Liam: Branded Brothers (22 page)

“When did you get the bag, Liam?” she asked again, trying to
steady her voice.

“I came back to the cottage the night I first met you,” he
said, lowering his eyes.

Charla’s mind raced to two nights ago.
The noise. The
door. The bat
. She looked up to meet his gaze, her eyes hardening at the
thought of Liam breaking into the cottage. “You were in the cottage that night?
You broke in?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “But you have to believe me, I
never wanted to hurt you.”

“Jesus, Liam.” Her voice strained again. “You scared the
shit out of me that night. I heard you.”

“I know,” he said, nodding his head. “I saw you through the
window.”

“You saw me?” She slammed the money back in the bag. “You
SAW me?”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he repeated, his eyes
pleading with her.

“You keep saying that,” she replied, shaking her head. “But
it’s too late. A man threatened to kill me over this money, Liam.”

“I didn’t know it would come to this.” He sat down next to
her on the bed. She shot off the bed and folded her arms across her chest.

“Jesus, you should have told me. I could have - ”

“You could have what, Charla?”

“I could have told him the money was gone. That someone took
it and is headed out to California or something for Christ’s sake,” she
stuttered, leaning up against the dresser. She turned to see the picture of
Jack and Helen just a few inches from her hand.
Jack.
They had him to
thank for being in this mess. If he would have told the truth from the
beginning, she wouldn’t be standing here, her life balancing on a dangerous
ledge with no one else to reach out to for help. The only man that could save
her was a man who lied to her.
Life father like son.

“Come on, Charla.” His voice softened as he stood up. “You
know that wouldn’t have worked. It’s better that you didn’t know. You told that
guy the truth, and he knew it. So he let you go.”

She picked up the frame and traced Jack’s face with her
finger. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” he replied. “I omitted some
information only because I thought I was protecting you. You did the same. You
didn’t tell me about Jack being in the mafia right away.”

His words snaked through her skin. She opened her mouth to
defend herself but snapped it shut instead. He was right; she hadn’t told him
about Jack right away, but she hadn’t believed any of it herself. It wasn’t
exactly a topic she could easily bring up in casual conversation after just
meeting him.
Oh by the way, your dad claimed he was a mafia errand boy.
Neither was finding a quarter of a million dollars in a bag in the basement of
a cottage.

She set the picture down and met Liam’s eyes. “I wish you
wouldn’t have broken into the cottage like that. I wish you would have been
able to tell me. I feel so… violated.”

“I’m sorry. I never wanted you to feel that way, but I
didn’t know if I could trust you. Hell, I didn’t know what to make of it all.”
He took her hand and held it lightly for a second before pressing it against
his heart, over his tattoo. “Some beautiful woman delivers a letter to me that
says my father is dead, I have two brothers I’ve never known about, and
incidentally, there is a quarter of a million dollars stashed away available
for my taking. And somehow, I manage to fall for the beautiful woman, even
though I know it’s probably not the best idea. There isn’t exactly a manual for
this type of shit.”

Charla felt the warmth of his hand consume her. “I don’t
know if I can trust you, Liam.”

BANG, BANG, BANG.

Three bangs sounded on the back door. Liam squeezed her hand
before letting it go. “I can’t make you trust me, but I’m all you got, Charla,
and I’ll do anything to protect you. I swear to you, I won’t let anyone hurt
you. You took care of Jack, now it’s my turn to take care of you.”

She exhaled, studying the clench in his jaw and the fierce
hardness in his eyes. If there was anyone who would take what he wanted, it was
Liam. She wanted to trust him, but the bag of money on the bed left a sour
taste in her mouth. She was deep in a completely messed up situation.

BANG, BANG, BANG.

“It’s five.” He brushed his hand lightly against her cheek
and gave her one last look before turning back to the bag. He zipped it up and
put it back into the safe, closing the door and locking it. “I trust you,
Charla.”

“I know,” she whispered as he walked past her and out of the
room to answer the door. She walked into the kitchen just in time to see Ronan
and Paul standing in the doorway. Ronan stood with his arms folded across his
chest while Paul stood hesitantly next to him.

“I see you met each other,” Liam said, holding the door
open.

“Yeah,” Ronan said, taking another sideways look at Paul. “I
didn’t have a hard time believing you were my brother, but this fuckin’ guy?
You sure you got the right one?”

“Come on, now,” Paul said, lifting up his shirt to show
Ronan his tattoo. Ronan leaned in to examine his chest and then let out a low
laugh. “It’s there.”

“It sure is,” Ronan replied, standing back up and looking
around Liam to meet Charla’s eyes. “And it needs some work. I know just the
place.”

“Come in,” Liam said, moving away from the door and ushering
them in. Liam stuck his head out the door and peered down into the alley before
shutting it. “Jerry should be here any minute. You want something to drink?”

“I’ll take a Guinness,” Ronan said, leaning against the
counter next to Charla. He winked at her before adding, “It’s been a long day.”

“Make it two,” Paul jumped in.

“You got it.” Liam stuck his head in the refrigerator and
emerged with four bottles. He was passing them out when a solitary knock
resounded on the door. “That’s Jerry.”

Liam opened the door, letting the familiar man from last
night pass through. Jerry looked from one brother to the next and then his eyes
fell on Charla. He gave her a small smile before turning back to Liam.

“Looks like you got a full house,” Jerry said. Liam turned
back to the fridge, snagged another bottle, and handed it to Jerry.

But Jerry shook his head as he pulled out an envelope from
inside his jacket. “Not tonight. We’ve got too much work to do.”

He waved it in the air before walking out of the kitchen and
into the living room. He tossed the envelope on the coffee table and sat down
on the couch, waiting for the rest of them to follow. They filed in, Liam
taking a spot next to Jerry and Ronan and Paul filling chairs opposite of them.
Charla sat on the radiator next to the window, outside of their tight circle.

“So it looks like you all found each other,” Jerry started,
taking off his jacket and throwing it on the armrest. “That didn’t take long.
So, what do you want to know?”

“Everything,” Liam replied.

“I’m only going to give you one warning,” Jerry started,
looking over each of them. “Once I tell you everything, there’s no going back.
There’s no taking back what you know about who you are and where you came from.
This isn’t something to take lightly. It took a long time and a lot of work to
get where you are now. To have the lives that you had. If Jack was alive, he
would have my head for even being in a room with you all. But Liam has a way of
getting what he wants, just like Jack did, and circumstances have changed, as
Liam knows.”

Liam nodded his head and looked at Ronan and Paul. “I want
to put everything out there tonight so we know what we’re dealing with. After
everything is out, you can decide how you want to be involved, but everything
that is said in this room, stays in this room. You understand?”

They both nodded their heads. Then Liam and Jerry both
glanced up at Charla. She pulled down her bottle of Guinness and nodded her
head slowly. She was in too deep to even think twice about telling anyone what
she was about to hear.

“Good because you aren’t going to like what you’re going to
hear and some of it’s going to be hard to believe,” Jerry said. “But it’s the
truth, and it’s the way Jack wanted it to be. Jack and I knew each other since
we were kids. We grew up in Boston together until I moved out here to go to
college on a football scholarship. He always called me a lucky bastard for
getting out of there when I did. He was right. He stayed back and ran errands
for Jimmy Bourke while I ran with a pigskin.”

“Who’s Jimmy Bourke?” Ronan leaned forward.

Jerry stared at Ronan before turning his eyes to Paul. “He
was one of the leaders of the Irish mafia in Boston.”

“The mafia?” Paul repeated in disbelief.

“Yeah, the mafia,” Jerry confirmed coolly. He dug into his
jacket and threw another envelope on the coffee table. “We didn’t exactly grow
up in the best neighborhood back then, and it was easy money running errands
like that. Jack never wanted to move up in the ranks or anything. Never wanted
to be one of the big shots, but he’d run for them at night. He was saving the
money so he could go to school to get a better job. Nobody hired the
neighborhood kids out of Southie for the good jobs. He was working at a
laundromat when he met Helen.”

“Our mom,” Liam added.

“Your mom,” Jerry repeated. “She was one tough broad. We
grew up with her, too. She lived down the other block. I was always thought
those two would end up together. They fought like a married couple when they
were ten.”

“So, what happened?” Ronan asked. “How’d we end up here?”

“I’m getting there.” Jerry nodded his head. “After five
years of not hearing from him, Jack showed up on my doorstep in Illinois in the
summer of ’90 with you in his arms.” He pointed at Paul and then nodded toward
Ronan and Liam. “And you two at his side. I didn’t think twice when he told me
he was in trouble. I could see it in his eyes. Jack could always tell a story
without a saying a word.”

He pulled out a picture of Mickey McGrath from one of the
envelopes. “And I’m only telling you this because Liam here wouldn’t let it go.
And he’s probably right about it all. Jack saw Mickey murder Jimmy Bourke.
Mickey didn’t like how things were being run. There was rift between them, I
guess. So he murdered Jimmy and blamed it on the Italians. But Jack saw Mickey
pull the trigger. Of course, Mickey went after him, but he got away. He was
getting everyone in the car to get the hell out of town, when Helen went back
into the apartment for something. And that’s when Mickey shot her.”

“Jesus.” Ronan leaned forward and took the picture of Mickey
in his hands. “And this is him? This is the fuckin’ guy who murdered our mom?”

“Yeah,” Liam replied. “That’s him.”

“So, we did the only thing we could do. We started new lives
for every single one of you. I’d spent some time with a buddy back in college
making fake IDs so I called him up and for ten grand, Frank Connolly became
Jack Davis. Everything about Frank was wiped cleaned and Jack Davis could start
over. But he was still afraid that Mickey would find him, and you’d end up like
Helen. He wasn’t going to let that happen so he did what he didn’t want to do
just to protect you. He separated you and gave you all up. He moved to Mud
Lake, and I only saw him a handful of times over the years. I went to the
pastor of the church I belonged to at the time, and he helped place with you
families from the congregation. Each of your families adopted you under one
condition.”

The silence hung in the air as they all waited in
anticipation for Jerry to finish.

“That you never knew where you came from.”

Ronan placed the picture of Mickey back on the coffee table
and leaned back in his chair, letting out a barely audible noise. “And the
tattoos?”

“That was Jack’s thing,” he said, shaking his head. “I would
have never done it. Jesus, you were all babies, but he wanted you all to be
connected somehow. A little Rum knocked you all right out so he could do it. He
wanted you to know that you were never forgotten and that the bond between you
all couldn’t be broken.”

“Holy shit.” Paul shook his head, putting his hand over his
heart.

“Holy shit is right.” Liam picked up the picture of Mickey
and flipped it toward Liam and Ronan. “He’s back in town, and he’s looking for
something.”

“Jack was hiding 250 grand in his cottage, and I think
Mickey and his guys are after it,” Charla said, folding her arms across her
chest. All four men turned to her, staring at the woman in the back of the room
who’d been silent for the past twenty minutes. “I didn’t know anything about
the money until a man came looking for it today. He threatened to kill me if I
told anyone about it.”

“Was it Mickey?” Jerry asked.

“No, he was younger,” Charla replied. “But it had to be one
of his guys. He had a Boston accent.”

“Where’s the money now?” Paul asked. “Why don’t we just give
it to him?”

“I have it,” Liam replied, nodding toward his bedroom. “It’s
in the safe, exactly where I intend it to stay. I’m not giving that money
back.”

“Jesus, if it’s about the 250 grand, I’ll give him the
money,” Paul said, turning back to Liam. “As long as he stays away from us. The
mafia is some serious shit.”

“Do we know for sure that he took the money from Mickey?”
Ronan asked. “Maybe he’s looking for something else. That kind of money doesn’t
mean much to someone like him.”

“The 250 grand probably doesn’t matter much to Mickey, but
the retribution does,” Jerry said. “And he wants to know that the truth about
Jimmy’s murder died with Jack. Even though it’s been thirty years, something
like that doesn’t go unpunished, even if he is the leader. Jimmy’s family would
be after him.”

“How’d he know Jack died?” Charla stood up from the
radiator, her words slow and calculated as she moved next to Liam. She sat on
the armrest, dangling her feet above the ground as she looked at Jerry. “The
man that threatened me knew my name. How’d he know my name?”