Page 62 of Forbidden Girl

JULES

Anxious is not the correct word for what I’m feeling. There isn’t a sole comprehensive word: Jittery, fretful, anticipating the worst. I’m not the type of person who believes in much of anything preternatural. Not God, ghosts, or clairvoyance. If there were a God, the planet wouldn’t be in such a woeful state of decay. I mean, you’d think an all-powerful creator would take some pride in their creation and intervene, right? If there were ghosts, we’d have tangible, verifiable documentation—photos, videos, a hundred witnesses to corroborate one instance of interaction. If divination were real, there wouldn’t be countless deaths from disasters because someone, somewhere would see them coming and we’d be able to prepare. Tonight, I believe in intuition. My intuition is telling me that someone, or multiple people, will not be among the living come daybreak.

It’s not intuition though, is it? It’s scientific. I’ve observed vicious men do vicious things. I’ve narrowly escaped said things with my life. Time and time again they themselves narrowly escaped with their lives. That’s pattern recognition. My general conclusion is that tonight is the night some of those men see their luck run out.

My mother is calm. How she’s maintaining her calmness, I’m uncertain. She’s aided by a stiff drink and a mindless reality TV show. My stomach is churning; I’ll regurgitate alcohol in a hot minute, so that’s off the table for me. I wish I had some weed.

“Topolina, you do realize you’re pacing, yes?”

“Thank you, Mother, how very astute.”

She huffs. “It helps if you can talk yourself into believing that there is nothing you can do. Whatever happens, happens. It is what it is, and you can’t control or fix the outcome. That’s the plain truth of it.”

I’m not good with uncertainty. I like plans and lists and over-preparedness. I thrive when I can predict every possible outcome. And… “I hate waiting.” It’s too easy to start spiraling when I have too much time to think. I’ve had hours. My mother’s sage words offer no comfort.

The doorbell rings and I’m so startled by it that I nearly molt my skin. I bolt to it, opening to find Rowan on the other side, sopping wet from head to toe. I force her through the doorway and into my arms.

“I’m getting you wet.” She tries to push me away.

I hold on. “I don’t care.”

“Rowan, sweetheart, why do you look like a drowned cat?” My mother’s entrance into the hallway pulls us apart.

“I went for a swim in the Charles. It would’ve been lovely if I didn’t do it to escape the Feds.”

Mom goes to retrieve a towel from the linen closet. In addition to being soaked, Rowan seems… haunted. Shell-shocked, perhaps. I can’t know what she witnessed—she wouldn’t let me be there with her despite my begging—but I do know it was ugly.

Mom returns with a towel and also a change of clothes—gray silk pajamas. “Go dry off, get changed, then come tell us what happened.”

We three sit on the couch. Rowan doesn’t speak right away. She has a lot to say but can’t find the words she needs. I hold her hand as the cogs in her brain turn, soundlessly reassuring her that she is not alone and won’t ever be again. Calloway, Monaghan, whatever. She is the family I’ve chosen.

“I don’t know who… I didn’t see what happened,” she begins. “I heard Patrick’s car pull up and I hid behind some stacked boxes. There was shooting. Two guns, at least, maybe more. The cops broke it up.” She takes a breath. Her voice cracks. “Um… My dad is dead, and Patrick is, too. I think they killed each other. I had to leave them there like that or else I’d be on my way to prison with everyone else. I’m so sorry. First, I hid like a coward, and then I ran like a coward.”

“You’re not a coward, you’re a survivor. You came back to me like you promised,” I reply, before realizing that there may be some validity to intuition after all. I’m not shocked that Patrick Calloway is dead. I’m sad for the loss of my father, of course, but—terrible as it sounds—I’m unfazed by the loss of the man he was outside these walls. The world is safer without him in it. Still, I cry for him. Through the torrent I see that my mother is crying, too. She takes my other hand.

“Teague’s okay,” Rowan adds after a while, as she stares into the distance at nothing in particular. “He was arrested, but he’s alive. I don’t know what happens next… Not to sound crass or cold, it’s just something I thought of. I’m pretty sure the government will try to seize our assets if they treat this like a RICO case—the stuff they can trace in Patrick and Callum’s names, anyway.”

“We’ll lose some things, but we’ll still have plenty,” my mom says to me. “We have a good lawyer and the trusts in our names are offshore. Your dad had the foresight for that. Plus, there’s the other thing.”

“What about Rowan?” I ask. To Rowan, I say, “You could marry me. Then I can put your name on whatever it is I still own, and you’ll never have to worry about finances. Legally, everything will be half yours.” It’s not the most romantic thing I’ve said in my life. It’s practical.

Rowan flashes an unconvincing smile. “I’ll be okay. I’m always okay.” She cups my cheeks in her hands and kisses my forehead. “I am going to marry you someday. Not for money, for love.”

I don’t doubt that. Everything she’s done in her life, good or bad, she’s done for love.

TWENTY-SIX

ROWAN

FIVE MONTHS LATER…

I’m used to winter in Boston. It’s not that different in Spokane—significantly less snow, which is nice—but the early December temps are similar. It’s warm enough today to have the windows cracked in my Rogue. Nissan… I didn’t think I’d like it, but it’s nice. Reliable. It suits my needs. Besides, I never did get my Jeep back. I didn’t want it back—too many reminders of my old life attached to it.

I have a job out here as a bank teller. I’m pretty sure I only got it because Alistair is charming and very good at bullshitting. He did me a solid, pretending to be my ex-boss at a Salem Five Bank branch in Boston. It’s not a bad job; it requires basic math skills, patience, and a friendly smile. The constant smiling is the hardest part for me. Being immersed in the real world, I’m finding that people in general, not just mobsters, are unpleasant if not entirely douchey. Handling money doesn’t intimidate me whatsoever, with the wads of cash I used to deal with.

I don’t need to work; I want to. Dad died; there were no charges brought against him. Turns out the government doesn’t like to waste time or money prosecuting corpses. And since there’s no longer a tyrant to serve, the Monaghan crime syndicate pretty much dissolved itself, which was a good thing not only for me, but Alistair and Ben. They’re back in Boston, still looking over their shoulders, but the threat dies down with each passing day. Dad’s legal, squeaky-clean business—the marina—is mine, plus all the shit he had stashed there that was not above board. As agreed, I kept the marina—Al and Ben are running it for me—and sold the trash to Alfonso Rossi. I have ten million dollars I don’t want sitting in a bank account in the Cayman Islands. I’ll leave it for our kids—if we have any—and they won’t know it’s blood money. I say “if” but, knowing Jules, she’ll want at least two. That’s my magic number, too. Nobody should grow up without a sibling to bitch about their parents with.

I bang a right onto Sharp Ave and head for what Jules calls the Mess Hall—the student center—not because they serve food there, but because it’s where you get to see how stressed out and overwhelmed college kids are all of the time.

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