Unchosen Ruler by Maggie Cole

1

Liam O'Malley

Lights flash three times.The prison turns silent, and my palms sweat. Time seems to stand still until the guard yells, "O'Malley," destroying the silence as men hollering fills my ears.

I stand in front of the door, waiting for it to open one last time. I'm getting out of this hellhole, but nothing prepared me for the flipping in my stomach.

Why am I nervous?

It's been fifteen years.

What's it going to be like on the outside?

The stale air I've breathed for years seems normal. The humming and brightness of the fluorescent lights and white walls made my skin crawl when I first got locked up. I thought I would never get used to them, but they are no longer foreign. Men I've befriended, those I hate, and some who don't mean anything to me, I pass. There's only one person whose eyes I meet on my way out.

Finn.

He's in the last cell before I step out the door. His green eyes are hardened, probably like mine. He says nothing, nor do I. We don't have to. For my entire stay here, he's been my rock. He was incarcerated a few years before me, and once I entered the prison, he made it clear to all that I was the future ruler of the O'Malley clan. It gave me immediate respect, protection, and also enemies. At twenty-five, I was hardly a man. Finn was only thirty, but those five years and time in the slammer I didn't have made him wiser than me. My father told me to listen to Finn before I got sentenced, and it was the best advice he could have given me. In a few months, Finn will be out, too. And we have a new plan for how the next generation of O'Malleys will survive.

I give him a nod. He returns it, and the guilt that I'm leaving him behind fills me. He got here first for the same crime I committed, but his punishment for murder was longer than mine. It's another hard reality about how unfair life is. There is no equality for criminals or life. It doesn't matter why you committed whatever heinous act you did. Some skate free, while others pay. Finn and I both paid our dues longer than many in one of America's worst penitentiaries. Leaving him here seems cruel.

I tuck all emotions I have deep inside me. Finn taught me how to stay in control of my body language at all times. The look in his eyes tells me not to falter now.

The guard leads me through the door. It's somewhere I've only been once, fifteen years ago, when I was led into this cesspool. I'm taken to an area to remove the orange jumpsuit I've worn since arriving. The clothes my mother mailed via the prison rules are in a zipped plastic bag. I put them on and throw my jumpsuit and shoes in the laundry bin.

"Sign here," the guard at the desk says.

I sign my name on several forms without even looking at the information. I don't care to read it. My mother will probably nag me about it. It's something I used to hate, and now, I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure it'll bug me soon enough, but until something is taken away, you don't realize how much you'll miss it.

He hands me the papers. "Don't come back." He points to the door. "You're free to go."

I don't answer him. I've never seen him before and don't care to ever again. He can take his shitty job and shove it up his ass. Anyone who'd choose to work in this hellhole, knowing what secretly goes on here, doesn't deserve an ounce of my time.

In four steps, I'm out the door, but so is the other guard who escorted me from my cell. The fresh air hits me. It's something I've not breathed in years since they expanded the prison and turned the outside rec area into another building. The sunlight hits me first, mixing with the chilled oxygen, and I shut my eyes for a moment, just letting it hit my face.

"Bet that feels good," the guard says.

I open my eyes and ignore him, too. I've had to look at this prick for too many years. The sins he's committed while being paid by the State of Illinois are too many to count. I walk toward the gate, and as soon as it opens, I have to hold back my emotions again.

"Liam!" My mother sobs, pulling me into her arms the minute I step through.

I embrace her as tightly as I can, trying to get her to stop crying, but it's pointless.

"Son," my father says, patting my back, then going into a coughing fit.

I pull away from my mother. "Dad, are you okay?"

He continues coughing into a handkerchief for a moment. His face turns red and his eyes water. "Let's get out of here."

Inhaling a large breath of clean, cold air, I follow my parents to the car and get inside. My mother sits next to me, my father across from us. For several hours, we travel north to Chicago. I stare out the window, trying to make sense of how things have and haven't changed since I was last free.

Throughout the ride, my father continues coughing. At one point, bright red speckles his white cloth.

"Dad! Have you been to the doctor? You're coughing blood," I state.

He and my mother exchange a look. I may have been gone fifteen years, but I know that look.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"Nothing. How does it feel to be free?" my mother replies, nervously taking her eyes off my father.

I turn to my dad. I repeat, "What's going on? Are you sick?"

"He's fine. He just—"

"Don't sugarcoat it, Ruth. The man's been in prison. He's not a child who will wilt," my father growls.

"Darragh, this isn't the time," my mother claims.

"Someone better tell me what the hell is going on," I order. My gut drops when my mother looks out the window and twists her fingers in her lap. Something is seriously wrong. I can see it on her face and feel it in the air around us.

My father's face hardens. He blurts out, "I have terminal lung cancer." He removes his brown plaid, tweed cap and sets it on his lap.

What the...?Unable to put words together, I stare at him.

"It's good they released you on parole. If you had to serve the final year of your sentence, I would've been dead before you got out."

My pulse increases and my mouth goes dry. "Excuse me? Did you say a year?"

The pit in my stomach grows as he shrugs. "Probably less. So we don't have any time to waste. You have a lot to learn so you can run things."

Blood draining from my face creates a chill in my spine. "Dad—"

"I don't want to hear it. There's nothing anyone can do. I've been to dozens of specialists that your mother dragged me to see. It's a done deal. Now the best thing we can do is get you up to speed and capable of running things."

I gaze at my mother, who's still facing the window. I reach for her hands and put my other arm around her. She quietly shakes and attempts to keep her sadness in check.

My father pins his steely gaze on mine. His voice is as cold as his eyes. "There's a lot to be done, Liam. The O'Malleys are vulnerable right now."

Alarm fills me. "What's the threat?"

My father takes out his pipe and lights it up, inhaling a lungful of smoke. He cracks the window and slowly releases it.

"Should you be smoking?" I ask.

He snorts. "Don't nag me like your mother. I'm dying. It's a fact. Let me smoke in peace."

How is this possible?My father has always been the strongest man I know. I haven't spent any time with him in fifteen years, minus a few minutes once a month during visitation, and now he's dying?

I have to step into his role.

I'm not ready.

I have to be.

The rest of the car ride is somber. My mother says nothing. I don't remove my arm from around her or take my hand off hers. My father stays in his unemotional state, filling me in on issues we have going on with the other crime families, specifically the Rossis, Petrovs, and Baileys.

My cousin Killian and the Ivanov brothers started a silent war with the two largest crime families and our enemies, the Rossis and Petrovs. We're monitoring the war to keep it balanced, allowing them to kill each other off and stepping in when one side gets too much power. The issues with the Baileys are nothing new. They're another Irish crime family. Since the beginning of time, our families have been at war, fighting for control over the drug and gambling trade.

By the time we get to Chicago, my head is spinning. My father reels everything off quickly. It all overwhelms me, but I don't show him any weakness. It's another thing I learned in prison. Anything but strength gets you killed.

The car pulls up to our house. My cousins Killian, Nolan, and Declan are there, among other O'Malleys, but they're the ones I care about the most. Each of them has been like a brother to me before I killed the thug who murdered their father. For fifteen years, they visited me and never missed an opportunity to see me. But one person I want to see as much as them isn't here. I glance around the house. It's been updated and bears no resemblance to the former decor of my childhood. Everything is modern and fresh. It's beautiful, but a tiny bit of disappointment fills me. I've dreamed of being home in my old house. This is new and unfamiliar. It's five thousand times better than where I spent the last fifteen years, but I still wish something was the same. I don't dwell on it though. "Where's Nora?"

"We didn't invite her," Killian says.

"Why?" Their other sisters, who I don't give a shit about, are in the kitchen. They never cared about me the way Nora did. She and I were always close. The only reason she stopped visiting me was that I didn't like the prisoners checking her out. Where I was at was no place for a woman, even in the visiting room. My mother insisted on continuing to come. Nora tried, but her brothers convinced her it was what I wanted and too dangerous.

"Let's go talk," Killian says and hands me a beer.

"Is she all right?" I ask, worried.

Declan nods. "Yep. But let's talk."

I don't take the beer. "I can't. My parole officer—"

My father grunts behind me. "You're an O'Malley. No parole officer is going to be checking up on you or making you pee in a cup. I made sure of it."

I spin. My father holds out a shot of whiskey. I take it, and he says, "I've waited a long time for you to be home, son. To your future. To the O'Malleys."

"And may you find a lovely woman and give me some grandbabies," my mother chirps.

I groan, and my cousins snicker behind me. I toss back the whiskey, and it burns my throat as it slides down. Killian hands me the beer. I take a large mouthful, cooling my warming insides. He motions to the other room. "Let's talk about Nora."

We go into the den, and my chest tightens. I've hardly processed my father admitting he's dying. Nora better not be sick or hurt. I turn to my cousins. "Someone better tell me why Nora isn't here."

Nolan holds his hands in the air. "Chill. She's fine. She's just..." He nervously glances at his brothers.

"What?" I demand.

"She's pregnant," Declan states.

"She's having a baby?" I ask.

They all affirm.

Happiness fills me. "That's great! So why isn't she here?"

Another look passes between them. Killian says, "It's Boris Ivanov's baby."

Too shocked to say anything, I study their faces. Not marrying an Irish man is not something my father or the majority of the O'Malleys would be cool with unless there were some arrangement. I finally find my words. "Does my father know?"

"Yeah. The Ivanov brothers agreed to an alliance to control the war," Killian informs me.

"I see. But Nora is happy? She and the baby are healthy?" I ask.

"Yeah. She's the happiest I've ever seen her right now."

"And you're all good with this?"

"Yes. We need you to be, too."

"I don't have any issues with it," I proclaim.

All three brothers look at me with surprise. Declan crosses his arms. "You don't?"

"No. Being locked up makes you think about what's important and not. I assume Boris is treating her right?"

"Of course," Nolan says.

I take a big sip of my beer. "As long as she's happy. When can I see her?"

"Tomorrow. I'll set it up," Killian replies.

"Good."

The rest of the night, I attempt to carry on conversations with family members I haven't seen in fifteen years. It's difficult. My senses seem to be on overload. Every woman I speak to has a different perfume on, itching my nostrils. Men have cologne overpowering me, too. It all makes my skin crawl. Topics others find normal make me feel like a complete outsider. And I'm fully aware every O'Malley is assessing me, wondering if I'm capable of leading the family.

When the party ends, I'm relieved to go to my old room. It's updated as well. The new bed feels oddly soft and luxurious compared to what I've grown accustomed to in prison.

The next day, Killian takes me to Maksim Ivanov's penthouse. Nora's there with a woman named Anna, who's Dmitri Ivanov's wife. Another woman, Maksim's girlfriend Aspen, is in the bedroom recovering from a snake bite. We have lunch, and it's the first time I feel normal since my release, yet I also can sense Nora is hesitant around me.

Maybe I'm imagining things?

No, she's definitely worried I'm going to screw up.

Over the next month, I get more acclimated to society. I'm either with my father, learning O'Malley business and meeting his important contacts, or Killian, Nolan, and Declan are with me. I speak to Nora a few times and also get reacquainted with the Ivanovs.

My Nana left her pub to Nora when she passed. The Baileys started a fire, and she had to remodel the entire place. The day of the grand reopening arrives. It should be nothing but happiness, but like every day, dozens of issues pop up.

I'm starting to feel as if my life only consists of putting out fires, learning everything my dad says I need to in order to take care of our clan, and implementing the plan Finn and I put together with the insider information we obtained.

The packed pub makes my skin crawl. All I want to do is congratulate Nora, have a beer, then get out of the pub as soon as possible. And then, my heart almost leaps out of my chest.

The most stunning woman I've ever seen is sitting in a booth with Nora, Anna, and some other women. Her smile lights up the room. Kindness radiates off her. Innocence best describes her aura, and I already know she's way too good for me or any other man in this bar. Her long, blonde hair, blue eyes peeking out under thick lashes, and pink, pouty lips take my breath away.

I don't know what they're saying, but a blush fills her cheeks. For the first time in what feels like forever, I'm sure about something.

I have to meet her. As I beeline toward the table, my gut flips.

What do men say to women these days?

I swallow the lump in my throat. "Nora, are you going to introduce me to your friends? All stunning lasses, by the way," I add, staring at the gorgeous creature in front of me.

"Umm..." Nora picks up a glass of water and takes a long sip. The woman's cheeks burn to the color of Nora's red hair.

Anna steps in and makes introductions. I hardly hear anyone's name, except hers.

Hailee.

The sexiest voice I've ever heard comes out of her mouth. "Nice to meet you."

The waitress comes over. "Nora, I don't mean to interrupt, but Darragh said to come get you. He's talking to Boris near the back."

Nora hesitates but replies, "Oh. Okay. Thanks." She rises, and I pull her chair back.

"I'll keep your seat warm while you're gone." I wink, hoping she'll help me out if I need it later in the night, then refocus on Hailee.

"Sure. I'll be right back," Nora claims.

I don't take my eyes off Hailee and tell Nora, "Take your time." I sit in the chair Nora vacated. "Are you Irish, Hailee?"

She smiles. "Yes."

"What's your last name?"

"O'Hare."

"O'Hare. O'Malley. Both good names. So what were you ladies discussing?"

Hailee's face turns almost purple. "Noth—"

"Licking furry pussies," Skylar states.

I chuckle. "Is this some strange trend I'm not aware of?"

"No!" Hailee exclaims.

"Hailee's online boyfriend asked if he could sample hers." Kora smirks.

Hailee groans and puts her hand over her face. "Stop it! You know I wax!"

Disappointment fills me. I raise my eyebrows. "Boyfriend?"

"No, she doesn't have one," Anna cuts in and grins.

Thank you, Anna!

Relief replaces the gnawing in my gut. Hailee's blue eyes shyly meet mine again. "That's good. I might have to kill him for being so disrespectful to you."