THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series (78 page)

Ian

My first instinct was to charge into the hotel alone and take Mia back without any backup. But then I was behind the wheel of my car, directing it out of the parking garage, and I realized what a mistake that would be. I would be playing right into Kevin’s hands. That’s exactly what he would expect me to do. He’d be waiting, maybe with people watching, waiting too. I couldn’t be that stupid.

I went to Killian’s instead.

Brianna was a blubbering mess, sobbing against her mother’s shoulder. Pops marched over to me the second I came through the door, grabbed my shoulder, and pulled me off to the side.

“He wants to run way with her. Told her something about bringing her passport so that they could start in Spain?”

“What else did he say?”

“That his final plan was in motion and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. That’s why she’s so upset. She blames herself for what happened at the reception hall because he told her he’d done it so that they could be together.”

I shook my head, glancing over at Brianna and Cassidy. “It’s not her fault.”

“What do we do? Were you able to trace the emails?”

“He’s been hiding out in Orlando, but I don’t think that information is going to do us any good right now. Besides, I know where he is.”

“Where?”

“The hotel. He has Mia.”

Pops paled as he studied me. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Fuck, Ian…what do you want to do?”

I shook my head, panic rising in my chest. But I had to push it down and keep calm. We had to go at this the smart way, not halfcocked. We had to get out of this without anyone else dying.

“Where is everyone else?”

Pops shook his head, turning slightly as he tried to recall. “Killian and Stacy and the baby are upstairs. Kyle and Amelia are in the kitchen, throwing some food together. Sean and Delaney are headed back to their place—”

“No. Everyone needs to be in one place. Call them and tell them to get back here.”

“Why?”

“This place…it’s behind a gate. Kevin couldn’t get in here without someone seeing him. But Sean and Delaney’s place? How do we know he hasn’t planted another bomb somewhere?”

“I didn’t think of that. Should we be doing a sweep?”

“It wouldn’t hurt. And we should probably move everyone to a neutral spot until we’re sure. Carmine and his family, too.”

Pops nodded his agreement, tugging out his phone to make the calls.

I went over to Brianna and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in mine.

“Listen. I need to ask you something and you’re going to want to slap me when you hear it.”

She wiped at her face with the back of one hand. “Ask.”

“Would you be willing to work with us to lure Kevin out? It could be dangerous, but—”

“Anything to stop him.”

“Brianna…” Cassidy began, but her daughter shot her a look that was filled with so much determination that she shut her mouth with an audible click.

“He trusts you. He believes that you love him. We can use that to our advantage.”

She nodded. “Anything.”

Killian came into the room as I climbed to my feet. I pulled him aside and explained briefly what I wanted to do. He stared at me as if I was insane, but then he nodded.

“I’ll do anything to stop the son of a bitch! This thing has gone too far.”

“We need to get everyone to someplace safe. Do you think the farmhouse in Connecticut?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Stacy can get everyone there.”

I nodded. “We need to rent some cars. We can’t trust that Kevin hasn’t planted bombs or that he doesn’t have people watching our houses, our cars. Our office buildings…we have to do this smart.”

“I’ll get on that.”

“No, have Sam do it. I need you here. Do you have more guns?”

“Of course.”

We went down to the basement and searched through Killian’s impressive armory there. I’d never realized what a gun hound my brother was, but I was grateful for it today. This was going to have to go off like a well-planned military operation if it was going to work. Kevin knew us inside and out. He knew how to predict our next move, knew what we would say or do in a moment of danger. We had to outthink him, make sure we were the ones who were always a step ahead this time.

It took time, but we got everyone shuttled off to Killian’s farmhouse in Connecticut. We waited a good hour before we made our move, just to make sure they were safely on their way. Then we headed to the hotel.

The hotel was owned by MCorp. It was fully staffed by trusted MCorp employees. But some of those employees were not aware that Kevin was no longer considered a trusted member of the family. For that reason, we weren’t sure whom we could trust and whom we couldn’t.

Sean and I walked through the main doors with Brianna between us. If I was going to hold someone hostage in a large hotel, I would have eyes on all the doors. I was making the assumption that Kevin had the same thought. He would see Brianna and make the assumption that she was here to reunite with him. He would see Sean and me with her, and he would assume that I wanted to make a trade.

We made our way—undisturbed—across the lobby and boarded the elevator. So far so good.

Brianna was shaking. I took her hand and squeezed, reassuring her even though I was shaking just as hard on the inside.

The elevator doors opened on the appropriate floor. There was no one in sight. There should have been a man outside Mia’s door, but there wasn’t. Kevin must have paid him off or stashed him in a closet somewhere. Not that it mattered at the moment. The empty hallway made it safer for whoever might wander into the crossfire.

The door to the room opened before we approached it.

“About time!”

Kevin gestured for us to enter with his gun, reaching for Brianna as she tried to pass. I saw her grimace as he came in for a kiss, but he didn’t see it. He was so pleased to have her there that he didn’t see anything but what he wanted to see.

For example, he didn’t see the syringe she had hidden up her sleeve. And he likely didn’t feel it when she jammed it into his side.

But he certainly felt it when the anesthetic went to work.

He stumbled back, exposing the interior of the room. Mia was on the bed, her wrists handcuffed to the headboard above her head. There were bruises forming on the side of her face and her lip was swollen and crusted with dried blood. But she was awake and aware, tears streaming down her face as I rushed to her, taking her face between my hands and kissing her like I’d never kissed her before.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Are you? He wanted to kill you. He was going to make it look like a murder-suicide. Then he was going to kill Delaney.”

“It’s okay now. Everyone’s safe.”

“Are you sure? He might have planted more bombs—”

“He did. We found three. But everyone’s safe and on their way to a safe house.” I brushed the hair out of her face. “Everyone’s okay now.”

She leaned into me, sobbing against my shoulder for a moment. Sean brought over keys to the handcuffs and released her. She flopped into my arms, and I gathered her up, holding her as close as I could. I wanted to hold her like that forever, to never let her out of my sight again. But Carmine and Pops were coming through the door, guns drawn. It was time to move on to the next step of this little operation.

“Is he dead?” Mia asked against my neck.

“Just knocked out.”

“It can’t be that easy, can it?”

I brushed my lips against her temple. “It was that easy, baby.”

I lifted her up and carried her to her father who quite happily carried her out of the room and down the hall to another. There were people swarming the hallway now, mostly Carmine’s men there to sweep the entire hotel and rid it of anyone loyal to Kevin. They’d already taken out two guys down the hall who were watching video monitors covering the entire hotel. Kevin had known we were coming, but he hadn’t seen Pops and Killian and Kyle identifying his men from across the street and taking them out with sniper rifles. All of them but the two idiots now babbling about their innocence. They would be quite helpful in finding out what else Kevin might have been planning.

“You did good,” I said to Brianna, pushing her gently out into the hallway and handing her off to one of Carmine’s men.

“I was afraid it wouldn’t work.”

“But it did.”

“What’ll you do to him now?”

I hesitated, touching her cheek like I’d often done to Stacy’s when we were young. “You don’t worry about that. Just know he won’t ever hurt anyone again.”

She nodded, very little regret in her eyes.

Ian

Kevin came to several hours later, tied to a chair in the middle of a dark, dank warehouse. It was like a scene from a movie, only it wasn’t. This was reality and this was my brother tied to the chair.

He looked around, confusion slowly leaving his eyes as he took each one of us in. Killian. Sean. Kyle. Me. Pops. We were all there, all in a place we never thought we’d find ourselves.

“Where’s Brianna?”

“Halfway to Connecticut,” Kyle said. “Far away from you.”

“She loves me.”

“Yeah. That’s why she shot you up with a syringe filled with ten cc of a sedative.”

Kevin shook his head. “She loves me.”

“You fucking kidnapped her!” Kyle kicked his shin as if they were little boys arguing over a ball. “You nearly killed her mother. Her brother. Tried to send her father to jail. Do you really think she could love a monster like you?”

Kevin looked up and spit at Kyle, missing his face by less than an inch.

“She loves me.”

“Why’d you do it, Kevin? Why would you turn on us after everything we did for you? After everything Mom and Dad did for you?” Killian wanted to know.

“What they did for me? You mean taking poor, pathetic me off the streets and giving me a proper family?” Kevin laughed. “The only person who ever cared for me was Abigail—and he took her away!”

Kevin tested the bonds holding him to the chair, nearly knocking himself sideways in the attempt. He glared at Pops as if he was the devil incarnate.

“Pancreatic cancer killed Abigail.”

Kevin shook his head. “That’s just what you wanted everyone to think. But I was the first one there that morning, remember? After you called us all in, after Sean called you. I was the first one there; I saw the coroner look at her. I saw the concern in his eyes. I snuck down to the morgue later that day, and I saw his report. ‘Foreign fibers in the airway. Fibers in the nose and around the mouth. Petechial hemorrhage in the eyes.’ You fucking suffocated her!”

There was a collective intake of breath around the room. I glanced at Killian. I’d never heard this. Had he? But he seemed as confused as I was. And Pops…I’d never seen a person so pale manage to remain on his feet.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“She was murdered. And then Pops covered it up! He took her away from us. He hid her disease for weeks, and then he killed her the moment she asked to see us.”

I shook my head, unable to wrap my mind around that idea. But Kevin wasn’t done.

“You know she was in bad shape, but she wasn’t dying. She called us each in and talked to us. Talked about our futures. She wasn’t ready to go. She didn’t want to miss what was coming up in our lives. She told me…she wanted me to finish school. She wanted to see me graduate.”

“She was saying goodbye,” Sean said—almost too low for us to hear.

But Kevin heard.

“She was hoping. You don’t hope when you know you’re dying!”

“I don’t know what you think you heard or saw after Abigail’s death, son,” Pops said, his voice a little weak, “but I didn’t kill her. I wanted her to live. I pushed her to see more doctors, to find more hope. I wanted her to live.”

“Don’t call me ‘son!’” Kevin spat on the floor at Pops’ feet. “You murdered the only person who gave a shit about me. So I’m going to make you watch as everything you ever loved, everything you put in front of Abigail and the family, disappears. I want you to see it implode. I want you to lose what matters to you.”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” Kyle said. “Pops would never hurt Abigail.”

“You should know that,” Killian added. “You were closer to Pops than anyone. You should have seen how much he loved her.”

“He wanted out. Why do you think he married Cassidy so quickly?”

“Five years. That’s not quick,” I pointed out.

Kevin shook his head.

“You’re an idiot,” Sean said. “You should have come to me. I was there.”

“You’re the one who paid off the coroner! How could I trust you?”

We all focused on Sean then, even Pops. Killian crossed his arms, his eyes moving between Pops and Sean, between Kevin and Sean. There was something not right about this.

“What is he talking about, Sean?”

Sean’s face seemed to crumple. He turned away for a second, dragged his fingers through his hair. When he turned back, he had control of his emotions, but just barely. It felt as though he was holding on by a string—and that string was threating to snap.

“I did. I gave the coroner fifty thousand dollars to change his report.”

“That…that was real?” Pops demanded.

“It was.”

“Why would there be fibers in Mom’s airway?” Killian demanded.

Sean shook his head even as Kevin called out, “Pops smothered her! Don’t you see?”

“It wasn’t Pops.”

And that was when it all made sense. The hours and days after Abigail’s death were chaotic, confusing. There was so much going on. But I remembered thinking Sean was acting weird, that he was taking it harder than the rest of us. I remembered how he pulled away from the family and refused to stand with us at her burial. I remembered how broken he was for so long after her death, until Delaney, really. And it all just seemed to fall into place, like the last piece in a nearly complete puzzle.

“She begged me to…”

Killian took a swing at Sean, but Kyle grabbed his arm and yanked him back, pulling him completely off his feet. He fell hard to the floor, screaming as he fought to get back up. I jumped in front of him, grabbing his arm and pushing him back.

And then the room filled with the most wretched of sobs. We stopped fighting, turned, and found Sean dissolving into grief in Pops’ arms.

“It’s okay,” Pops said. “I know. She asked me, too.”

And the fight just went out of Killian. It was as if she’d just died yesterday, the grief washing over us all again like a flood. She was the glue that held us together. Even in death, she brought us together, brought us back home to take care of each other. And now…our grief threatened to tear us apart, but the truth was bringing us back together again.

She was in pain. Even I’d seen that. And she had said goodbye.

“You shouldn’t have had to carry that burden alone,” Pops whispered to Sean as he continued to sob.

“What the fuck!”

Kevin screamed, fighting his bonds like a child having a temper tantrum.

“He killed her! And you people are just standing around as if it doesn’t matter, like she didn’t matter! She was our mother! She was a fucking saint! How could you do that? How could you kill the only person who matter?”

He was speaking so loudly, so quickly, that spittle was flying from his mouth.

“You people don’t deserve to live! You ruined the best thing that ever happened to me! You took her away from me! You destroyed everything!”

I didn’t even see the gun until it went off. Didn’t even realize what he was doing until it was done.

Pops fired a single shot into Kevin’s head. He silenced him for good.

“We all have our regrets. Things we wish we hadn’t done. Things we wished we said when we had the chance. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone use our weaknesses to tear us down ever again.”

Pops holstered his gun and held out his free arm to Killian, Kyle, and me. We went to him, and he held us, his four grown sons, in his arms for a long time.

We were a family. Abigail had seen to that. And she’d done good, bringing three good apples into the fold. There was only one abscess…and Pops had just taken care of that.

Nothing else would ever hurt us again as long as we stood together.