Sparrow - L.J. Shen Page 0,28

up to her knees, looking like Alice Cooper, the mascara running down her cheeks in chunky strikes. Her palms were pressed together and she matched my pace, crawling on her knees.

Make no mistake, she loved this mess. Would never quit this affair, this drama, or me.

“I’m good. I’m just…you know, with you getting married and…” Her eyes fluttered shut as she heaved a sigh. “You’re right.” She shrugged, forcing a cunning smile as she got to her feet. “It’s just something I need to get used to.”

I would give her a piece of my mind about that slutty gift. But not tonight.

When I walked out of her house, Sam was in the living room, watching a cartoon in the dark, clutching a teddy bear under his armpit. “Bye, Mr. Troy,” he muttered almost to himself, eyes still glued to Bugs Bunny and Road Runner.

I grunted in response.

I was the scum of the earth.

The biggest scum on the planet.

And still, I couldn’t help myself.

SO, WHEN I GOT back home, poured myself a drink and heard Sparrow’s little feet climbing down the stairway, I decided I’d done enough damage for one day and spared her the truth about our marriage.

She was trying to be nice, and I was trying not to resent her.

The truth about our marriage was that I wanted nothing more than to be out of it. But as it happened, my father had made me promise I’d marry Abraham Raynes’s daughter.

Until his murder, I couldn’t, for the fucking life of me, understand why.

Raynes was a loser, a drunk, a man with no prospects, who never even made it to becoming a real mobster back in the day when every illiterate piece of shit was a legitimate part of the mob. He used to get the shittiest jobs the organization had to offer. My father let him work with the rookies. Abe extorted like a teenager, threatening people who owed us money, and he had some gigs as a bouncer and filled in for our errand boy when the latter was sick.

My father always spoke fondly of Sparrow Raynes, Abe’s daughter. Which didn’t explain why, when I turned eighteen, he invited me to his office (something he very rarely did, despite us being close) and made me promise that one day I would marry her and bring her into the family.

Marry. Sparrow. Raynes. The kid who was so off my radar, I wasn’t even sure I’d understood him right.

But I loved my father fiercely, adored him and would have died for him, so I rolled with the plan. I was eighteen, and she was eight. It was twisted and barbaric, and it was my very first taste of the unfairness of life, but it would be years before I’d have to worry about it. I put that plan on the backburner.

Needless to say, as we both got older the very idea of marrying the Plain Jane down the road sounded about as appealing as fucking a hedgehog. I warned everyone around Sparrow to stay the fuck away—guys were not to look, take interest or touch her. Always made sure the bad crowd kept away from her, not that she was drawn to it in the first place.

And always, always pressing my father to tell me why the hell I had to marry the little redhead. He never did.

The day he died, I found out why.

See, I always knew da had a side piece, but finding out it was Robyn Raynes – the runaway mother next door – made sense.

By then, I was older, wiser and colder, after having my heart broken into a gazillion pieces. I knew that the road to success was paved with sacrifices.

Sparrow Raynes was my sacrifice. I promised I’d marry her, and I had.

Truthfully, I would have happily waited a few more years, but my father’s lawyer made it pretty fucking clear that I wouldn’t see a dime or an acre he had left me until she had a ring on her finger.

And Cillian Brennan wasn’t taking the “all the days of my life” part of the wedding vows lightly. Clause 103b of his will stated that if Sparrow and I divorced, she would get the majority of my inheritance.

The majority. Un-fucking-believable.

At thirty-two, I was ready to collect what was mine. What had always been mine—my father’s hard-earned wealth.

The money was especially needed, now that my mother had decided to leave Boston in favor of a place in Nice, France. Most folks retired to Florida or