Forbidden Vows: Chapter 3

Eileen has left a lasting impression on me.

I don’t think she’s aware of her power, of her sizzling magnetism. Then again, I didn’t tell her, just as I didn’t admit that I knew who she was. We agreed to anonymity, though I had her at a disadvantage the whole time.

“Where’s Room 106?” I ask the receptionist as I walk in, leaving the cold morning behind in the half-empty parking lot of the shoddiest motel that my brother could find.

The guy looks at me with a dazed mist covering his bloodshot eyes. The whiff of weed is quick to follow. My boy here is as high as a kite. “Room 106?”

“Yeah, 106. I’m meeting someone there,” I say.

“Uh, okay… Room 106…” He pauses, the brain process working extra slow and probably frying a couple of synapses in the process. “Right. Take the stairs over there, first floor, take a right, and it’s all the way at the end of the hallway.”

“Thanks.”

He slouches back in his seat, hidden behind the desk and his computer monitor, while I make my way up the stairs, ignoring the musty smell that permeates every inch of this place.

My mind wanders back to Eileen.

We shouldn’t have done what we did.

I shouldn’t have, anyway. She doesn’t know who I am, but I do know who she is, and, given what this year is shaping up to look like for me, it was a dangerous move. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to stop. She’s so fucking delicious. But that smart mouth of hers is going to get her in some serious trouble someday. She’s sharp and soft at the same time.

Fucking hell, I can still taste her on my lips.

Once I reach Room 106, I look both ways to make sure I wasn’t followed before knocking on the door. I can hear a man’s pained grunts echoing from inside, followed by rushed footsteps. A split second later, my brother opens the door. He looks tired and disheveled, his shirt crumpled and stained with blood, sweat, and booze, judging by the smell.

“What the hell, Andrei?” I snap and go right in, my shoulder brushing his.

“Took you long enough,” he grumbles.

Thankfully, Tommy Benedetto is still alive. Beaten bloody and passed out, tied to a chair, and gagged with a hand towel, but alive. I turn around to look at my brother.

“Thank you for listening to me for once in your life,” I say.

“I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with him yet,” Andrei replies. “Everything is very much still on the table. I just wanted to hear what you had to say about this. You insisted.”

I take a deep breath, trying to keep my wits about me. More often than not, my brother has let his emotions decide his course of action. More often than not, I’ve had to clean up his messes to avoid an all-out war with one or another family from Chicago’s underbelly, where we, too, belong. What happened last night was not one of his smarter moves, and now I must steer him back in the right direction before he gets us both killed.

“Sit down,” I tell Andrei, pouring him a drink from the minibar and helping myself to a single shot of whiskey.

Andrei takes a seat in the chair by the window, his eyes never leaving me. I give him his drink and sit next to him at the small table. “Go on, tear me a new one,” he says.

“I get it; I do,” I begin with a casual shrug. “Tommy did a stupid thing, and I agree—offing him would be the easiest and the simplest solution.” As if summoned, Tommy opens his eyes and damn near jumps out of his chair upon seeing me. “Isn’t that right, Tommy?”

“Mhm-mmph!” He can’t talk with the towel crammed in his bloodied mouth.

“I’m sure we’re in agreement here,” I say, giving him a slight nod. “Sit tight there, buddy. With a little bit of luck, you’re going home today.”

Andrei shakes his head. “Not until you tell me why.”

“Listen, I’m all for setting an example these days. Another family disrespects you in public, you do what you have to do. And what Tommy did is not easy to forgive. But we’ve got a bigger issue on our hands, brother. There’s been a shift in the organization.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard all about it—”

I cut him off. “No, you didn’t hear all about it because I come bearing bad news. Kuznetsov is making his moves, just as I suspected.”

Andrei gives me a startled look. “What moves?”

“There are several smaller players stepping onto the board, which is why I agreed to the Donovans’ business offer. If you kill Tommy, you can kiss the Camorras’ support goodbye. There’s a power play happening, Andrei, and we need to be on top of it.”

“They wouldn’t dare,” my brother mutters.

“They would dare. They keep daring. Kuznetsov will soon be announcing his engagement to Eileen Donovan.”

His eyes grow wide. “Fuck.”

“Precisely. And that’s just the first step. You know as well as I do that some of the families within our organization have repeatedly voiced their displeasure regarding our business decisions. More than once, they have called for a vote, which, I might remind you, we narrowly won. We can’t risk this getting bigger, so we can’t forfeit the Camorra’s support. Right now, they’re still with us. But if you take Tommy out, the Kuznetsovs or anybody else looking to wage a coup will benefit from the Benedetto family’s blessing.”

“I don’t like this,” Andrei says. “In the old days, we could’ve resolved it easily.”

“Sure, a couple of Kalashnikovs would’ve done the trick. It’s the twenty-first century, Andrei, and we’re spinning billions of dollars in and out of this city. Our alliance with the Italians is one of our strongest assets. We don’t want to forfeit that.”

“No, we don’t.” He shakes his head and runs his fingers through his dark, wavy hair. It’s only a matter of time before he starts getting his first silver strands. I got mine in my early forties. He’s thirty-eight, and the clock keeps ticking. “If I let Tommy go, he’ll want to retaliate,” Andrei says, giving him a sour look.

“He will not,” I reply, then look over to Tommy. “You won’t; will you, buddy? I mean, you have to realize that you’re the one at fault here.”

Benedetto stares at me for a moment. I’m almost expecting a rebuttal, but he just nods frantically, his eyes wide with fear. In the span of a single second, I’m transported back to last night. It was a quick decision. A hasty move. But it was the only reasonable thing to do when I saw Tommy being thrown into the back of the van and my brother’s men rushing toward Eileen. Grab her and bolt. They recognized me and didn’t decide to come after us. That would’ve led to an unnecessary mess.

“Fine. Tommy gets to live another day,” Andrei concedes. “But he’ll owe us big time.”

“Big time,” I repeat.

Andrei may be my younger brother, but we are equal partners in the business and in the family. I need his approval on certain matters, and when I interfere in his affairs, I have to make sure that I’m able to get him on board and back on my side. The others must always see a united front.

“I’ve called my men off the girl,” my brother adds.

“Thank you.”

“Who was the broad, anyway? Tommy’s last catch?”

I shake my head. “No, but trust me, it would’ve led to a civil war had your men gotten to her. By the way, you really need to be more careful about the orders you give them. The whole no-witnesses thing doesn’t apply when said witness is Eileen fucking Donovan.”

“Oh, shit,” my brother gasps. “The boys didn’t mention that.”

“They probably didn’t recognize her. She’s not the popular sister, the one that’s always in the limelight from what I’ve learned. And she was petrified. I’m not sure she would’ve managed to identify herself in time.”

I remember the way she trembled in my arms when I grabbed her in that alley, and when she came later, as I buried myself inside of her.

Damn you, Eileen, you have no idea what you’ve done to me.

“Then it’s a good thing you intervened,” Andrei sighs deeply. “Dodged quite the bullet there, eh?”

I nod in agreement. “She was kind enough to agree to keep the entire incident to herself, which will keep Kuznetsov off our backs in the future.”

“And Ronan Donovan on our side still, I hope?”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” I reply.

Andrei glances back at Tommy. “I can see now why you were so adamant about this asshole. If we lose the Irish support, we’ll definitely need the Italians and the Puerto Ricans to stick by our side.”

With everything I’ve heard coming down the pipeline, I know it’ll get a whole lot worse before it gets better. My brother and I have a pretty good handle on the organization, but we’re not invincible or indestructible. All it takes is a few precise, calculated hits, and the scales could tip. Keeping Tommy Benedetto alive and bringing the Donovans into our fold are the first two of many steps we’ll need to take.

Otherwise, the sharks will taste blood.