Shattered Hearts (Irish Kings #1)

11. Riley

Chapter 11

Riley

By Wednesday morning, I have nothing left.

At my job, I’m a total zombie. Sluggish, lethargic, and beyond the reach of coffee’s restorative powers. Even Jane notices.

“You coming down with something?” She shakes some gummy vitamins into my palm. “Take these.”

I pop them in and chew. How can I tell her most of my fatigue is emotional? They don’t make gummy vitamins for that.

Looking at her perfect freckled face I wonder, not for the first time, whether I should open up to her. Really open up. Just tell her the truth.

When she asks me about my weekend, I’ll say, I got tapped to fake my sister’s marriage with a man I’ve secretly had a thing for for years. You?

If I don’t start with that, she’ll never understand when I explain that the same man has been chauffeuring me to and from work lately and driving me crazy in the process.

Jane would get me. It’s not like the people who work at a women’s shelter come from perfect, magical home lives and we just decided to share the love and sunshine with the less fortunate. We’re all here because we used to be these women.

Jane may very well have connections to the criminal underworld in her history. And yet, I’ve never been able to open up to her or Michelle. Maybe I still feel too guilty about my past as an informant. Growing up in an environment touched by gang violence and escaping is one thing. Trying to find success and acceptance in that environment and escaping after getting singed is different. Less innocent.

But it’s not as though I could explain my mafia connection without mentioning it. As soon as the question of my background came up, what would I tell them? Before this, I spent a few years studying information mafiology in the field?

This is why it’s so hard for me to make friends.

And without friends I can talk to — really talk to—there’s no place for my chaos to drain. Instead, it cycles through me over and over, like filthy water that never comes clean.

In some distorted way, even though my friend situation was hardly any different when I was still a part of the Gallaghers, thinking about Finn helped me during some of the rougher years I spent there.

Being in the same organization as him was motivational to a lost and lonely outcast daughter. But now, all those years of emotional muscle memory are going haywire.

Harboring romantic feelings for Finn would be foolish and irresponsible. He’s engaged to my sister.

And regardless, I want out of the Kings after this charade is over. For good.

Finn Gallagher is off-limits in reality and in my imagination, which is why these car rides are becoming a problem.

But what can I say to him to make him understand?

Finn, you escorting me to and from work confuses my heart. Let’s keep a safer distance.

There’s no easy way to raise my objection, and how the hell do I work up the courage to try while he pumps the car full of angry-man pheromones and kills off my good brain cells?

“Riley?” Jane pinches my sleeve.

“Hmm?” Get a grip and focus on your job. “I mean, yes?”

“You’re in charge of rounds today.”

On Wednesdays at the shelter, we conduct wellness checks, going from person to person to see how they’re doing. Today is my day. I grab the appropriate binder and head out to the shelter floor.

Charlene is on the wellness check schedule for today, and as soon as I see her name, I think back to my intake with her months ago. Last December…

She’s come a long way since then. Her bruises are gone. Her cuts have healed. The more serious lacerations on her body have transformed into scar tissue, and she’s begun smiling again. Just a little, here or there. In her blue-green eyes, I see the same metaphor our shelter was named after. A concrete rose. A tough plant coming up through the cement that once laid waste to it.

I can’t deny seeing her around lately also brings up questions I don’t know how to answer. Based on her case, Harper’s predicament, and the clues I sleuthed out of Shane’s remarks on Saturday at the reception, I’ve pieced together what I think is the truth. A shipment was stolen from Madden, my father needed saving, and Shane came to his rescue in exchange for Harper’s hand.

Those pieces fit fine, but something still nags at me. Exactly who is ballsy enough to bust into Madden and steal a product shipment in the first place? Who would be stupid enough to even try? And who would be smart and strategic enough to actually succeed?

My mind pivots to something else gnawing at me. Finn’s attackers. Who would attack him in broad daylight? For what purpose? Officially, the attack is Gallagher business, and I don’t feel like I have the right to ask Finn more than I did on Sunday morning.

Curiosity eats at me anyway.

I know I shouldn’t make a big fuss. Finn is a mob enforcer and the heir to the Gallagher Mafia. People trying to kill him and him trying to kill them is a normal part of his life. A life I’m not a part of. A life I gave up in exchange for freedom and independence.

The remainder of the workday passes by in a blur. Walking home, I keep reminding myself he’s not my concern. I don’t like how easy worrying about Finn comes. This dynamic with him reawakened something inside me, something I put to bed years ago.

A deep and painful longing to…belong somewhere. To someone.

At first, I wanted to belong as a Brennan, which proved impossible.

My father is cold, busy, and gruff. My mother is meek and demure, never straying from the box she lives in. Until she vanished the night before her wedding, my sister was bright and obliging and did everything asked of her with a smile on her face.

I’m the one who didn’t fit in.

The curious, stubborn one who only colored outside the lines, who received no encouragement, infrequent table scraps of attention, and even less love.

Once I gave up on finding my place as a Brennan, my attention shifted to finding my place as a Gallagher. I did every odd job my father threw at me, doing everything in my power to be a good spy for him, to be an accurate and effective informant, an asset instead of an encumbrance. But all my efforts came to nothing.

In the end, none of my merits as a person or as a King mattered. The greatest value I had to my father was as a bargaining chip.

No different than his arranging Harper’s marriage in the hopes that his grandson would one day run the Irish Kings, my father once traded me for wealth and power. He promised my hand in marriage to the heir of the Red Hill Mafia in exchange for an expansion deal that would have extended the Gallaghers’ reach and operations into Philadelphia.

I botched the deal, though. An act that led directly to my departure from the Gallagher family and the deterioration of their long-standing relationship with the Red Hill boys. Not to mention the death of my belief in love and relationships.

Another reason I need to keep my distance from Finn.

After what happened in the Red Hill fiasco, I vowed all future love in my life would come from books. I retired from dating. Forever. All my dreams of belonging somewhere or belonging with someone have died.

And I need them to stay dead. Being myself and belonging with other people at the same time is impossible.

Being myself leads to rejection. Meanwhile, belonging requires me to give up myself—my values, convictions, autonomy, safety, or all four.

Too much. I’ve given up too much over the years. I promised myself I’d never sacrifice me again, but by agreeing to fill in Harper, I’ve betrayed myself.

I release a sigh. I wish I could have told my father to shove it, but protecting the Zhangs is more important.

My steps slow as I tromp up the staircase to my apartment door. There have only been two occasions, to my memory, where I mustered up the courage to stand firm at a critical moment. Once, when I told my father I was out for good. And the other time, when?—

Unease skitters down my spine.

My front door is unlocked, open, and not fully flush in the frame.

What are the odds it’s Harper?

Or maybe the Zhangs stopped by to leave some leftovers in my fridge, which they sometimes do on nights I work late. Except, no, I remember them saying they’d be gone tonight, visiting family.

My brain zigzags through possible scenarios while I push the door open.

Anxiety tolls through me. “I’m home!”

A crash comes from the den.

Cold, clammy surprise drips down my spine. There’s an overturned table in my hallway and the books from my shelf are strewn on the floor at the mouth of the living room.

How stupid could I be, waltzing into my ransacked apartment and announcing myself?

As I inch toward my den, the mace I keep in my purse is already in my hand. What I really need, though, is the gun I keep stashed beneath my mattress. I’ll have to face my attacker, stun them, and then dash to my room for?—

“Riley…” The slurring, unhinged voice groaning my name ices my blood.

I’d know that voice anywhere.

The air around me pulsates with horror and trauma as my worst nightmare comes to life.

I can’t breathe. I can’t think.

Drunk, deranged, and dancing in the center of my den is Troy Sullivan.

He’s six feet of chaos, enclosed inside a tall, muscled body. He has brown hair and a deadly, white-hot temper. His blue eyes lack any warmth.

Everybody has demons. Troy is mine.

He sways right. “You lied to me.”

“What did I lie about?”

My body drops into fight-or-flight mode, but my system is malfunctioning. Déjà vu immobilizes me. Gruesome, violent memories cross-fade with my present terror.

“You said you’d never get married.” Troy draws a gun from his belt and scratches his head with the barrel.

“Things change, Troy.” Shit. Now I’m baiting him.

Blood rushes in my ears.

He could kill himself. He could kill me .

Feet frozen in place, my heart beats thick and heavy. The seconds unfurl in slow motion as his gaze rakes over my body.

Then he lunges.

Mace in hand, I aim for his eyes.

I don’t miss.

Troy screams in pain, but his drunk legs keep coming. “Bitch!”

I don’t get out of the way in time.

The air in my lungs dies as Troy makes contact, slamming both of us into the creaking bookcase behind me.

My pepper spray goes flying. Pain shoots through my skull.

Troy braces himself against the shelves, some of them giving way beneath his colossal weight. Romance novels and textbooks on social work rain to the floor as my head swims. He cages me with his giant body, his face hovering above mine.

His eyes are swollen shut.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Bourbon wafts off his breath.

I peek right, straight into the open doorway of my bedroom. If I can just push him away, maybe I can make a run for it.

“Crazy bitch.” Troy can’t see me, but he can feel me. When his sticky, meaty fingers wrap around my arm, dread floods my veins.

No, no, no.

Fight mode engages, late but in full force. I hook my other arm around his neck for support and knee his ball sack into his lower intestine with everything I have.

“Fuck!” He coughs, sputtering a string of curses.

Troy’s knees hit the ground on either side of my feet, his hands digging into his crotch. His head dunks forward into my abdomen. Reaching for a weapon, my hand brushes an encyclopedia. I snatch it up and hit the fucker with everything I’ve got.

He sprawls to my left, an insane, drunken, blubbering mess.

With my heart pounding hard enough to shatter glass, I half sprint, half stumble over the obstacle course Troy made of my living room. Hopping over his feet and the fallen books, I climb past the outstretched legs of my upturned desk and capsized office chair. I fly into my bedroom, ready to whip my gun out from beneath the mattress.

The room is a disaster.

My mattress is halfway off the bed. My bedside table is in splinters, broken glass from the lamp sparkling all over the floor. My closet has vomited up all my clothes. The walls feature fresh holes, and I will too, too, if I don’t come up with a plan.

My gun is nowhere in sight. For all I know, the bastard took it.

Rock music suddenly blares from the hallway. A loud pop follows.

I hit the ground, head whipping around to find Troy firing blindly from my living room floor, probably cranking up the music to hide the sound of the gunshots.

With my gun gone, my only hope of survival is getting past the lunatic in the den, back up the hall, and out my front door.

I’m going to die.

Hot, enraged tears spring to my eyes.

Fright swallows me whole as Troy draws himself up from the floor.

He opens his eyes to slits. “There you are.”

He lifts his arm in my direction and trains the gun on me.

Doing the only thing I can, I throw my bedroom door closed with so much force, the frame shakes. Trembling, I engage the lock and dart to the side, my mind and body spiraling through waves and waves of panic.

“Troy, don’t!”

I recoil from the phantom pain as Troy’s arm, thick as a tree limb, breaks across my body. He backhands me right into a brick wall, and blood drips into my eye.

My bedroom door bucks, jolting me from the memory.

Troy must be barreling straight into my bedroom door like an offensive lineman. The door creaks and strains beneath his weight, causing my heart to lurch down to my toes.

The lock holds.

Not that it matters. He’s going to get me this time.

“Open this door!” Troy thunders, rattling the antique doorknob as he fights for entry.

Hands shaking, I wedge myself into the corner of my bedroom farthest from the door, away from the glass and splintered wood. I wish I was strong enough to face him on my own. Three years gone, and I’m more afraid of him now than I was at twenty.

A tear streams down my face and onto the purse still slung over my shoulder.

Oh my god, my phone!

Fumbling inside, I find my phone and start to dial. But then, my numb fingers go rigid.

Who am I going to call? The police?

Never call the cops. You got a problem, call me first.

My father drilled that into my head. To the mafia, calling the cops was the equivalent of summoning hellfire. One call could create a chain reaction that puts the Kings behind bars and incinerates their business empire. I’d end up with a serious target on my back.

Which isn’t so scary, actually, considering Troy is going to kill me today anyway.

Tears fill my eyes, blurring my vision.

The last time Troy attacked me, I went to my father for help, but he proved he didn’t give a shit about his daughter. Only about how the situation affected him.

Be a good girl and don’t upset your fiancé. A lot is riding on this.

That interaction—which caused me to hate my father wholly and completely for the first time—was the event that precipitated my separation from the Kings.

My father’s indifference to my abuse, his disinterest in my safety, his desire to always follow the money and little else. I couldn’t remember a single time in all my life he made me feel safe, the way a father’s supposed to.

I earned his trust multiple times over, and how did he reward my loyalty? With betrayal, abandonment, and cruelty. I can’t trust Thomas Brennan with anything. If I call him now, even on the off chance he picks up, he’ll try to negotiate with me. While a madman tries to break the door down, my father would ask, What do I get for saving you?

“Riley,” Troy growls against the frame, “open the fucking door while I’m asking nicely.”

Wood shavings rain onto the floor from the bullet he puts through the door. Too shocked to scream, I’m lost, sinking into a pit of my own grief.

I can’t call the police or my family. Who can I call?

Finn’s face appears in my mind…but he’s not my friend or my husband. He’s technically not even my brother-in-law. He has no reason to care.

Even though it was only yesterday, him thrusting his arm out in front of me feels like a century ago.

His protective instinct, those dark, glowing eyes…

That one involuntary gesture is probably the most concern any man has ever shown for me or my safety. Ever. In all my life.

Tears waterfall from my eyes as despair devours me.

I’m never going to see him again.