CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

TROY

PATRICK ROWAN WAS dead.

It was my duty—and pleasure—to pay him a final visit and attend his mass. Paddy was being buried in Weymouth, where he was born and raised, just outside the city. His body had been flown in from Miami. Jensen had alerted me yesterday.

The funeral had attracted all kinds of old-schoolers. People my father and Rowan left behind, survivors of the chaotic mess they created with their own hands. Abe Raynes was there, looking high as a kite and just as incapable of forming a sentence as he usually was. He was deteriorating, despite the extra cash I’d streamed into his bank account since I married Sparrow.

I exchanged a brief hello with him, and only because I thought highly of his daughter.

Ignoring the other mourners, I walked straight to Rowan’s open casket, peeking inside to make sure the fucker was really dead. A part of me wanted Red to see this, but I knew I needed to shield her from that sort of shit. It wouldn’t do her any good, anyway. She wasn’t a monster like us, wasn’t high on revenge and drunk on power like we were. She was strong, but also innocent. And she wasn’t for me to corrupt.

I, however, planned to enjoy the event to its fullest.

I took a seat in the first row, next to two elderly men I didn’t recognize. I glanced sideways, scanning them. From their attire, mannerisms and the faint scent of mothballs, I gathered the geezers were not ex-mob. They were ancient looking, with snow-white hair and gray flannel suits, and although probably Irish, they didn’t mix with the rest. Outsiders.

Good.I wasn’t in the mood to suffer the usual crowd.

The priest started talking and I tuned him out. Tara and her mother, the only relatives Paddy had left, sat on the other side of the church. Tara cried and sniffed, clutching torn, damp pieces of tissue in her fist, and although I felt a little sorry for her loss, knowing she’d inherit nothing from her deadbeat dad, I stood my ground. Sparrow deserved whatever Paddy had more than she did. It wasn’t Tara he had hurt.

As soon as the service started, I found out exactly why the spot I chose in the front pew was empty in the first place. The men beside me were gossiping like fucking teenage girls. They were at it in full force, ignoring the priest and everyone else. Sounded like they were doing an inventory of who was there and who wasn’t, and even though I didn’t want to, I pretty much had to eavesdrop. Not that it was really eavesdropping when their voices could carry all the way to Cape Cod.

“Who else hasn’t shown up?” One of the men clucked his tongue.

“Ah, the old wife, Shona. The one he married in the nineties. She ain’t here either.”

“I’m not surprised. Paddy gave her hell.”

“That, he did.”

“And the Kavanagh kid, surprised he’s not here.”

“I think his name is Greystone now. He changed it after his da died. I would, too, after what happened to him.”

“David Kavanagh brought shame to his family. Killed by a drug dealer.”

“Greystone,” the old man continued, ignoring his friend. “Should be here. Paddy was his godfather, after all. He should show some respect.”

“The Kavanagh kid’s living in Boston now, you know. Moved back five, six years ago, I think. I saw him hanging around his da’s favorite bar a couple of times. Makes you wonder why Kavanagh didn’t show up when he lives just down the road.”

“I told you his name’s Greystone.”

The old geezers were rambling, the thread of the conversation tough to follow, but I’d caught one thing. How many Greystones were there in the world, and even more importantly, Greystones who had moved to Boston five or six years ago?

Kavanagh. Greystone.

Kavanagh.

Greystone.

Brought shame to his family…living in Boston now…Paddy was the kid’s godfather…Kavanagh.

David Kavanagh.

Who was David Kavanagh? I tried to remember. The name sounded familiar, like a childhood lullaby I hadn’t heard in years but could still hum.

David Kavanagh. Who the fuck are you, David Kavanagh?

Then it hit me.

David Kavanagh. A beating gone bad. It had happened nine years ago, when the mobsters of America realized how poorly regulated the recycling industry was and cashed in big while going green. Cillian had Kavanagh roughed up after he tried to steal a shit-ton of recycled pipe and copper wire. Kavanagh got caught, pulled a knife instead of taking his medicine and ended up dead. There was blood. Everywhere.

Cleaning up the mess was one of my earliest jobs as The Fixer. I’d staged a drug deal, dumping the body in an alley with Kavanagh’s knife, proud I’d handled things so neatly for my father.

David Kavanagh. Fuck, fuck. David fucking Kavanagh.

Trying not to let paranoia get the better of me, I eased back into the pew, but it was too late. I was all fucking ears, dying to hear what they’d say next.

One of the white-haired men nodded, spitting more info and a little saliva on the burgundy carpet.

“Brock,” he said with conviction. “Brock was the kid’s name. Nice boyo. I think he’s married now.”

My hand snaked to my breast pocket. I clutched the yellow slip of paper. All the pieces fell together. A moment of clarity washed over me, and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. Brock had a motive, and access.

Fuck.

Paddy was Brock’s godfather. Of course he fucking was. That’s why Paddy knew about Red’s mom. Why he knew about the arrangement, about the marriage, about everything.

Jesus fuck.

And Brock? He’d reinvented himself as Greystone, even dropping a fucking clue by adopting a last name that was a little morbid and a lot angry. As a rehab counselor turned restaurant manager. As the good guy.

He knew I’d keep an eye on him if I realized who he was, that I would never have given him a job. My mercy, hospitability and love for Catalina had some hard limits, even back then. Shit, if I’d known Brock was Kavanagh’s son, I’d have sent him back where he came from. His dad was no innocent victim. He sold us stuff, stole our stuff. Ratted on us. He did a lot of damage, was responsible for the loss of a couple of lives, too.

Brock Greystone was not a Greystone, and he wasn’t a West Coast outsider either. He was David Kavanagh’s son, one of us. An Irish kid from Boston who pretended to be someone else. He even had that smooth Cali accent to accompany his thick hair and Hollywood smile. No trace of Boston in his voice.

How could I not have known Brock was one of us?

I let him into my life without even checking who he was first. My mind was so messed up over losing Cat, over her betrayal, over her pregnancy, and how her baby-daddy needed a job on the East Coast, I got sloppy. Before I knew it, Brock had access to my business, to my secrets, to my father.

My fist on tightened on my list. I took out a pen and smoothed the paper on my knee. I crossed out the last question with a strikethrough and adding the missing name.

1 – Billy Crupti

2 – Father McGregor

3 – The asshole who hired Billy?

3– Brock Kavanagh

Excusing myself, I nodded politely to the two men as I stood up, buttoning my suit jacket and walking out of the church in the middle of the service. People frowned and followed me with their eyes as I strode to the wooden double doors and disappeared between them, heading to my car.

After I fired up the engine, I dialed Brock’s number. He didn’t pick up.

Somehow, that didn’t surprise me.

I tried Red right after. The last thing I wanted was for her to somehow fall into his clutches. She didn’t answer either.

I tried her again, and again, unsettling tension gripping me by the balls. My throat burned, and heat spread in my stomach. She was supposed to be home, or at the very least, available to take a call. She didn’t have a shift that day, was supposed to come back from her morning run and if she wasn’t home, she should have been with Lucy, Daisy or her dad.

Her dad was at the funeral. It left me with two more sensible, reasonable options.

Cursing Brock under my breath, I managed to get her friends’ numbers and call them. Daisy said she hadn’t heard from her in two days and Lucy claimed Sparrow had texted her before her morning run. They planned to hang out later. Sparrow never showed up at their usual spot.

Don’t fucking panic.

I called Maria, and gathered from her broken English that Sparrow wasn’t home. Feeling the blood freezing in my veins, I quickly used the GPS app I’d installed on my wife’s phone when I snatched her, before we even got married. The location finder showed she was in central Boston.

Phew.

Fucking Red had me thinking irrationally. I was going to yell my lungs out when I got to her for pulling this kind of shit.

Once I got to the location, I called her number again and again, trying to reach her. I called maybe thirty times before I heard the faint sound of a ringtone and found her cell in a dumpster among cardboard, junk food leftovers and cigarette butts.

Desperation and distress coursed through my veins. I kicked the dumpster so hard, I left a dent.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I yelled, not caring about people around me watching my very public meltdown.

She hadn’t run away. Wouldn’t run away. I knew my lovebird—she was the fighting kind. The only running she’d ever do was to get her cardio fix.

No, this was not her trying to break free. This was him trying to get even.

It was the moment I realized that, for the first time, Brock was one step ahead of me.

And it was also the moment I knew that I would burn down the city and stop at nothing to find my wife. Not because she was mine, I never believed that for a second, anyway.

Because I was so busy telling Sparrow how much she wanted me, I forgot a small little detail—I wanted her back. More.