“So the very first question the world wants to know is . . . where did you two meet?” Jan asked.
MELODY
I groaned as we walked into the study. “Thank motherfucking God.”
Liam handed me a glass of brandy, reminding me, once again, that I needed to have someone set up my wine in here. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill her when she asked if you were pregnant,” he said, watching me carefully as I drank.
“Me, too. Apparently, marriage has made me soft,” I replied, turning back to the paperwork on the desk before us.
He wrapped his arms around me slowly, and I felt my body automatically begin to relax into him. I wasn’t sure when it started, or if it was due to all the sex, but it did that now. My body now knew his touch and was accepting of it, in fact, it enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.
What the fuck was happening to me?
“Liam, we need to make sure everyone believes Amory killed my father and prepare for Italy,” I murmured, but he just kissed along my shoulder and neck. “I’m serious. Cork your cock, and let’s finish this before Evelyn drags us out for the dinner.”
He groaned, pulling away, and my body instantly missed his warmth. Drinking some more, he sat down, looking at the file after I pushed it toward him.
“Six of Vance’s most prized cars will be en route from Suvereto to Lucignano. It’s about one hundred and four miles, but they will take the back roads because it’s safer and the roads are clear of police. I don’t care if they are Vance’s men or not, they are still men,” I replied, showing him the map.
He looked at me with an eyebrow raised and with a twinge of lust as always. He was such a fucking sex addict.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means if they have dicks, they are male. If they are male, and you put them behind the wheel of a multimillion dollar sports car, they will break the speed limit. They will race each other, because males have to prove they are better in everything.” I rolled my eyes.
He glared up at me as he gripped my arm. “You know I hate it when you refer to any other man’s dick but mine.”
“Get over it, it’s not like I’m sucking it,” I said, glaring at his hand. He had one second to let go before I cut it off.
“Fuck, Mel. Why must you always try to piss me off?” His eyes narrowed before he finally let me go.
“The American Royal Couple, remember? That means I embody freedom of fucking speech.”
Before he could reply, there was a knock on the door.
“Great. It’s your mother.” I sighed and prepared myself to be civil.
Rolling his eyes, Liam turned toward the door. “Enter.”
However, the person who entered was not Evelyn, but Declan, whose eyes were dark and his jaw set.
“The new Chicago Police Superintendent is here and wishes to speak with you,” he said, glowering. I looked back to Liam who was now sitting up straight in his chair scowling at the door with the promise of death and blood in his eyes. This Liam I found to be the sexiest of all.
“Bring him through,” he said softly.
Declan stepped aside, allowing a middle-aged man, though younger than I would think a Superintendent would be, to step forward. Beside him, another man around his age entered. They both looked unafraid, which meant they were either naïve or stupid.
“Thank you, Declan,” Liam called out. Declan eyed the officers, his jaw grinding, before walking out and shutting the door behind him.
“Superintendent Andrew Patterson is it? What brings you to my neck of the woods?” Liam asked as I took a seat on the desk crossing my legs.
“Yes it is, Mr. Callahan,” he said before glancing at me. “We came to talk to you privately.”
Privately? This mother-fuckering bitch.
“I think I’ll stay,” I said as kindly as possible, before Liam could speak.
Liam snickered, leaning back in his chair. “Well, you heard the lady.”
“As you know, Mr. Callahan, in fact, I’ll call you Liam, I’m the new Superintendent because the former decided to retire early. I was chosen by the good people of Chicago to make this city safe. Something it hasn’t been in a long fucking time. I know who you are. I know what you do, and I’m here to warn you that your days of walking all over the law are over. I won’t stop until you and the rest of your kind are where you belong. Behind bars reaching for soap.”
Liam laughed, looking at me. “Sweetheart, we really have to start voting. Look what happens when we don’t. Some idiot gets a badge and a gun and tries to pick a fight.”
“It’s not too late,” I said, smiling as I moved beside him. “He won’t stop. So all we have to do is kill him and then make sure to fill out the next ballot.”
The darker skinned officer beside the fool stepped forward. “Is that a threat, Mrs. Callahan?”
I smiled. “With my hand on the fucking bible, you very stupid man.”
Superintendent Patterson looked at me, shocked. “Maybe you didn’t hear me—”
“No, we heard you clearly,” Liam snapped, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “But it’s time for you to hear me. You think you can run this city? My fucking city? I fucking own it. I fucking bought it! I fucking fought over it! No crackhead bitch over on the corner of Jump Street, and damn well no 5-0 with his Smokey the Bear looking sidekick, will ever tell me differently. I own Chicago! Which means I fucking own you!”
Patterson stepped forward. “You may think you walk on water, but you are just a man, Liam Callahan, nothing more, and I’m not afraid of you. I will use every measure of the law and every man I have to put you down like the fucking dog you are!”
I had to hand it to him, the man had balls. He was a fucking idiot, but he had balls.
“You think you will,” I replied, as Liam breathed through his nostrils and stood up. “You think you have every cop, but you don’t. You never will. What happens if someone were to pop off their families? They aren’t all like you Superintendent Patterson. You lost your wife, your child, and your fucking house.” He looked at me surprised, as if I wouldn’t do a background check on the new head of the police department. “You lost it all, and now you think you have nothing to lose. Well, believe me, you do. You are not the first man who thought he could control this city through law and order. You are replaceable.”
Liam moved from around the desk to meet his gaze. “You think you can change the world? You think you can change my fucking city? Here is a reality check for you. One cop down a day, one family member a day how do you think your men will like that? This town will bleed. I will make it rain blood and tears. It will taint your hands so badly you will never be able to wash it off. Those men will hate you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they put a bullet in your skull themselves.”
Liam took another step right in front of the fucker’s face.
“I will unleash hell on these streets like you have never seen, and when a mother comes to you with a picture of her dead son, when your people are so afraid that they sleep in bullet-proof vests and they turn to you, tell them it’s because you thought you could step up to me. Tell them it was because you were an idiot and stepped into the wrong house one Saturday,” Liam said, and I couldn’t deny how sexy I found him at that very second.
Walking over to the door, I held it open. “You’ve been uninvited, which means get the fuck out of my house before I use my second amendment rights and blow you the fuck away.”
They left quickly after that, and when they did, I let the door slam behind them before I walked over to Liam and kissed him deeply. He lifted me up and carried me to the desk laying me out on it. He spread my legs with his knee as his hands traveled up my stomach and then to my breasts while he kissed the side of my face.
But before he could rip my shirt off, I grabbed a gold-plated letter opener and held it to his neck. He froze, staring at me in shock and confusion.
“Remember how close you came today to having me in this office,” I said, pressing the opener
just a little bit harder into his neck. “Then remember you do not own Chicago. We own Chicago, which you forgot in the heat of your roaring. We! Next time you forget, I will cut you from the tip of your pretty chin to your heart. Now off.”
He glared into my eyes, grabbing my wrists and squeezing until the letter opener fell from my grasp. His hands went to my neck, and I saw the very monster I lusted over staring at me back in the eyes. Even then, I still found it sexy.
“I’ve told you once—but I will tell you again seeing as how you are my wife, whom I trust and care for in too many twisted ways to describe—do not ever hold a weapon to me.”
He kissed my lips hard again before letting go of me and stepping back. I began fixing my dress, as he went straight for the brandy.
“We are going to have to kill the Vance mission,” I replied, walking up to him to fix his tie.
He looked angry, frustrated, and bloodthirsty. “And why the fuck is that? That bitch and his sidekick have nothing to do with Italy.”
“Liam,” I hissed pulling on his tie. “We are about to go to war. We will not be stuck in the middle of Vance and the Chicago PD. Especially when our men are acting like children and fucking up every time we look away. They hate each other.”
“Hate is a strong word.”
“Since I’ve gotten here, has there been one night where either of our men haven’t insulted or tried to kill each other?”
His pink lips parted for a quick second before closing again.
“Exactly.”
“We Irish have been fighting you Italians for generations. Of course they are not going to stop just because you’re sprawled out in my bed.”
The grin on his face, like an obese cat after a meal, made my blood run hot. When was he going to get it?
“You are a fucking . . . it is this thing you Irish do that pisses us off. You don’t think before you speak. Sei in ottone, idioti maleducati, egoisti e cazzo, razza di mangiare, dormire, uccidere e gobba come cani!”
“I’m sorry you lost me after speak.”
Talking a deep breath I took a few steps away from him, trying my best not to just . . . ah. “How can someone with your IQ not have taken the initiative to learn Italian?”
“Have you seen the Sleeping Dictionary?”
“The what?”
“In the movie this Englishman goes to a foreign country in the nineteen thirties to help colonialize the area. But he doesn’t know the language so they give him this beautiful village girl whom he sleeps with and shares words until he knows the language.”
I . . . I couldn’t even. He had to be a masochist or just enjoyed fucking with me. I didn’t have the energy for this.
“Let me guess, the movie was written and directed by men. Voi tutti mi fai schifo.”20
The corners of his jaw turned up as his shoulders relaxed leaning on the front of his desk.
“So, dear wife, what shall we do about our men?”
“Tonight we go to dinner and tomorrow we prepare for camp,” I said with a smile of my own.
He stared at me as though I had lost my fucking mind. “Camp?”
“When I took over as Boss my men didn’t trust me. They didn’t think I could lead them and when I brought in new people, they didn’t trust them either. I bought a stretch of forest near Cascadia, Oregon and made it into sort of a camp. It’s their moment to let their guard down, because the place is like a fucking fort. The hackers all spend time playing with the newest toys I provide them. All I ask is that they don’t get on any FBI lists. The very fact that I have to tell them that is beyond me. The woods are filled with targets to challenge snipers. The gym is for the hand-to-hand knife nuts, and there are seven chefs there around the fucking clock to feed them. They kill things together, they eat together, and they sleep in the same houses. By the end of the week, they are brothers.” It was genius on my part, and I could see it in his eyes as well.
“One week? That’s it, and then we will be the Brady Bunch?”
“Well, they won’t be trying to kill each other as often. That’s a start.”
He shrugged. “Well, wife, to camp we go then.”
I grinned almost wanting to take more pride in his words. “No women allowed other than Adriana and me.”
“What the fuck is with this Adriana?”
“She is part of the crew, Liam, and if you saw past the physical looks, you would know that. She is a trained marksman, expert profiler, and a damn good personal dresser,” I added, pushing away from him to grab my phone off the desk.
“I still want to take out Vance’s cars.” He frowned. Men and their cars.
“We can, and we will.” I smirked, already loving the plan forming in my head. “Except this time we will have to steal it from Vance’s estate before he gets there.”
He looked at me, grinning like a mad fool, and stepped forward brushing the side of my cheek.
“Fucking perfect,” he said to me before kissing me once again, and I knew this time there was no stopping him.
FOURTEEN
“If the desire to kill
and the opportunity to kill
came always together, who would escape hanging?”
~ Mark Twain
LIAM
“You destroyed my underwear,” she hissed at me as she put her white shoes back on.
Straightening my tie, I tried not to smile, but I couldn’t help it. “Next time, don’t wear any at all and we won’t have this problem.”
My beautiful wife stalked up to me, slowly glaring at me with daggers in her eyes, and yet, it only made me want her more. I wanted to reach out and touch her.
What the fuck is wrong with me? No matter how many times I had her, it only made me want her even more.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” she said, glaring. “I’m not the one who has to sit through dinner thinking about how I have nothing under this dress, about how you could easily slip your hand underneath it and reach in me. But I think I will sit opposite you tonight.”
She backed away so quickly it felt like I’d been awakened with cold water from the loss of her warmth. That, and the fact that all the blood in my body was rushing to another part of my anatomy. Damn her.
“You’re going to sit next to me,” I demanded as she walked toward the door and, my eyes went straight to her ass.
“No, I’m not. I would rather shoot you, but since I can’t, I will sexually frustrate you instead. Do not rip my clothing,” she snapped, leaving me aching for her.
“Bitch is going to kill me,” I muttered, trying my best to calm myself down.
Staring at the file on the desk, I wanted nothing more than to destroy Vance now. I wanted to stare into his eyes as I lit his world on fire. However, I would wait. First I . . . we needed to fix the idiots under us.
The moment I stepped out of the study, Declan was already waiting.
“How long have you been out here?”
He smirked. “Long enough. I apologize because I would have waited, had I realized. She told me to calm down, it was just fucking sex. That woman scares and bewilders me all at the same time.”
Just fucking sex.
I frowned. “Try being married to her. One minute she kisses you and the next she has a letter opener to your throat.”
Declan’s eyes widened at me before he broke out laughing. “One day she may just kill you Liam, I swear it.”
“One day, she just may.” I sighed. Truthfully, I wasn’t even sure if she liked me for any other reason than the fact that we were married. I was ‘just sex’ to her, and it shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t going to change . . . that she would never care.
“So, I’m guessing you both handled the Superintendent? Or is there something I can do?” he asked, right as we stopped outside the door. I could see it in his eyes. His own bloodlust.
Declan wasn’t as much of a killer as Neal or myself. He had always been, and would always be, t
he man behind the computer, where I needed him to be. But when it came to the police, Declan wanted blood. It was, after all, an officer who had taken both his parents. He hated them and the code they lived by.
“If things get messy, you can personally clean it up, Declan,” I answered. “But until then, just keep a watch on our Superintendent. If he buys a home near anything Callahan, let me know.”
He nodded, and the dark look in his eyes disappeared the moment he stepped into the dining room. He stopped for a moment, noticing my wife sitting in his position next to Coraline. He raised an eyebrow at me before smirking as if he already knew the reason why. Saying nothing, I walked over to my Mel, kissing her on the cheek softly. She flinched as if I had slapped her instead.
“Evening, wife,” I said, trying to be polite while being just loud enough for everyone to hear. I knew full well it would tick her off as I took my seat across from her and to the right of my father. But I didn’t care.
She was pushing me and I was close to snapping.
Sedric was and would always sit at the head of the table. I didn’t care. It was a prop chair. It held no real power other than carving a turkey. I sat at the true head of the table. My mother sat on the opposite side and as always, they were speaking another language with their eyes. I tried to focus my attention on Mel. However, she seemed lost in her own mind. A mind I would give anything to read.
“Mel, is there a reason why you are not sitting next to Liam?” my mother asked kindly as I reached for my glass of brandy.
Mel frowned. “I swear he’s trying to get me pregnant. He can’t keep his hands to himself. It’s kind of annoying, actually.”
I felt the liquid rush back up my throat as I coughed. I glared at her. Of course she would bring up sex at the dinner table, of fucking course. She was my Mel and didn’t give a damn about decorum. She lived to make me fear for my life, horny, or uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong with getting pregnant?” Olivia asked, glaring as she drank her wine while the servants brought our food.