Page 1 of Creatures in the Night

Prologue

I stared out the window, my reflection still dressed in my Sunday best, though I no longer wore my jacket, and my tie was hanging from my neck.

Five hours ago, my cousin had gotten married, and though it’d been a family affair only, the math had added up to two sets of parents, eight O’Brien and Murphy men, six sisters-in-laws, and enough kids to make ibuprofen one of the party favors. Luckily, my aunt and uncle lived in a home that had been able to accommodate the madness, and though I loved my family, I was thankful to be out of there.

As the ice clinked in the tumbler of whiskey in my hand, I tried to be happy for my cousin, but only Declan and I knew about the bet that we’d made, and even though I knew that Declan would never hold me to it, I was a man of my word, so I felt the noose of that bet tightening unavoidably around my neck with each passing moment.

The problem was that no one would be on my side if the truth ever came out. The Irish were a family-oriented bunch, and with Declan now married, that left me as the last single man standing, and it was only a matter of time before my mam started trying to set me up with her friends’ daughters.

Now, while I had nothing against marriage or children, I had a depersonalization or derealization issue with my personality. Though I wasn’t the sociopath that lots of people accused me of being, I didn’t identify well with other people’s emotional states or troubles. Unless it had to do with my family, very little impacted me, and when normal people would get upset or angry at a situation, I saw the humor or hopelessness in it, not really caring one way or the other. I supposed that was why it was so easy for me to torture people, because their cries really did fall on deaf ears when I was in the room.

Of course, there was no doubt in my mind that I would love my children, as evident from how I felt about my family, but a wife was a different story. Without love in the picture, would I even be able to care about her mental or emotional wellbeing? Without love in the picture, there was no doubt that I’d make a terrible husband, and since I wasn’t sure if I even knew how to love someone that wasn’t blood, I couldn’t see myself loving my future wife. Yeah, I’d honor her and not be an asshole, but women needed more than that to feel fulfilled, and I wasn’t the best candidate for that.

Nevertheless, I’d given my word.

As I finished off my whiskey, I wondered who I’d even choose as an option. While I had no doubt that lots of women would love to marry my last name, this was a person that I was going to be saddled with for the rest of my life, and that didn’t sound appealing at all. If she didn’t have a job or a life, she’d be a clinging mess, and no one needed that shit. I had a job that was unpredictable, and the hours could have me missing for days on end. So, the last thing that I needed was a harpy blowing up my phone because she was bored or needed some attention.

Turning away from the window, I walked back to the bar, then poured myself another drink. Even though I had a million other things to deal with, my mam giving me the stink-eye at Declan’s nuptials was still playing in my mind. I was thirty-four, the eldest of three, and in my mam’s eyes, I should have five kids by now, preferably all by the same woman. While she didn’t bat an eyelash at all of the other Commandments that I broke often, she felt particularly determined about the sanctity of marriage and family, go figure.

Honestly, I was being a bit of a hypocrite after having lectured Declan about the next generation of O’Briens not too long ago. With the Sartoris getting married and multiplying steadily, we were also obligated to secure our legacy for the future of the organization and every family member in it.

“I’m ready.”

I turned to see…Helen? Haley? Hannah?...standing underneath the archway, her blonde hair pinned up high on her head, her hour-glass figure encased in nothing but black lace. Upon leaving Declan’s reception, I had stopped by Lir to check on a couple of things, and whatever-her-name-was had been sitting at the bar, wanting to drink her ex-boyfriend away.

My eyes raked her up and down, and I knew that I was going to fuck her in that lingerie. It looked good on her, and the look shouldn’t go to waste. Now, while I’d eventually take it off her completely, our first time was going to be with her dressed like the prettiest blonde whore ever.

“If you were ready, then you’d be on your knees for me, sweetheart,” I replied, setting my tumbler on the bar.

She immediately lowered onto her knees, and all I could think about as I made my way over to her was how stunning she was going to look with my cum dripping from that pretty face of hers.

Chapter 1

Noah~

Tears and spittle were everywhere, but those kinds of theatrics came with the job. Soon, piss and shit would join the party, but that was also something that I’d gotten desensitized to ages ago. It was also stupid for anyone to believe that they were going to leave this place alive once things reached this point. You only fucked over the O’Briens once; we never gave you a chance to do it a second time.

See, the lovely state of Maryland was running rampant with organized crime, though no one would ever guess when hearing someone speak of the lovely state. To the outside world, Maryland was fodder for postcards and picturesque scenery, but only genuine natives knew the truth. Three criminal syndicates ran the state, and they all hailed out of Port Townsend. New York and New Jersey were close enough that business was good, and with Maryland having a coastline, airports on the state line, and corruptible government officials, our American Dream was very real and very profitable.

Now, a couple of years ago, Port Townsend had been shared by four criminal families: the O’Briens, Sartoris, Kotovs, and Schultz’s. At the time, we’d all had our own little piece of the pie, our territories clearly marked. However, a while back, Emil Schultz had been stupid enough to go after Nero Sartori’s wife, and in return, Nero had wiped out Emil’s entire organization, then had been business savvy enough to share the spoils of war with the rest of us.

So, with Emil Schultz out of the picture, Maryland was controlled by the Italians, the Russians, and the Irish. The Sartoris owned the coastline and ports, we had the northern borders with access to the interstate airports, and the Kotovs had the rest. Statistically speaking, we were the smaller of the syndicates, the Sartoris outnumbering both us and the Russians, and the Russians outnumbering us. However, the Russians were too unstable for us to ever get into bed with, so joining them to take out the Sartoris would be suicide. Once the Sartoris were out of the picture, Avgust Kotov would turn on Declan in a heartbeat. There was also the fact that we had an unofficial truce at the moment, and with as much money as it was making for all of us, it was best to keep things that way.

Of course, people had a lot of opinions on organized crime, and while a lot of people liked to refer to us as the Irish Mob, we weren’t as rigid as the Italians or as violent as the Russians, though that was an arguable point. Nonetheless, where the Italians had a Boss, and where the Russians had a Pahkan, we had Declan, and the O’Brien syndicate was run as a family-first business. While it wasn’t unheard of for the Irish to agree to arranged marriages, it wasn’t something that we did often. The lasses in our families weren’t bargaining chips like they were in Italian families. Yeah, there was no denying that the Italians were extremely organized, but they were also so power-hungry that they’d plot to murder one of their own just to advance up the ranks.

As for the Russians, they also had a pretty strong hierarchy, but they were unhinged in a way that the Italians weren’t. For all that we were in the twenty-first century, the Russians still carried the old ways with them that were different from our own traditions. While I had no problem bringing back the guillotine, the Russians had no problem having Christmas dinner next to the damn thing, headless body and all.

Nevertheless, the one thing that we all had in common was the absolute power that we wielded, and we took betrayal very seriously, something that you could ask all our enemies if any of them had been alive to ask. When you were the head of any kind of crime family, weakness wasn’t an option, and every syndicate had its leader and its butchers to make sure that their leader remained in power. For us, Declan was our leader, and he was a damn good one, having taken over from my uncle years ago.

Now, if I had to describe my cousin, it would be that he was ruthless but sensible. Declan usually liked to assess a situation before acting, and his power wasn’t so corrupted that he refused to kick around ideas or solutions with the rest of us. While we had a bunch of soldiers and associates in the O’Brien organization, it was run by family only, and if we had ‘Capos’, then they’d be Declan’s brothers, Desmond, James, Cathal, and Kevin, plus a few others. Cathal was our butcher, Kevin was our brains, and Desmond and James were the space in between those two. Granted, like all brothers, they got on each other’s nerves often, but when it came down to the brass tacks, there was no doubting anyone’s loyalty.

That could also have to do with Declan’s grandfather having started our business ventures. Declan and I were related through our mothers, and that was how my brothers, Lochlan and Aran, and I had come into the fold. When Declan’s parents, Cormac and Nessa O’Brien, had finally given up the reins, our generation had stepped up to take over. Of course, that’d been around the same time that my own parents, Sean and Riona Murphy, had chosen to ‘retire’ themselves, so it had ended up working out for everyone involved.

Now, thirty-five years later, Riona Murphy was done being a stay-at-home mother to three boys and now had grandchildren to fill her time, and Sean Murphy had hung up his hat to spend time with my mam and their grandkids. Though my mam was still pissed at me for being single, Lochlan and Aran were married with children, and they even had respectable professions that the organization exploited. Lochlan was a doctor, but he answered to Declan first and foremost. Aran was an artist with disciplines in painting and sculpting, and we used his art to launder some of our money. Really, it was a win/win for everyone involved.

There was also no mistaking that we were all O’Briens. Declan and his brothers all looked alike, taking after their da, and Lochlan, Aran, and I all looked alike, also taking after our da, though we’d all gotten our mam’s eyes. Nonetheless, when anyone was talking about an O’Brien, they knew exactly who they were talking about.

“I…I sw…swear…” the man currently missing three fingers rasped. “I didn’t know who he was.”

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