Sparrow - L.J. Shen Page 0,29

Arizona. Andrea Brennan, though? Fucked off with her younger boyfriend to one of the most expensive places on earth. The French Riviera. And she didn’t even have a job to retire from.

Someone had to pay for her fancy shit, for the fact Maria was still needed at her house three fucking times a week because my mother let her lazy friends stay there every now and again. And despite her lavish lifestyle, my mom was a little strapped for cash. Most of the family money was invested in stocks and properties for tax reasons.

I couldn’t help but think that Andrea and Catalina had a lot of things in common.

Anyway, if Red learned the truth—why my father made me marry her in the first place and how I kept her virginal and untouched just for me all those years, scared all those potential suitors away—not only would she try and kill me, she could also go to the police, and have me locked up. For life.

So I was trying to be civil with my new wife.

Only now I had no fucking idea what to do with her. Court her? Ignore her? Fuck her against her will? The first and third options weren’t my style. Ignoring her had worked for a week, but left me annoyed. I was sick of hearing she was aimlessly wandering my apartment most of the day and pretending to be asleep whenever I returned home.

And then the shit in the living room happened downstairs, and she was so miserable and vulnerable, I’d spat some bullshit story about seeing her at church and even offered to take her to dinner.

A dinner date. First one since her. I tried to remind myself dates were like sex. You never forget how to do it.

BY THE TIME I finished my shower, Sparrow was already asleep, and not faking it this time. I slid into bed beside her and watched the rise and fall of her chest, but she was far from peaceful. I knew she was keeping a knife under the pillow. It amused and impressed me all at once. Not that she could do anything with that knife if she ever confronted me, but I liked her assertiveness.

She was nothing like her father. Nothing.

My initial expectation after the wedding—that she’d lock herself in a room listening to man-hating Taylor Swift songs on repeat as she cried her eyes out—was proving premature. She might be innocent, but she wasn’t stupid. Hardened by her circumstances and toughened by our neighborhood—Red was no pushover.

I turned my back to her and turned on my bedside lamp, taking my iPad from my nightstand drawer. I went through everything I had to do the next day—a meeting with an asshat who was running for governor and needed to find his bitter stepdaughter and convince her not to talk shit about him; an appointment with a local property tycoon who got into trouble with some Armenian gang members because he didn’t want to pay them protection money.

Fucking Armenians ran the underworld of Boston nowadays, and they were a grim reminder of what could have been mine had my father been more careful with the family business.

The Brennans were infamous in Boston not only as the royal crime family of the city, but also because we’d been smart enough to donate to schools, churches and local charities. We dropped enough cash to have hospital wings, bars and babies named after us. People liked us because once upon a time we’d been generous with our earnings, and we’d kept the city mostly clean of the bad stuff (prostitution and drugs).

Sure, we were criminals, but we kept the innocents’ innocence intact and never hurt a soul who didn’t deserve to feel the wrath of our fists. Loan sharking, extortion, illegal gambling and money laundering. We did it all, and we did it well.

Now, the Armenians and local unorganized gangs were ruling the Boston underworld, and it was a mess. No moral codes, respect or honor. Just a bunch of fucking bullies who got their hands on unregistered guns.

After going over an email from another client and cursing the Armenians again, I put my iPad back in the drawer. Taking one last glance at Red, I noticed her cell on her nightstand was glowing with a new text message. It was four a.m. Who the fuck would text her this late?

My eyes shifted to her face, and back to her cell.

Don’t do this.

Do this.

Don’t do this.

Fuck it.

I’d only seen this woman