Rake: A Dark Boston Irish Mafia Romance (The Carneys Book 1) Read online

  And personally, I don’t really care about him losing everything, except for one devious reason. My brother Callan and I have done some business of our own that relies on the success of the casino, at least over the next five years. It’s in our best interests to keep our father happy and distracted until that goal is met.

  “Well, I have to give him this anyway.” I hold up the red folder with the full bar liquor licenses.

  “Good luck,” Patrick says. “I’ll wait here for you.”

  For the gruesome details of what I’ve done wrong. I’d do the same, though.

  I push out of the chair and head up to my father’s office.

  The casino itself is two sprawling floors that include slots, table games, dining, and an events venue. The attached hotel is much grander—twenty stories, and, according to the local newspaper, a blight on the historic Charlestown skyline.

  I don’t disagree.

  My father’s opulent office is on the second floor of the casino, and I take the stairs, two at a time, not from excitement but from habit. Some people might look at the grandiose space my father carved out for himself and say he was compensating for some kind of lack, or maybe some kind of smallness. But I’d never say that, of course.

  I knock on the door and wait for him to call me in.

  He always makes us wait. The longer you wait, the angrier he is.

  It’s a full sixty seconds before he shouts at me through the door.

  That bad? I don’t even bother wondering what it could be this time as I stride over to his desk.

  “Patrick said you wanted to see me?”

  He looks up from the pile of papers on his expensive mahogany desk, his electric blue eyes boring into me. “Tell me again why I have you on the payroll, Finn? When you can’t even do the simplest of tasks?”

  A million snide remarks cross my mind, including remarking on the liquor licenses I’m holding in my hand, a replacement for the ones he fucked up. Instead, I tilt my head and grin. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Always so smug,” he snarls, standing up and leaning across his desk. “And for what?”

  He sneers at me, taking in my plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and Irish Scally cap. “You look like an extra from some dumb fucking Whitey Bulger biopic. Maybe you should do that instead and actually bring in some money.”

  Extras don’t get paid enough to spend the amount of money I did on these jeans, but my father doesn’t need to know that.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, still smiling. “Until then, what can I do for you?”

  He tosses a pamphlet at me. “Handling the staff is supposed to be your job.”

  It’s for the local SWU 105 union.

  “The staff are organizing?” I ask.

  “Figures you wouldn’t know.” He scowls. “Back in July, when you were on the Vineyard fucking things up with your sister and the land I wanted to buy, I received an anonymous tip about this.”

  I was fucking things up with the land he wanted to buy? That’s not what happened – he’d never really stood a chance of getting the land he’d coveted for decades This man’s ability to self-delude is incredible. Fucking things up for Siobhan though? That part is fair. I’d done my best to keep her from hooking up with Kieran Doyle, not that it had mattered in the end.

  “I’m guessing you had someone talk to the lead organizer?” I venture.

  “How dare those people—lucky enough to be employed by me—want a union?” He glares at me. “Well, they found the organizer tied up to an old chain-link fence and beaten to a bloody pulp in Doherty Park. As I told the police, must’ve been a coincidence.”

  “Poor guy,” I venture. I bet he sent Hamish. Hamish is our family’s best fixer.

  “Girl,” he snarls, snapping the pamphlet out of my hands. “Their organizer is a woman. Sasha Saunders.”

  Damn. I’d assumed it’d be a man. A small shudder of horror ripples through me at the idea of a woman being tied to a chain-link fence and assaulted. Low, even for James Carney.

  With our family’s reputation, any organization going toe-to-toe—especially a hardened Boston union—had to know the risks. I can’t fathom why they would have assigned a woman to such a dangerous job.

  I keep my face neutral. Can’t let my disgust at my father’s actions show. There was no reason to beat this woman half to death. I could’ve handled it less violently, and without involving the police. He’s despicable.

  If anyone thinks the Carneys—any Carneys, but most especially James Carney—have let morals, ethics or basic human concerns get in the way of getting what they want, think again.

  I know that as well as anyone.

  But there are gradients between what I’m willing to do and what my father is. Right now, though, I can’t let him sense that, because he’ll see it as weakness.

  My place here—everything that I value about my life—relies on one thing: if not making him happy, then keeping him calm until my other ventures pay off.

  I swallow any discomfort and hit my father with a level gaze. “So she’s trying to work with the staff again?”

  “She’s resilient, I’ll give her that,” my father hisses. “And dedicated to her work, which is more than I can say for you. Handle this, Finn. And I want you to do it directly.”

  I shrug off the hypocrisy of my father’s words. He barely handles anything directly, deploying his fixers and his children like soldiers, but that’ll bite him in the ass soon enough.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I say.

  “Don’t fuck this up, Finn. Not like you fucked up in July. Kieran Doyle isn’t even the smartest of that trash family and he still bested you.”

  I flinch at that.

  My father hates the Doyles but gives them legitimacy by treating them like rivals, even though they’re losing power in the community as we gain it. Still, he’ll never win against them as long as his obsession with them lasts. My sister’s relationship with one of the Doyle sons, Kieran, has renewed my father’s tendency to throw them in my face.

  It’s a truth I need to learn too. Being constantly compared to the Doyles in a negative light burned a hatred in me, too, that caused me to make stupid mistakes.

  In July, I’d gone to Martha’s Vineyard to visit Siobhan, who was doing an artist’s residency on the island. When I walked in and found her in her rented home, in bed, with Kieran Doyle standing over her, I thought he’d assaulted her.

  The rage I felt in that moment is palpable even now. Does Sasha have anyone who felt that kind of rage on her behalf after she’d been beaten and left for dead?

  It takes a concerted effort to push that thought away.

  I spent the rest of the summer on the Vineyard, trying to convince my sister that Kieran was using her, but I’d been wrong about that. Wrong about Kieran’s intentions and wrong about their relationship. Not that I’d ever admit it.

  But the whole episode did mean that the casino and its staff had been far out of my mind. And I was supposed to be keeping an eye on things.

  My father laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Fix it, Finn. Or else.”

  “Sure,” I say. “No problem. I took care of this, by the way.” I hand him the folder.

  He looks at the liquor licenses. I’m not sure what I expect, but he tosses it on his desk, ignoring my existence. Clearly I’ve been dismissed. You’d think after years of being treated like this you’d get used to it—but it still rattles me.

  It’s not the worst thing he’s done to me by far, though.

  After leaving his office, I take a quick walk outside to clear my head. James Carney’s lectures mean nothing to me. He made it impossible for me to love him so long ago I can’t remember if I ever did. I’m not looking for his approval or his praise. His angry rants leave me numb at this point, waiting for the takeaway so I can do what I have to and move on.

  He put me through hell, though, and I’ll be damned if I don’t take as much from him as he took from me. I’ll keep doing
what it takes to squeeze him dry, but for that to happen, he has to keep having something that’s worth taking.

  The smarter move is to let him think I’m giving him what he wants while finding ways to get what I need.

  The cold air is refreshing, and I close my eyes for a minute. Usually the roar of the nearby highway traffic drowns all other sounds out, but it’s quiet right now, and I can hear the creak of the frozen ice of the Mystic River settling. It’s eerie and beautiful. I listen to its strange music for a few minutes and then head back inside.

  I walk down to the security office, where Patrick waits to hear the details of my dressing down. He’s a nosy fucker, but so am I.

  Besides, I’d rather he found out from me. Another thing you learn from being a Carney: controlling the narrative is power and optics are everything. So I lay out the details that I’m willing to share, and when I finish my tale of woe, he folds his massive forearms across his chest and fixes me with an appraising glance.

  “Finn, you’ve always been able to get any woman you wanted.”

  True, for better or for worse.

  Silence stretches and I raise an eyebrow as his implication hits me.

  “You think I should seduce the organizer?” I ask. After what this woman has been through at the hands of my father, is seducing her is even an option?

  “Could be fun. Maybe she’s cute?” Patrick says neutrally.

  Probably not after what Hamish did to her.

  “Either way, that’d be one hell of a conquest.” Patrick leans back in his chair and I’m surprised it stays upright given his size. “Fucking legendary, man, even for you.”

  It could be just the challenge I need right now. Patrick’s right—I’ve bedded more women than I can count, mostly for the fun of seeing if I could do it.

  “This would be bigger than the time you fucked that city councilor’s wife and left her wet panties on his desk.”

  “You think?” I run a hand over my chin. “Well, he was being very unreasonable about the kind of debauchery a casino would bring into the city. I just wanted him to know that, sadly, sin often lives closer to home than we’d like to admit.”

  “Disgusting.” Patrick shakes his head. “You’re something else, bro. If you can fuck this union chick into doing your bidding, I’ll call our father Jimbo to his face.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  His face falls. “You’re going to have to hope Catriona gets arrested for solicitation. The only reason Dad hasn’t cut you off is because it’d be a bigger embarrassment to publicly disown you than letting you keep fucking around like some spoiled trust fund brat. Eventually that won’t be true.”

  I was expecting some kind of counter-stakes, but point taken.

  “You’re the smartest person I know, Finn,” Patrick begins.

  “Smarter than Callan?”

  He laughs. “Callan is brilliant but in a very different way. No one can read people like you do. You figured out how to get that licensing guy what he wanted so we could get what we needed. Just do that again with the union chick.”

  I could do that. The fact that she’d gone back to working with our staff, even after what had happened, gives me insight into her character. Brave, but foolish. Now I just need to find out what’s missing in her life.

  “Well I guess I’ve got work to do, then. Thanks for the pep talk.”

  “Always happy to help you destroy an innocent woman who’s trying to make the world a better place,” he says, waving as I head out.

  Hilarious. Patrick loves having the last word.

  I’ve got to figure out how to get started on my new plan. How the hell am I even going to connect with Sasha Saunders? It’s not like a union organizer and I run in the same circles. SWU’s local headquarters are near my apartment, but an ‘accidental’ run-in isn’t going to cut it.

  She has to know someone in my family was behind her attack, and she’ll need a lot of convincing that I wasn’t involved.

  I have to admire her bravery, even though she’s fighting a battle she’s not equipped to win.

  Stakes are high here.

  If I mess this up and the unionization happens, my father will be livid. If I mess this up and my father’s enemies find a way to unbury the connection between Sasha’s assault and my family, public opinion fallout could tank the casino. And I need the casino to be profitable just long enough to pay off the loans taken out against some key properties that Callan and I acquired from our father in a less-than-legal way.

  He’d deeded some small buildings to us to hide assets, but Callan and I had submitted those along with forged deeds to the registry. Deeds for larger properties my father owned in Kendall Square, Cambridge, where the biotech boom means square footage is more profitable than in Manhattan. And in the Boston waterfront where condos are being built by the hundreds to house all the people flocking to the area to work those jobs.

  We need more time to pay off the loans. And we need the casino to pay them. I have to make this work.

  I pass several employees on my way to the parking garage. I respect the ones who give me a tight, curt smile more than the ones who hit me with effusive greetings.

  The weak winter light barely penetrates through the gap between the floor I’ve parked on and the level above. The overhead lights won’t come on for hours. If I were anyone else, perhaps a smaller person or a woman, the shadowy corners of the garage would make me nervous.

  For one terrible second I wonder how Sasha felt, tied up to that fence, fearful of what was going to happen next, but I can’t be distracted by that, not now.

  And I start formulating a plan. I generally try to seek out a weakness and exploit it to get what I want. Unfortunately, Sasha’s weakness right now is probably her fear. That’s my opening: to be the antidote to her fear and make her see that I can keep her safe.

  It’s messy, and I don’t love it. Yet if someone forcibly gets Sasha Saunders to my apartment, I’ll keep her there long enough to either seduce her or convince her to work with me.

  P.J. Hennelly immediately comes to mind. He’s an absolute sociopath, and one of my father’s fixers. I wouldn’t use Hamish again—it seems a step too far to use the man who put her through such hell again—but he wouldn’t do this even if I asked him.

  Hamish is an oddly ethical man.

  It’s a weird thing to say about a man who takes out the enemies of the rich and powerful for a living, but each profession has its own code of conduct, I suppose, and Hamish follows it to the letter. Beating a woman half to death is one thing. Helping me trick her into thinking she and I are somehow on the same team is quite another.

  So P.J. it is. He could get Sasha to my apartment easily, and make it seem like I had nothing to do with it.

  If I had any bit of a soul left, it’d be fleeing my body now. Luckily for me, I’d learned long ago that souls are easier to sell than maintain.

  I hope for her sake that Sasha can learn the same.

  3

  Sasha

  God, it’s cold.

  I hated the cold before I had broken bones, but now the ache in my healed tibia lets me know it’s going to snow. Overcast skies seem to close in as I stare out the window at the parking lot next to my office building. The asphalt is streaked with salt. Giant piles of snow shoved up by the plow are left to melt and refreeze into disgusting icebergs, blackened by the exhaust of the non-stop traffic.

  Not exactly the New England winter wonderland they project in movies.

  My shin is right, though, and small flakes start drifting down from the milky sky, floating aimlessly until they find something to stick to. They’ll coat the filthy icebergs with a pretty frosting, but it won’t last.

  The bleakness of it makes it hard to believe spring will ever come.

  I never used to be bothered by the weather, but I lost most of the summer and fall to recovery. Day after day of gray, sunless days leaves me struggling with what feels like a constantly encroaching depression.


  “Sasha?”

  I jump at my boss’s voice. I startle much easier now, ever since the incident.

  “Sorry,” Gary says, smiling gently. “You okay?”

  I was zoning out. Ironically, the man who put me in the hospital for nearly a month was correct in one way: being a young woman in labor organizing isn’t easy. Respect is hard to come by. But after what happened to me, I have it in spades now.

  I expected pity when I returned to work. Instead, my colleagues treat me with a deference I find unsettling. No one wanted to continue my work on the Trinity Casino case, unsurprisingly, but I made a promise to help those workers.

  When I finally got released from the hospital and recovered enough to go back to work, I picked up where I left off. I always keep my promises. And I promised myself I’d make James Carney pay.

  Otherwise, all that pain would’ve been for nothing.

  “I’m fine,” I reply. “Just a little cold.”

  “Better fix those working conditions,” he says, nodding. His dark hair flops into his eyes and he gives me what he thinks is a roguish smile. “Don’t want an uprising.”

  He brings over a space heater and plugs it into an outlet near my feet. The warm air eases the ache in my shin.

  “Thanks.”

  He pats me on the shoulder and sees the stack of petition cards on my desk.

  “Are those…?”

  “We reached majority today. I was afraid folks would be too scared after, well, you know.”

  “You’re the one who took the beating,” Gary says. “I’d feel like a piece of shit if I gave up after what you’ve been through.”

  Didn’t feel shitty enough to take this case on, though.

  While I still respect the work Gary does, the starry-eyed esteem I had for him is long gone. He always looks guilty when he talks to me, and I find it kind of pathetic. It’s hard to believe that I used to have a crush on him

  “Well, we have a leak somewhere. Someone’s informing on the staff, so we’ve had to be really careful. Switch up where we meet. Only discuss matters in person. But I sent the application to the National Labor Relations Board today. James Carney will be served with the legal notice on Monday.”