“Okay, that’s time,” Professor Martell nods to us all as bell rings. “Over the weekend, I want you all to start in on Robert Caro’s The Power Broker.”
A collective groans echoes throughout the class as we all stand.
“I don’t care if you’ve read it previously for another class or in undergrad. Crack it open, start on page one, and I want notes and discussion points on at least four chapters by next Tuesday.”
Shit.
I’ve started that book about half a dozen times before. I’ve never once made it past chapter two. It’s not that it’s a bad book—on the contrary, it won a Pulitzer in the seventies. It’s not even the subject matter, former New York City planner and general prick of a man, Robert Moses. But it’s such a heavy, plodding read. Like trying to read your way through an impenetrable wall.
I guess that’s fitting considering who the biography is about. Robert Moses was an urban planner and public official who wielded insane power in this city in the twenties and thirties, and pretty much invented the idea of power brokerage in New York.
He was also a racist, power-hungry fuckhead. But I digress.
I stand with the rest of the class and start to pack up my stuff. Even with this surprise weekend reading assignment, a grin spreads over my face. I’ve got an hour to get home, get dressed, and ideally, fuck my husband silly before we are expected to be at the Kildare house for a joint family dinner.
“Neve? A moment before you go?”
I bite back the wince and the groan as Professor Martell fixes me with a look over the sea of exiting students. I linger, my bag slung over my shoulder before I head towards her podium as the last student steps out, leaving the lecture hall silent.
When we’re alone, she eyes me cooly. She leans against the podium, drumming her fingers on the edge of it.
“Well,” she says, clearing her throat and eyeing me over the top rim of her glasses. “I suppose you’ve seen your midterm grade?”
I blush a little, nodding.
“I did. And thank you, Professor, for—”
“Don’t thank me. I don’t grade out of kindness or charity, Neve. The grades I give—contrary to popular belief, I’m sure—aren’t punishments or gifts.”
I suck the corner of my bottom lip between my teeth, unsure why we’re having this discussion. I can’t help but feel like there’s a “but” coming.
“No, you got that grade because you earned it, Neve.” Professor Martell shrugs. “Congratulations. And well done. I’m proud of you.”
I blink hard, like I’ve been slapped. Professor Martell catches the stunned look, too, because she arches one brow as she smirks at me.
“Do you know why I was so hard on you this year?”
Because you’re a bitch on a power trip?
I shake my head.
“It’s not because I’m a bitch, by the way.”
My face pales at her apparent ability to read my mind.
“That’s not to say I can’t be a bitch. But, c’mon,” she winks. “We all have our moments, don’t we?”
I smile weakly, still not sure where this is going.
“And it’s not because of your family. I didn’t pull punches because of your last name.”
“My family is a big part of who I am, Professor.”
She nods. “Which is fine. But family doesn’t define you. Trust me. My father was a part-time debt collector for the Pinelli crime family and a full-time abusive asshole. My mother died in prison after shooting him dead. Which he deserved, by the way.”
I blink.
Jesus.
“So, yeah, I know a thing or two about complicated families with baggage, Neve.”
She sighs, folding her arms over her chest.
“I was hard on you because you more than anyone else in this class this year have so much potential. Is it going to hurt that your family and your husband’s family wield an insane amount of power with local government? Of course not. That’s politics for you. But aside from all of that. You have so much energy and passion bottled up inside, and I was hard on you because you had no goddamn idea how to focus any of that passion. You were reckless and lacked direction. That’s why I always singled you out and rode your ass.”
I glare at her. But then, I frown as what she just said clicks.
“You said I was reckless and lacked direction.”
“You were.” She nods, her lips curling slightly in the corners. “And then, something changed in you a couple of months ago. It’s like you learned how to focus all that passion, energy, and talent. You really hit your stride.”
I smile wryly. “Well, then I suppose a thank you is in order.”
She snorts. “Not to me, it’s not.”
I frown. “But—”
“Whatever clicked with you, Neve…it wasn’t me, loath as I am to admit it. I won’t take credit for channeling your focus because I don’t think I did it.”
She arches a brow.
“But someone did.”
My expression stays neutral. But inside, I’m grinning. Because I’m thinking of a certain someone who maybe had more than a small part to play in helping me find that focus by giving me boundaries to help channel my wild nature.
Someone who grounds me as much as he lifts me up. Someone who seems to fit perfectly with the raw edges of my personality.
Someone I married, and then fell in love with.
“Thank you, Professor,” I say quietly.
She grins. “You’ve got one more semester after this one, don’t you?”
I nod. Professor Martell eyes me.
“I’m teaching an advanced lecture class on urban policy and public housing next semester.” She smirks at me. “Unless I’ve scared you off, I’d love to see you take it. I think it’d give you some interesting new perspectives.”
A grin twists my lips. “Maybe I will.”
“Good.” She winks at me and then taps the edge of her podium. “Now, go enjoy your weekend. And don’t forget…four chapters of The Power Broker. I’m going to be looking for your talking points in particular.”
Ares chuckles as his arm loops into mine.
“She really said you were you reckless and lacked direction?”
I squint at him. “Are you saying she was wrong?”
“Oh, fuck no. She nailed you there.”
I make a face, playfully punching his arm as he chuckles. Then I’m gasping and blushing as he grabs my wrist and spins us both so that I’m now pinned flat to his chest. I look up into his piercingly dark eyes with the gold flecks. As always, my heart races a little faster.
“Well, she also said that apparently, someone’s helped me channel that ‘recklessly energy’.”
He smirks. “Hmm. I wonder who that could be.”
“Don’t let that go to your head.”
“Too late.”
I giggle as I reach up to kiss him right there on the sidewalk. Not thirty minutes ago, I was kissing this man with a lot more fervor, moaning his name and clawing at his back as he fucked me against the glass wall of the shower. I flush, still feeling the throb and the delicious ache from him between my legs.
“Shall we?”
I grin. “We shall.”
I hook his arm again, and we continue walking the last quarter of a block to the Kildare house. My phone buzzes, and when I open my bag to glance at it, my brow furrows in puzzlement.
Jack’s calling me. Again. That’s the third time today. Which is bizarre because even if we’ve had each other’s numbers since who knows when, it’s not like we talk on the phone. We catch up when I see him at The Banshee, mostly, and that’s it.
I consider answering it. But then I think of Ares’ threat to throw him out a window if I were even to have a friendly dance with the poor guy. I grin and then shiver. My husband’s almost comical overprotectiveness and vicious jealousy is both amusing and deliciously, sinfully attractive.
In the end I ignore the call, close my bag up, and turn to him. “Okay, so, stop me if this is weird. But, there’s this really cute girl in my class who’s also super tall. I was wondering if she and Kratos might hit it—”
“NEVE!”
I scream as Ares suddenly grabs me painfully hard and wrenches me off my feet. My head twists almost in slow motion, and my eyes widen at the sight of a beaten-up Honda Civic barreling up over the curb and across the sidewalk.
Heading straight for us.
With a snarl, Ares yanks us both behind the front stairs of a brownstone. I scream at the horrible, wrenching sound of metal twisting and shrieking as the car smashes hard into the other side of the steps.
My pulse is racing and my heart is hammering as I whip my head around to him.
“What the hell was—”
The explosion is deafening. I can feel the heat of it on my face as Ares yanks me to the ground, his body crushing on top of mine, the fireball punching through the air above us.
Sirens are screaming.
People across the street are screaming.
I’m screaming.
Five buildings down from the scene of the blast, I’m sitting on the front steps of the house I grew up in. Eilish is sitting next to me, hugging me so tight it almost hurts. I wince, and smile as I turn to look into her terrified eyes.
“I’m okay, Eils.”
She can’t even speak. She just shakes her head, looking ill, a faraway look in her eyes, imagining a world where Ares and I didn’t dodge the car that was obviously heading right for us.
Which then exploded like a bomb.
Because it was a bomb.
I shiver, looking at the carnage on the street. Cops and firefighters are everywhere. So are both Kildare and Drakos men, eyes darting everywhere like secret service agents.
“How’re we doing, kid?”
I turn to smile wryly at Castle as he hands me a mug of coffee.
“Much better now, thank you,” I groan, gratefully taking the mug.
Castle’s gaze lifts to the street. His jaw clenches, and I can see the fury rippling in his jaw.
“You can’t be watching me all the time, you know,” I say quietly.
His jaw just grinds even harder. I know what he’s so furious about. He wasn’t there to save me when this happened.
“Ares—”
“Just moved up about ten more positions in my book,” Castle grunts. He turns to give me a fierce look. “I’m glad he was with you.”
I smile, letting my gaze drift across the street to where Ares is sitting on the back fender of an ambulance. The EMT who’s been wrapping the shrapnel gash on his forearm nods as he finishes up. Immediately, Ares is on his feet and striding across the street to me.
“Hey,” I murmur, shivering as Eilish lets me go and my husband wraps his arms tightly around me.
“You should see one of the EMT—”
“I’m fine,” I grin, raising my eyes to his. “Thanks to someone being a lunatic and using their own body as human shield.”
Ares doesn’t smile at my joke, then jolts when a heavy hand claps down on his shoulder. He looks up to where Castle is nodding brusquely at him.
“I get the feeling you don’t want to be thanked,” my old bodyguard growls. “But, thank you just the same.”
Ares just nods and pulls me closer into him. Castle’s phone goes off, pulling him away as I furrow my brow at my husband.
“Were they giving you a transfusion?”
When he was at the ambulance earlier, when they were bandaging him up, I noticed a line going into his arm.
Ares shakes his head. “Nah. Whenever they find out I’m type O-negative, they’re always gently reminding me how in-demand it is.”
Eilish looks scandalized. “Even when you’ve just survived a car exploding?!”
Ares lifts a shoulder. “I offered. Might as well, seeing as they’ve got the equipment for it in the ambulance anyway, right?”
My lips curl curiously. “You’re really O-negative?”
He nods, and I grin.
“Me too.”
It’s not the rarest blood type, but if you’re O-neg, you can only receive other O-negative blood. I have no idea why, but knowing we have that in common brings a glow to my heart.
Ares smirks. “Glad I’ve got backup sleeping right next to me.”
I smile. When I glance back to the street, I swallow nervously as I see my uncle approaching, a cold look on his face. Castle’s with him, along with Shane Dorsey, who’s carrying a small red and white cooler.
Ares stiffens, giving Cillian his full attention when he stops in front of us.
“Tell me I was wrong about the car aiming for us,” Ares mutters.
Cillian’s eyes flit to mine. Then he shakes his head slowly.
“You weren’t.” His jaw tightens as he pulls a cigarette out of his silver case, slips it between his lips, and deftly lights it.
Agent Dorsey clears his throat. “The car was clearly rigged to blow. Nothing crazy, but enough accelerant and explosives to shred you both.”
I can feel the fury throbbing under Ares’ skin as he practically shakes with anger next to me.
“Who,” he rasps. The veins on his neck stand out as his jaw grinds viciously.
Dorsey glances at my uncle. Cillian takes a slow drag of his cigarette, his eyes locked onto me. Finally, he nods.
“Show them.”
Dorsey’s brows furrow.
“Cillian, it’s pretty grueso—”
“And they’re not children. Show them.”
My uncle’s eyes are still locked on mine as Dorsey clears his throat and steps a little closer. He lifts up the plastic cooler in his hands and pauses.
“Really, if any of you are squeamish…I’d look away.”
He pops the lid. I steel myself. Even so, when I see what’s inside, I almost vomit.
“Fucking hell,” Castle growls, quickly pulling Eilish toward him and turning her face away from the grisly sight before us.
There’s a hand inside the cooler. Specifically, a hand, wrist, and part of a forearm, blackened by fire.
I almost throw up again as the scent of charred flesh hits my nose. Just as I’m turning away into Ares’ chest, something hits me.
And it stops me cold.
My head swivels back, my eyes locked onto the hand.
“Neve.”
I swallow a lump as my gaze meets Cillian’s. We both understand what we’re looking at.
“We could run some tests to be sure,” Dorsey says quietly. “But the tattoo would suggest—”
“It’s him.”
Ares snaps his head to me as I choke out the words. My eyes are glued to the horror-show inside the cooler. Not because I want to look at a severed hand. But because I can’t look away from this severed hand.
The one that belongs to Seamus O’Conor.
“You’re sure it’s—”
“Positive,” I choke, my throat tightening.
The hand is charred and the skin is blackened. But there’s no mistaking the tattoo. I could never forget it. I still see it in my nightmares.
Rosary beads wrapped around the wrist, with a cross dripping blood and riddled with bullet holes across the back of the hand.
Seamus’ hand. I’m looking at Seamus’ fucking hand.
“The rest of the remains are nothing but ash in what was the driver’s seat,” Dorsey mutters. “But the explosion sent this part across the street.”
He nods at me before turning to Cillian as Ares holds me close.
“If you’re sure it’s him—”
“It’s him,” I breathe quietly.
Dorsey nods. “Then I think it’s safe to say this whole thing is really over.”
Over.
I shudder, taking a rasping breath as Agent Dorsey shuts the cooler.
On a whole nightmarish chapter of my life.
Ares still holds me tight, like I might fall apart at any moment. But I don’t. Because for the first time in fifteen years?
I’m no longer afraid.
It’s over.
The nightmare is truly over.
