Page 16 of Taken By the Mobster

Declan sighed and shook his head. “Are you sure you want to hear this?” He waited for her to answer, but she just stared at him, waiting.

“Somebody shot up Foley’s Café two years ago, and I got injured,” he explained.

“My father,” Olivia interjected.

Declan nodded. “Thanks to Conor, I survived, but I fucked my leg up. I vowed to get out. No more mob shit. I didn’t want to be a girseach anymore. Drew employed me as a private investigator, helping him to investigate cases from his law office. It was good and for the first time in a long time, I was happy.”

“You weren’t happy before?” Olivia asked.

“No surprise, but my mom and sister didn’t like me working for the Muldoons. They hated it. I kept promising I would get out, especially after my mom died of cancer, but then I would make excuses not to leave. After I got hurt, I had no choice.” Declan’s hand shook as he lit another cigarette. “Things were good.” He scratched the side of his nose with his finger and stared at a spot over her shoulder. “Drew handled some minor cases for a couple of Clyde’s men. I helped. It impressed Clyde. He asked me to come work for him, full time. I declined. Clyde insisted, but I turned him down again. And again. Eventually, Drew dropped him and his men as a client, hoping he would back off.”

“Did it work?” Olivia asked.

“We thought it did. Until three weeks later, when I came home, and my sister was gone. Two days later, Drew disappeared.”

“I … I don’t understand,” Olivia said, shaking her head.

Declan sucked in a deep breath. “Clyde took them. He promised they would go free if I did one job for him.” He held up his index finger. “One job. A bank in Worcester. If I … if I robbed it and got away clean, Clyde said he would release Drew and Sarah. That was it; one job. I figured it would be easy.”

“But—,” she prompted.

“Clyde got greedy,” Declan explained. “One job became two, then three, and so on. He wouldn’t stop. After the fourth or fifth job, when my name ended up on the front page of the newspaper, Twitter, Facebook, and all over the internet, I balked. I refused to do anymore. I told Clyde that I had reached my limit; I was done, and I demanded he bring my sister and brother back safely.”

“What happened?”

Declan gnawed on his lower lip and stared into space. He opened his mouth, only to snap it shut again. He didn’t know how to continue, how to get out the words. It was the first time he had talked about any of this with anyone. Conor didn’t even know the complete story.

“That was when he killed Sarah,” he whispered.

Olivia twisted her hands in her lap. “God, Declan, I’m so sorry.”

Declan scrubbed a hand over his face. He refused to cry: it didn’t help, it didn’t solve anything, and it made him look and feel weak. He sat straight in his chair, shoulders back, fists clenched in front of him.

“Clyde took my family from me.” He fumbled with the pack of cigarettes, somehow shook one out, and lit it with a shaking hand.

They sat in silence for several minutes, both lost in their own thoughts. Olivia poured herself a cup of coffee and sipped it slowly. She watched Declan carefully.

“Can I ask you a question?” she said. “You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”

“Go ahead,” Declan said.

“I never met your sister. What was she like?”

Declan smiled and dropped his cigarette in the ashtray, leaving it to burn itself out.

“Sarah was a handful,” he said. “She was smart, funny, and she called me on my shit when I got out of hand. But she was also willful and determined to do her own thing. She had a full-ride scholarship to Boston University. Unfortunately, after Dad died and Mom got cancer, Sarah chose not to go. She thought she needed to stay home and take care of our mother. Both Drew and I tried to get her to go to school, but she insisted staying home was the right thing to do. She promised us she would go to school later when Mom was better. Except Mom died, and it sucked the life out of my sister. Sarah was finally coming around, thinking about going back to school when Clyde took her.” He rubbed a hand over his face and grimaced. “When she was a little girl, she called me her hero. But I couldn’t save her, not when it mattered most.”

“I’m so sorry,” Olivia whispered again. She shifted in her seat and stared at the table. “Is there a Mrs. Declan Quinn? Or a girlfriend maybe?”

Declan shook his head, surprised she’d asked such a forward question. “Nope.” He smiled at her. “Nobody could replace you, Liv.”

Olivia blushed. “That was a long time ago, Declan. You’re telling me you haven’t dated anyone in eight years?”

He laughed. “I didn’t say I didn’t date. But love? No. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. In my own, fucked-up way. Aside from Conor, you were my best friend. When you disappeared from my life, I was at a loss.”

That was another thing he’d told no one—how much he had loved Liv O’Reilly. When she’d stopped coming around, and Grady McCarthy told him to stay away from her, he hadn’t known what to do or how to react. He shoved his feelings down deep inside himself and pretended they didn’t exist. It was easier to cope that way.

“I didn’t want to disappear, but my father—.”

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