

I wanted him to remember the girl he wanted to marry. I wanted myself to forget that he was the man my father worked for. I wanted us to try and be something, even if it was stupid and naive.

“I don’t eat sugary crap,” he answered unapologetically, his voice bone-dry. “And I definitely don’t drink hot fucking chocolate. But next time I’m hosting a tea party, I’ll borrow a tutu and you can help me fix some cupcakes.”

My ears pinked as I withdrew the plate of hot pancakes from the placemat, swallowing back the bitter lump in my throat. I marched to the sink and dumped the food with a loud clank. I broke his stupid, precious, probably expensive plate.
Good.

Silent, Troy plucked a banana from the wire bowl on the countertop. He opened the fridge, pulling out some OJ and plain yogurt, and banged the fridge shut with his foot.

Still mostly naked. Still hard as stone.

“I’ll be in my office upstairs. Don’t forget dinner tonight,” he said, walking away. “I left another credit card on your nightstand. Try to look your part. No Keds bullshit or emo-kid hoodies. Got it?”

“Jesus Christ.” I scowled. “Chauvinist much?”

“Not much, just enough to want my wife to look like a woman and not a twelve-year-old boy who raided Hot Topic.”

I wanted to tell him he was being a dick, but knew it wouldn’t help my chances of scoring the job. Instead, I balled up my fists, ground my teeth and stormed out of the apartment, banging the door shut behind me.

I was practically able to feel the hair on my head graying when I jabbed at the elevator button aggressively, gave up after a few seconds—too pumped on my own boiling anger to stand still—and took the stairs down to the lobby of his building, two at a time. I climbed down all freaking fourteen floors and started my morning run without my gear or running shoes. Just Keds.
The ass.
All I had was tons of energy to burn.

And that was enough.

When my feet hit the cold, damp sidewalk, my breath evened. Finally, a minor bliss.

As I plugged in my earbuds and played “Last Resort” by Papa Roach to accompany my run—I needed something angry just like me—I already felt Connor on my heels, trying to catch up with my pace.

I was going to waste the day away, and fantasize about the million opportunities I’d have to shove a fork into my husband’s chest at dinner. The last thing I’d do was follow his instructions and become a sweet, pretty wife in a dress.

And every time he pushed—I’d pulled harder.

I DIDN’T BUY
anything seductive or alluring for our dinner out, like Troy had ordered. In fact, I refused to leave the kitchen, drowning my frustrations in making food. Tons and tons of food. I used all the ingredients in the cupboards and fridge, and spent the day fussing over food for the shelter.

Hours of solitary cooking made me finally come to terms with the gravity of my situation. Until last night, I hadn’t exactly been sure what was happening. I hadn’t fully digested the fact that I had married this man.

But now it was real.

And it was scaring the hell out of me.

Connor was pacing back and forth in the living room, talking on the phone. I was almost tempted to use the opportunity to try and run away. Then again, where the hell would I go? My dad would hand me right back to Brennan, fearing the consequences of thwarting his boss. I couldn’t burden Lucy with my presence, and no loan shark was going to hand me enough to flee town, seeing as they all knew my husband or one of his family members, and at the very least, didn’t want to mess with him.

At four p.m., Maria stormed into the kitchen with a face like thundercloud, informing me that it was time to clean up all the mess I'd made and that I had to evacuate her kitchen before she grabbed me by the hair and did it herself (not in so many words, but her shouting in Spanish and hand waving certainly implied it). She was extra pissed off today, with a dash of furious, because she had a double shift both at Andrea’s and at Troy’s. Apparently he spilled some OJ in his study earlier in the morning, and of course, his hands were too precious to clean up the mess himself. Now she had to clean my mess, too.

She announced that Mr. Brennan would pick me up at eight p.m. from the lobby of our building and that I should be ready in an evening gown. I snorted into my chest, deeply focused on packing a double batch of mac and cheese. The amount of food I’d prepared could probably feed a whole army, and not a small one either. But cooking was therapeutic, and I needed a way to distract myself from my reality. From
him
.

“I don’t have an evening gown,” I grumbled, pivoting to the oven and taking out the coconut pies. I only had one little black dress in my closet. I wore it to weddings, funerals and I was planning to wear it to my first-ever date tonight. Anything in-between didn’t require fancy attire. In my opinion anyway.

“Too late to go buy,” she barked at me, disappointed with my inability to follow simple instructions from my husband. “What do you do? Mr. Brennan will be mad!”

“He’s always mad.”

Maria let out an exasperated sigh and turned around, fishing her cell phone out of her apron. She pressed the phone to her ear and shot me an annoyed glare. When the person on the other line answered, she started talking to them animatedly in Spanish. I wiped my hands on my pants, mildly interested in this turn of events.