Page 12 of Taken By the Mobster

“So, you hit a dead end?”

Conor shook his head. “I thought I did, so I switched to Clyde. And found that photo.” He switched the screen back to the photo of Clyde and the blurry, out-of-focus female. “I thought the woman in the photo looked familiar. But you know how it is. People you’ve never seen before look familiar because they look like somebody you do know. I convinced myself I was wrong, that she wasn’t who I thought she was.”

“Conor,” Declan said. “Get to the point.”

“I’m getting there. Be patient.” Conor cleared his throat. “Do you remember Liv O’Reilly?”

Declan nodded. “That’s a stupid question. Of course, I remember Liv. Sean O’Reilly’s daughter. I was head over heels in love with her. I wanted to fucking marry her until her father stepped in and forced us to end the relationship. He decided I was a bad influence. It didn’t help that we ran with the Muldoons. I haven’t seen her in eight years, since she was nineteen and I was twenty-two.”

“Did you know she was supposed to marry Clyde?”

Declan gritted his teeth and snarled. “Yeah. Her marriage to Clyde was supposed to unite the two families and end the tension in Boston’s South End. But it didn’t happen.”

“Rumor has it one of Clyde’s men, Tommy Byrne, got her out,” Conor said. “He did it because he was in love with her. He got her out, and then she dumped him. She supposedly took two million dollars, money Sean O’Reilly earmarked as a payoff to Donovan Muldoon, a dowry of sorts; that was three years ago.”

Declan squinted at the screen. “I thought they found her and Tommy?”

Conor shook his head. “They found Tommy. Three months after they vanished, Tommy showed up at Finnegan’s Bar and demanded a meeting with Sean O’Reilly. He was going to tell O’Reilly where his daughter was in exchange for O’Reilly’s protection. O’Reilly agreed and hid Tommy in a shitty motel while they negotiated the terms of the agreement. Except Clyde’s men found him first and killed him. Liv ghosted and has been MIA ever since. Not only is Clyde looking for her, but so is her father. He wants his daughter brought home in one piece; Clyde does not.”

“And you think we somehow stumbled on Liv O’Reilly in a tiny shithole town in northern Pennsylvania? Of all the people in the world for us to find, you think we found a mobster’s missing daughter?”

“Yeah, I do,” Conor said. “After we talked last night, my brain wouldn’t shut down. I was trying to put the pieces together. I kept thinking she looked familiar, that somehow I knew something about her. Then I found that photo, and something clicked.” He pointed at the bedroom door. “I remember Liv. How could I not? That woman in there looks like Liv, sounds like Liv, and she’s the right age.”

“It could be a coincidence,” Declan suggested. “The Liv I remember was blonde and had blue eyes. Freckles. Not dark hair and green eyes.”

Conor nodded. “I know. I thought the same thing. It’s easy enough to dye hair and cover freckles with makeup. And she doesn’t have green eyes anymore, Deck.”

“What?”

“I took her to the bathroom the other night when you and the guys were dumping the cars. When she came out, her eyes were blue. I think she had colored contacts on. She must have dumped them down the drain.” Conor sat forward. “Her eyes are blue now.”

Declan jumped out of the chair and started pacing, walking back and forth across the small living room. “Even if she is Liv O’Reilly, we can’t turn her over to Clyde. He’ll kill her. And if we turn her over to her father, Clyde will see it as a betrayal and kill us. Maybe we should just let it go. Especially since we don’t know for sure.”

“That’s just it, Deck. I know for sure.”

Declan stopped pacing. “What?”

“I knew I needed to find a picture of Liv O’Reilly. Not the nineteen-year-old we hung out with when we were younger, but grown-up Liv. And not some crappy, out-of-focus picture that didn’t answer our questions. So, I dug deeper. O’Reilly tried to keep her out of the spotlight, probably for her own safety, but he wasn’t always successful.” He tapped the computer screen again. “I kept looking and eventually, I found this.”

Conor switched to another tab on the computer and swung it around to face Declan. On the screen was a photo of a younger Olivia Miller. She wore a gown made of a silver-and-black shiny fabric, and her dark blonde hair cascaded down her back in soft waves. She looked over her shoulder and winked at the camera.

Declan crossed the room until he could read the caption under the photo.

Liv O’Reilly, 24, daughter of Sean O’Reilly, local Boston real estate magnate, attends a gala at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Conor sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, a smug smirk on his face.

“It’s her. Olivia Miller is Liv O’Reilly.”

Chapter 7

Olivia

It had been four days since Declan had taken Olivia from the bank and locked her in the tiny room. During that time, she had walked it repeatedly. Fifteen paces long and ten paces wide, a constant reminder of how cramped and unbearable it was.

The only person she had seen for the last four days was Declan. Every morning and every evening, he would unlock the door, set her food on the bedside table, and then he would escort her to the bathroom. Then he would walk her back to the bedroom and lock her in.

She hadn’t asked him again about letting her go. After her last misstep, when she’d mentioned Clyde, she was too scared to speak. To her surprise, Declan hadn’t mentioned it. She’d been sure he would push her for more information, especially after he accused her of lying. But he’d been silent, though now and then, she caught him giving her an odd look.

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