Vicious: A Mafia Romance (Wild Irish Series Book 1) Page 2

  Then silence descends on the room, and the shift is immediate. I look up to find the brothers standing in my doorway.

  2

  Finn

  “Her father’s wake?” I lean in towards Darragh the moment Siobhan is out of earshot. I feel so shit now. One thing I don’t like is messing with the dead.

  “Dad said she’d be vulnerable, make it an easy job.” He stuffs his hands in his trouser pockets as we both watch Siobhan disappear inside.

  “Clearly Dad isn’t always right,” I say, and Darragh looks at me with a grin on his face.

  “It ain’t over yet, brother.” He moves towards the house, and I follow quickly on his heels.

  “You’re not going in?” I ask, waiting for him to turn away from the house and toward the car, but no, instead, I follow him under the arch of the front door. This isn’t right, but it will be worse if I’m not there, just in case it gets out of hand. Darragh on a good day can’t control his mouth. This morning, with so much alcohol still fuelling his body, anything is liable to come out of his mouth.

  I’ve been to lots of wakes, for lots of ages, and most daughters would be devastated about the death of a parent. Siobhan seemed lost; in a way that I wanted to help her find whatever it was she was searching for. I scratch my eyebrow, not meeting the eye of the men who line the hall. Silence already fills the house, but a new silence follows us all the way into the kitchen, where we find Siobhan.

  Sitting in an armchair, a sheepdog at her feet. Its head lifts slightly as it takes me and Darragh in before settling back down between its paws. Siobhan holds a bowl of steaming food, and the look on her face appears to me to be contentment, which is unexpected compared to the girl I saw outside. The guilt that had being gnawing at me lifts now. The silence in the kitchen has her looking at us. Big brown eyes meet mine, and her nostrils flare slightly.

  “Ah, Teresa, I’ll have a bowl of stew there.” I didn’t think my brother would be able to stoop any lower, but yet, he does.

  Teresa, who we all know as the area’s gossip mill, takes a bowl and fills it for Darragh, who accepts it and manages to squeeze in on a bench with the other men. The only noise is of him eating. and I don’t know whether to admire his brazenness or kick him.

  “Would you like a bowl, Finn.” My attention is drawn to Teresa, I shake my head.

  “No thank you.” Scanning the room I meet Siobhan’s eye again. She has been watching me. Now that she has my attention, she lets the silky curtain of long black hair cover her face. My lips twitch but stop as Darragh starts talking.

  “Teresa, you have a mighty pair of hands on you. Another bowl would be nice.” He holds his bowl in the air, and Teresa looks like she might pour the stew on his head. That I wouldn’t stop. I move towards Siobhan, noticing the way her hands tighten on the bowl and spoon she holds. It’s the only tell that she knows I’m approaching. She looks so slight in the armchair. But outside, when she had been standing in the yard, she was curves and womanly.

  The woman Darragh brought home, had that look in their eyes, like they had seen too much of the world. The bad part. But with Siobhan there was an innocence that I found myself drawn to.

  I sit beside her and immediately rub the dog behind the ears. “What’s her name?”

  She turns her head while tucking her hair behind her ear and up this close I can see that she is indeed beautiful. Her lips are slightly red from the hot food, they are distracting, but what’s captured me since I saw her in the yard, is her eyes. Brown eyes that are deep and rich. Her eyes hold her emotions, and now, she’s nervous.

  “Sandie.” Her pink tongue flicks out to lick her lips. I follow her movements.

  “Beautiful,” I find myself saying, mesmerized.

  “Excuse me?” She seems surprised, and I stop looking at her lips and focus on her eyes instead. “Sandie, she’s a beautiful Sheepdog.” She looks down at the dog as if it’s her first time seeing it. My hand still rubs behind the dog's ears.

  “Yeah, I suppose she is.” From her face and tone, I can see she has no attachment to the dog. A part of her has no attachment to this moment.

  “Jesus, Teresa, that is a mighty stew.” I clench my jaw at how loud Darragh is being. He is normally a little more discreet. He must be still pretty hungover to not give a shit at a wake. I look across at him, but Teresa is filling his bowl for the third time. At least that will keep him quiet.

  “I’m sorry about him,” I say to Siobhan.

  She shakes her head slightly. “You are twins, not the same person.”

  “Yeah. Identical twins.” I rhyme it off like I have a million times.

  “Oh no, you are so different.” I’m smiling at her.

  “We are identical, same blond hair, blue eyes, same facial structure. It’s the beard, isn’t it?” I say in a joking manner. But she’s shaking her head.

  “No you might both have blue eyes but yours are different from his.” Her words trail off like she might have said too much.

  “How so?” I ask wanting to know, like really know. Hearing someone see me and Darragh as different people makes my stomach tighten. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear. With my family, they see us as one, and I hate it.

  She frowns now. “I don’t know. You are different but the same.” Her cheeks color now, making her more beautiful. “Now I sound silly.” She sits up straighter, and I can see the strain on her face.

  “No, you don’t.” It was nice to hear that she didn’t see us as the same. We were mirrors of each other, yet she saw something different in me, and that made my heart pound a little harder.

  The conversation has picked back up in the room, but as Darragh stands up dragging his chair with such fucking disrespect that I even wanted to hit him, the room grows silent again. “Teresa you’re a gem.” He tells her, handing her his bowl like she is here to pick up after him. I can see the tightness around her eyes, but she just nods, taking the bowl from him. Each step Darragh takes towards Siobhan, I find myself leaning closer to her, wanting to protect her from him. He pulls up a small stool sitting in front of her.

  “Me and Teresa go way back.” He tells Siobhan with a smile on his face. The smile I know that breaks so many hearts. I remove my hand from Sandie and sit straighter. “I won’t keep you, Siobhan, I can see you have your hands full.” He waves around the room like she is having a fucking party. I can’t stare at him any harder, yet his focus is solely on Siobhan. “I just want to make one final offer.” He hands her a piece of paper from his pocket, something he must have prepared before we came here. Something I wasn’t informed about. Siobhan reluctantly takes the piece of paper and opens it, I can see what’s scrawled across it.

  Darragh is smiling like he just won. “Now that’s a mighty number, Siobhan.”

  I can see the side of her face and it looks like she is holding her breath. Her delicate fingers move swiftly as she tears the piece of paper in two. “No,” she says and I don’t know why, but I’m so fucking proud.

  SIOBHAN

  My heart is racing in my chest for more than one reason. My emotions were already a jumble before Finn and Darragh, but now I feel like instead of walking, I’m crawling.

  “I want you to leave,” I find myself saying.

  The room is deadly silent. Finn is the first to move. “Darragh, now,” he says, his voice deeper. His words are quick, quiet, words his brother obeys.

  Darragh gets up. He is no longer smiling, a shiver snakes its way down my spine at how he looks at me. His eyes are hard and narrowed. He doesn’t like being told no or told what to do. That’s obvious. But right now, I’m not afraid of him, so I don’t look away from his hard eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Siobhan.” I don’t look at Finn as he speaks, I don’t take my eyes from Darragh until he turns away. Finn walks behind him and leaves my kitchen. I can nearly tell when they have vacated the house as the noise level around us starts to rise again to normal conversation.

  “Are you okay?” Teresa sits down where F
inn had been sitting, and I find myself rubbing Sandie where he had.

  “I’m not sure,” I tell her honestly.

  “They are bad news. Darragh is a pup.” Yeah, I can tell that already. But she doesn’t mention Finn. She’s silent. I’m silent, I hate silence.

  “What about Finn?” I ask stupidly, and Teresa is smiling.

  “He's not the worst.” I’m not sure how I feel about that. It’s good because she says it softly, but ‘not the worst’ isn’t the best.

  “Yeah well, they are gone now,” I say wanting to wipe the smile from Teresa’s face. I didn’t want her getting any ideas.

  “They’ll be back. The O’Regans don’t give up that easy.” My pulse spikes, and I bit my lip to stop the smile which threatens to spread across my face. There was something seriously wrong with me that I was happy about seeing Finn O’Regan again. I got out of the chair feeling silly.

  “I better go back in.” Teresa is no longer smiling but squeezes my hand as I leave and take my place beside my father’s coffin. Olive hasn’t moved from where I’d left her, like she had promised, and I resume the senseless motion of shaking hands and making small talk while I listen to a room full of strangers talking about my dad.

  My room is the same. Posters of Boyzone and Westlife are still on the wall. I’m shaking my head as I scan the room. The pine shelf over my bed holds a dozen books and a Mickey Mouse alarm clock that I refused to get rid of. The bed has been freshly made. The cream floral quilt cover isn’t mine; it’s from my parents’ bed. Someone had pressed it, and the smell of the fabric softener has taken over my room. Sandie jumps up on the bed that I’m admiring.

  “Just one night,” I tell her firmly, and she lies down, with her head between her paws.

  But that’s not what happens. One night turns into four. Sandie stays with me through the three nights that Dad is waked in the house and the night after I bury him. I still haven’t cried, and each moment here in this place makes me feel more lost than I have ever felt before. Lost in a sense that I know that this is where I came from, but I feel like I don’t belong. I want to. The more I’m around these people, the more I want to fit in. In Dublin, it’s fight for yourself. It’s a city and busy, and everyone is rushing with their heads down, but here, they look out for each other, know each other. It’s nice.

  I wake up to an empty house and make myself a tea before sitting at the table. I miss the noise of the people. The tile floor is freezing, but the fluffy socks that I put on help keep some of the cold away. I’ve switched my phone off since arriving here and know I have to turn it on soon and let my life come back in. I have so many decisions to make and a small amount of time to make them. Darragh’s crazy offer plays around in my mind, but I did the right thing. He was being disrespectful, but on the other hand, that kind of money was life-changing.

  I needed a distraction, so I decided to finally turn on my phone. Immediately it started to bleep, and it didn’t stop as I topped up my tea. Sitting back down, I scroll through messages from friends and work. I have only four more days of leave from work before I have to go back. My stomach tightens at the idea of returning to Dublin. A part of me doesn’t want to, but I push the feeling aside.

  Sandie’s bark lifts me out of the chair as the house phone rings loudly. It feels out of place after the intense, empty silence in the house. I picked up the phone quickly.

  “Hello.”

  “I’m looking for Siobhan Walsh.” The man's voice is very formal, but I recognize it. I try to remember the name of the familiar voice.

  “Speaking. How can I help you?”

  “It’s Brian Harris,” Ah yes that’s how I knew him. He was my father's solicitor, the one who had told me that my father had left everything to me. I was his only child, and with no other family and with mother gone, I was the only option.

  “Hi, Brian. How can I help you.” Sandie rubs against my bare leg like a cat would, and I shoo her away.

  “We have run into a complication.” He says, and I stop focusing on Sandie.

  “What kind of complication?”

  “Your father's sister is contesting the will.” I sigh. Great. Just what I need.

  3

  Finn

  Darragh turns around in his seat, looking through the back window. “Are we being chased?”

  I lift my foot off the pedal slowing the car down slightly. My hands sting from the grip I have on the steering wheel, so I loosen them.

  “Finn, is there something you aren’t telling me?” I glance at Darragh as he lights a fag in my new car.

  “Don’t smoke in here,” I tell him, but he shrugs his shoulders while rolling down the window slightly.

  “Oops,” he says as he blows smoke out the window.

  “You are so fucking disrespectful.” I want to take my anger out on the pedal and slam it to the floor, but the winding roads won’t allow it, and breaking every two seconds is taking the joy out of speeding. That is one of the downsides of where we live. The roads are only good for one car, and the bends are pretty severe. You can’t open the car up here.

  “I’ll get your car valeted, okay.” Darragh blows smoke through the crack in the window again. It wasn’t just about the car. It was about Darragh being Darragh and yeah, I also didn’t want smoking in my new S Class Mercedes. She’s my baby, and he’s polluting her and not with just his smoke. He had been drinking last night, and he still reeks of whiskey. His crumpled shirt and slacks are the result of falling out of bed. I have just picked him up from a house party and am taking him home.

  “So now that we aren’t going to crash, can you tell me what’s going on?” Darragh flicks the cigarette out the window, and I can’t stop my mind from wondering if it has hit the shiny silver exterior. Paying 90K for a car isn’t worth it when you have a brother who disrespects everything, including money. “You’re not still mad over the chick with the land.”

  Now I glance at Darragh, and he smirks.

  “You know, her name is Siobhan, and yeah, I’m still pissed.” He rolls his eyes at me before lowering himself in the seat and putting on sunglasses. The sun is hiding behind the clouds but his headspace couldn’t have been great. He looks like shit.

  A moment of silence passes, and I slow down as we enter the small town of Kingscourt. It’s dark and depressing, one long strip of shops that sells a little bit of everything, yet nothing at the same time.

  “What did Da say?” Darragh sounds serious now, but I can’t tell for sure with the sunglasses on. I can never really tell with Darragh. He often smiles when he’s serious and smiles when he isn’t. Most people think that because we are twins that we finish each other’s sentences. That makes me fucking laugh. I have no clue of what goes on in his screwed-up mind.

  “That we should use scare tactics.” My hands clench around the steering wheel again. The thought of doing that to Siobhan seems almost barbaric, and I am lucky enough that I have talked him into letting me handle it, but once the funeral is over, that was my proposal. He surprised me by giving me a week to obtain the land.

  “We should. She thinks she’s playing smart, holding out for more money.” Darragh slides out his phone and checks it before lifting himself up slightly and stuffing it back in his pocket. Irritation grows on me at Darragh’s words.

  “She was angry because you did it at her father's wake. Are you that thick, Darragh?”

  “Let it all out, Finn.” I hadn’t spoken to him in the last few days, so yeah, it was all bottled up inside, ready to pour out of me. After we left Siobhan’s house, I had driven home and hadn’t spoken to him for a few days. Every time I thought about his behaviour at the wake, I wanted to find him and punch him. Each time I did see him, he was drinking, drunk, or with a woman. I told myself it was a sign to stay away from her.

  “What you did was a dickhead move,” I tell him, putting my foot down. We are on a straight road now that leads towards our home.

  “Are you going to start rooting and tipping at that?”
he asks while lowering his glasses, and I want so very much to punch him in the face.

  “I’m going to go like a normal person and make an offer on the land. I waited until today when the funeral was over.” I slow down as we approach our house. Most days, I didn’t notice it, but sometimes I could see the house that looked like a hotel. With twenty four bedrooms, a gym, library and even our own bar, it was a monster of a house, but it was home to us.

  The sensors on the garage doors kick in, and the door opens slowly, four cars already take up most of it, but two spots are still available. I don’t have the car turned off when Darragh jumps out.

  “Mind my fucking door,” I say as he nearly connects with Shane’s Audi.

  “You need to get laid.” That’s his departing words. I sit in the car knowing that going inside and seeing if Dad or Shane are looking for me would be wise, but I restart the car and pull out of the garage, leaving Whitewood house in the rear-view mirror.

  I was going to see Siobhan and convince her to sell the land.

  SIOBHAN

  “Sandie.” I’ve been calling her for the last ten minutes. Normally, she would appear, but right now she is a no-show. It’s not like her, and the worry I’m feeling makes me realise I am getting way too attached to a dog I can’t keep. I return to the house and grab a woolly hat and my long black coat. It is freezing outside, and my Aran jumper which normally fends off the cold isn’t working today. I hate that Sandie is missing, and also, talking to the solicitor and finding out my dad’s eighty-year-old sister is contesting the will isn’t helping my mood either. My father didn’t speak to her, and I’d never met her, but my mother had told me she was very wicked to my father and to the world.