The Killer’s New Obsession by B.B. Hamel
Cam
Irene looked incredible.
She also looked like shit, considering the broken nose and the bloody, puffed-up lips.
But she was the same girl I remembered, only grown leaner, more dangerous. The change was in her eyes: she cased my apartment as soon as I let her up the steps with the casual glance of a professional. I’d seen that look so many times in the mafia that it was hard to miss.
Little Irene wasn’t so pure anymore.
Not that I could blame her. I had no clue how she’d ended up in the back room of a Healy safe house with Ronan Healy himself, but I had a feeling it would be an interesting story. The last I saw her was two years ago, three nights before she ran away from home.
It was raining. The gutters were overflowing. In the distance, a car alarm blared. I stood under the front awning of her parents’ porch and leaned against a pole. She told me she didn’t want to see me ever again. She told me I’d changed too much.
I’d never forget her then. The hurt in her face, the anger on her lips. I loved her and wished she could understand that I joined the Valentino crime family to make something of myself. We were both from shit parents in a crappy neighborhood and had no chance. She barely graduated high school and I dropped out in tenth grade to start working odd jobs all over the city. For a guy like me, it was either minimum wage or blood.
I chose blood. I’d always choose blood.
She couldn’t handle it back then. “I don’t want some mafia asshole hanging around me, do you understand?” she said. “Just go away and don’t come back.”
So I left her that night, thinking she’d cool off and I’d see her again.
Except she disappeared, and it took me two years to find her again.
“You want something to drink?” I asked as she drifted over to my kitchen table. I had a place at the top of a row home in South Philly, deep in the heart of Valentino territory. It was about as safe as it could be.
“Anything,” she said.
I poured two glasses of whiskey and passed her one. She sipped it, winced a little bit, and put the glass down.
She wore dark jeans and a black tank top. I let my eyes drift down her body. She was thinner than I remembered, leaner and more muscular, but with the same soft curves in all the perfect places. God, I used to daydream about her, about tasting her lips and skin.
“So,” I said, sitting down across from her. “I think you’ve got a story to tell me.”
She shrugged a little and twirled her glass. She glanced around my place again, this time a little slower, making a show of it. “Kind of empty in here,” she said. “You sure this is your place?”
I laughed and gestured. “I’ve got everything I need,” I said, which was more or less true. I had a couch, a TV, and a coffee table in the living room. I had a little second-hand kitchen table near the barebones kitchen. And in the bedroom, I had a bed.
“Life of a bachelor, I guess,” she said, smiling to herself.
“Where’ve you been staying since I last saw you?” I asked, unable to help myself. “You disappeared.”
“I’ve been around,” she said, closing up. She hunched over her drink and glanced at me. “Didn’t think you’d care.”
“You’re the one that left me,” I said softly.
She let out a breath. “I don’t want to have this argument.”
I shrugged and let it go. I knew how this went, and it wasn’t worth the effort. She’d never admit that she was wrong, no matter how hard I pushed, and I’d never admit how badly it hurt when she disappeared.
Not worth getting into it.
“All right then,” I said, sipping my whiskey. “How about you tell me how you ended up in Ronan’s back room?”
She chewed on her lip, probably thinking up some story. Something happened to her in the last two years, something that hardened her, and I wanted to peel away all those layers to get at the girl I used to know.
The girl I used to spend all my time with before I joined the family. The girl I wanted to marry.
She was still in there. I saw her in all those little gestures: the way she touched her hair when she was anxious, how her lips pushed together, the little shrug she did, her laugh, her teeth, her eyes. It was all Irene, but it wasn’t Irene. She’d changed, and I didn’t know how or why.
I’d changed too. Two years in the Valentino family and I was already moving up the ranks, especially since the new Don took over. Lots of the old guard had retired and moved on, making space for the young guys to take control. There was opportunity now, and I wanted to grab hold of as much power as I possibly could.
That was why my place was so barren. All my money went back into the crew, back to my guys. I wanted them well paid and enthusiastic. I wanted to make sure I could trust them.
So I lived on a lot less than I otherwise could have.
“Ronan and I had a disagreement,” Irene finally said, not looking at me.
“That’s putting it mildly,” I said, leaning toward her. I reached out to touch her swollen lip but she swatted my hand away.
“He’s not exactly the gentle type,” she said, and cocked her head, glaring at me. “Something you know a lot about, don’t you?”
I laughed and took another drink to cover my frustration. She wasn’t wrong about that—I was a killer for the Valentino family, which meant I got my hands dirty. I took care of the trash, the dreck, the dirt and the mud of the city. I did what the family wanted me to do, and for that they rewarded me and my crew handsomely. I was making something of myself, earning a place in the family, building a name for myself.
I was doing it with death. But I was still doing it.
“Might be something I know about,” I said, and forced myself to grin at her. “So what did you do to land you in that room?”
“I stole from him,” she said.
I snorted. “No shit. Seriously?”
“Seriously,” she said, not smiling. “It’s been a rough few days, okay? Do you have some place I can crash?” She glanced toward the couch.
“You can have my bed,” I said. “But we’re not done with this conversation. What did you take from him?”
“Money,” she said and threw the drink back. “He wasn’t happy about it.” She stood and drifted into the living room.
I stared at her, at the long, lean line of her legs and hips, at the way she shoved her hands into her back pockets. She hesitated in front of a framed picture above the TV, one of the very few decorations I had in the place.
“Recognize it?” I asked, and drifted over to stand behind her.
It was a generic black and white landscape. Long, sloping hill, pine trees, mountain in the distance. Apparently, some dead guy named Ansel Adams took the picture, whoever that was.
Back in the day though, that picture had hung in her bedroom. She’d look at it and sometimes talk about how she wanted to escape and live in that valley. We’d have long fantasies where we discussed building a cabin and living off the land. We were city kids and didn’t know how to light a fire to save our lives, but it was fun to pretend for a while at least.
“Of course I do,” she said. “You took it?”
“Found my own copy,” I said. “Your old man threw all your shit out.”
“Sounds right,” she said, slumping in on herself again, shutting down. “Look, I’m exhausted and my face hurts. Can I just crash?”
“I still want to know what you’ve been doing all this time,” I said.
She didn’t meet my eye. “Maybe I’ll tell you someday.”
“Maybe in the morning,” I said.
“I’ve got to get back,” she said.
“No,” I said softly. “I think you need to stay here for a while.”
She turned to face me, hands balled into fists. I raised an eyebrow—she looked like she wanted to fight me. Little Irene, pretty little Irene, half my size and a third of my weight and thought she could fight me. I almost wanted to see it.
Back in the day, she hated violence. Maybe now she was starting to understand.
Violence always found you, whether you wanted it or not.
“You’re not keeping me here,” she said.
“I’m not going to force you to stay,” I said. “But you just got your face beaten by Ronan Healy for trying to steal from him. I can’t imagine you want to be out on the street right now.”
She relaxed slightly and glanced to the side. She must’ve had that same thought.
“You’re right,” she said grudgingly. “You don’t mind if I stay here?”
“I don’t mind at all,” I said. “It’s good to see you again.”
She looked at me and tilted her head. A small smile pressed against her lips. “I bet it is,” she said, and walked away then. The bathroom door slammed shut, and I lingered in the hall, staring down at the bare wood floor.
The was the same Irene I remembered, but something had happened to her. I didn’t know where she’d been for the last two years, but if she was stealing from a man like Ronan Healy, then it couldn’t have been good.
I wanted to help her. Most of all, I wanted to keep her. She got away once, but I couldn’t let that happen again, not when she was finally back in my life.
She was the first and only woman to ever make me want to change.
I couldn’t, and I lost her for it, but I wanted to at least.
The shower started and I left her to it. I sat back on the couch and called up Linc. He gave me a quick update, everything was quiet, they didn’t find any trace of Ronan, and everyone was headed back in for the night. I hung up and stripped off my blood-splattered shirt, tossing it on the floor.
Fucking hell, Irene. She was going to be trouble, I could already feel it, but my stomach did flips at the thought of her naked in my shower, the water dripping down the body I’d always wanted, the body I craved for years.
Back in my life, but dangerous, and definitely hiding something.
I’d pull her secrets out like teeth, then never let her escape me again.
