Dirty Liar: An Irish Mafia Romance Read online

  Dirty Liar

  An Irish Mafia Romance

  By KB Winters

  Copyright © 2017 BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

  Published By: BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

  Copyright and Disclaimer

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Contents

  Dirty Liar

  Copyright and Disclaimer

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek

  Chapter One

  More from KB Winters

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Prologue

  “I see the moon, the moon sees me, shining through the leaves of the old oak tree, Oh, let the light that shine on me, shine on the one I love,” me mum sang, swayin’ the rocker back and forth.

  The nighttime breeze whistled through the open window, cooling the sticky summer air. I blinked my eyes hard and stared at the bright moon hanging high up in the sky. Me mum rocked my baby brother, Aidan, back and forth in the rocker. She loved to sing her lullabies to help us fall asleep. Her voice was soft and happy, and it always made my heart warm. Safe.

  She had a beautiful voice. One that I loved to hear. Me mum should be heard on the radio, so people all around the world could appreciate her pretty voice.

  As my mum started the second verse of her song, there was a loud sound in the hallway past our apartment building. A crashing sound. Voices calling out. Noise was normal in our building, as we lived in the city and there were bad men and druggies nearby. So most of the time, we didn’t pay any attention to the sounds of another fight in the hallway. It was no different than hearing the sound of an airplane going by overhead, or the sound of a car horn out on the street.

  Shutting out the noises, she continued singing, raising her voice louder and louder to cover up the racket.

  Over the mountain, over the sea,

  back where my heart is longing to be

  Oh, let the light that shines on me

  shine on the one I love.

  The noise from the hallway got louder, closer. Mum’s eyes cut to the doorway and I saw the first hint of nervousness in her eyes, but she continued to sing louder. The sound of a heavy bang was followed by splintering wood and the sound of something crashing in the living room. My mother stopped singing, and I saw genuine fear in her eyes. The commotion caused me to jump up from my bed, my heart pounding so hard it hurt as I stared wide eyed at the doorway.

  “What’s that—”

  “No need to worry, my son,” Mum said, laying me brother into his crib before tucking me in to bed with a kiss on the forehead. “Your mum will handle it.”

  “Police. We have a warrant,” I heard from the other room.

  The police were good, or so I’d learned from the television. They wouldn’t hurt us. They would help us. That’s what I’d always been told. But why were they here in our house? Why had they broken through the door?

  My brother, Aidan, cried from his crib. Mum didn’t go over to him, though. Instead, with a scared look on her face, she pulled something from her pocket. It glimmered in the moonlight, reminding me of a toy I’d once gotten for my birthday. But there was more metal, and it made a distinct but strange clicking sound as my mother’s fingers caressed it.

  “You stay here now, my love. And remember that I love you, sons. I will always love you, no matter what,” me mum said, walking toward the door. “Take care of your brother, Flynn. Always. Be sure that you look after your little brother. He’s going to need you.”

  Take care of him? I was too little, what was she—

  With one last look at me that was filled with so much love and warmth, Mum stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her. Loud banging broke out, and our apartment was filled with shouts and screams. Terrified, I crawled back into my bed and covered my head with my blanket, hoping to hide from whatever it was. The police were there to protect us, I kept telling myself. They were there to save us from whatever bad thing was happening out there. They had to be. If not, why were they here?

  The screaming and shouting seemed to go on forever, and my heart thundered through all of it. But once things quieted down, I was brave enough to pull the blanket from over my head and climb from my bed. Slowly, I tiptoed to the door just as it swung open, almost hitting me. I stared up into the eyes of a police officer. He looked down at me, his eyes not unkind, but his face covered in blood. The blood scared me and I wondered how it got there.

  None of it made any sense to me. Tears stung my eyes as I tried to be brave, tried to figure out where me mum had gone and what had happened.

  “There are kids in here!” the officer shouted.

  “Get ‘em out of there!” another one called out.

  The cop picked me up, covering my eyes with his hands, but it was no use. I pulled away from him, fighting and kicking as he tried to take me from my home. Tried to take me away from me mum. I kicked him hard enough that he shouted out in pain and dropped me.

  Free from him, I ran down the hallway and into the living room—even more officers were there and they all looked at me with surprised expressions on their faces. And then I saw her. I ran over to me mum who was hurt and bleeding on the floor. I dropped to my knees beside her and looked at her.

  “Mummy,” I cried, touching her face. “Mummy, wake up!”

  She didn’t move and she was bleeding on the floor. “Mummy!” The cop grabbed me again, this time, his grip even tighter than before. I kicked against him, shouting for someone to help me—to help me mum—but he carried me outside. I couldn’t help Mum from outside, why wouldn’t someone help her? Where was me brother? The man placed me in the back seat of a cop car, and I hugged my legs to my chest and cried out for anyone to help me.

  “We didn’t find him. He wasn’t in there,” I heard an officer say to another. “It was just his wife, who came out shooting. We had no choice. We had to respond. Thankfully, we were ready, though, and took her out without suffering any major casualties. The downside, of course, is that there was no sign of O’Brien anywhere.”

  “Thin
k she knew we were coming?”

  “Had to. But I don’t know who would have tipped them off,” the officer said. “It’s just a shame she had to die for her old man.”

  I would never understand what he meant by that, and it was a question that haunted me for most of my life. Some might even say that what happened that night shaped the monster I became.

  One

  Ava

  “Recently, we’ve seen an uptick in violence,” he said. “Mainly in certain pockets of the city. Anybody want to take a guess about what might be causing this spike?”

  It was my first-day meeting with the Chicago Police Department, and from the looks on their faces, they weren’t happy about me being there. I wished they could get over the petty little pissing match over turf, but I could tell they weren’t. I knew the feds intruding on your work was like a slap in the face, a blatant disregard for the footwork you’d already put into the case. I remembered those days myself. So, I wasn’t without sympathy for them. But with the recent crimes we were investigating—it was time to bring in the experts.

  Like it or not–and they obviously didn’t–they were going to have to suck it up and deal with me being there.

  “It’s the damn cartels,” one of the officers spoke up. “They’ve been piping in their drugs for years. They started small, but now they’ve got some balls on ‘em. They’re trying to flood the streets and take over.”

  I looked around the room and saw some heads nodding. Obviously, several others agreed with his assessment.

  I walked over to where he was sitting to read the name on his tag. “Officer Vaughn, the drug cartels are an easy enough scapegoat, but I can assure you that’s not what we’re dealing with here.”

  “Of course it is,” he sneered. “That coupled with the increase in gang activity—”

  “Then why is it that most of the new crime is located primarily in white areas?” I asked. “Specifically, pockets known to be inhabited by the Irish and the Russians?”

  “Crime is rampant all over this damn city, Agent Finley,” he replied, his expression openly hostile. “You can’t just pick out select pockets and link those crimes together when you have no idea if your theory actually holds water.”

  “Oh, so crime is crime, is it?” I asked. “It doesn’t matter what type of crime it is?”

  I flipped my presentation over to the next slide and heard an audible gasp resonating through the room. It’s the reaction I was hoping for. The photo in the slide showed a gruesome death by decapitation. The victim—male, mid-thirties, was brutally tortured for what I could only imagine to be days, prior to his departure. Blood stained every inch of his exposed skin, flesh peeled back from the bone due to third-degree burns. Ligature marks traced the girth of his neck, having been strangled to encourage him to talk. I can only assume his suffering ended once they decided he wouldn’t roll over on his boss. His head detached from his body, his lifeless, dismembered remains tossed out like yesterday’s trash. Loyalty ultimately cost him his life. I paused for a moment to let the magnitude of the imagery sink in.

  “This is the work of a drug cartel,” I said. “And believe it or not, this crime did not take place in the city of Chicago. This was in El Cajon, California, where I studied several crime scenes, all very similar in nature. You see, it’s not just my job to study one or two different crime syndicates, Officer Vaughn, it’s my job to look for patterns.”

  I stepped away and flipped to the next slide displaying Chicago’s crime statistics. Judging by some of the expressions of relief I saw on their pale faces, the officers were glad I had removed the gruesome picture. Along with the raw numbers on the screen, I spoke about the different types of crime committed.

  “You see, over in Bridgeport, a known Irish enclave, the crimes are very different from the other parts of the city. The so-called ‘gang territory’ as you might call it, Officer Vaughn.”

  If there was one thing that set me off, it was a man trying to talk over me. A man who had less education, less experience, and less knowledge on the subject at hand than I did, yet who felt the need to act like they somehow knew more than me.

  I watched as Officer Vaughn rolled his eyes and shook his head, still not believing what I was saying. I sighed to myself. Some people had their biases and beliefs and wouldn’t budge from them. Even when you present some of them with facts, they still resisted. Why? Because I was a woman. And not just a woman, but a woman and a fed. Which made me doubly suspicious in the minds of people like Officer Vaughn.

  Even though my title and experience should’ve been enough for them to trust that I knew what I was talking about, some of them continued to scoff. They believed they knew better than I did. Despite the fact that I was a special agent in charge of organized crime in our field office and knew this shit like the back of my hand. Idiots like Vaughn would rather cling to their preconceived notions and racist leanings, pretending that he knew more than me about the issues we were dealing with. All because he had a cock and I didn’t.

  I’d gotten used to it over the years. It still bothered me, and I wanted nothing more than to walk over there and slap the shit out of him, but I resisted. Law enforcement was a notorious boys club, and women like me had to fight and claw for respect. Most of the time we didn’t get it. Didn’t even come close to getting it. But it came with the territory. We could either sit in the corner, pissing and moaning about it. Or we could suck it up, do our jobs, and let our records speak for themselves. We had to develop skin thicker than an elephant’s hide.

  And over the course of my career, I’d been able to do just that. Ignorant, racist punks like Vaughn no longer got under my skin. Idiots like him were like water off a duck’s back to me.

  Despite my urge to smack him upside the head, I managed to hold it together, for now. There was plenty of time to prove him wrong. And when I did, I’d be certain to make sure he knew about it–him and everybody else, for that matter. But for now, I needed to continue onward. There were criminals we needed to catch.

  “Okay, now let’s talk about the Irish first,” I started. “Yes, their mob ties have been kept underground and have been less prominent for a very long time. But that doesn’t mean they’re not still around and active. In fact, with the illness of Donal O’Brien, there’s reason to believe that there is new leadership of the syndicate, and that would be O’Brien’s oldest son, Flynn. Word on the street is that Flynn is even more ruthless and brutal than his old man.

  “We believe he may be aligning with the Russians. For what purpose, we’re not sure, but it wouldn’t bode well for any of us if true. A Russian/Irish alliance could be extremely dangerous, especially considering the fact that the Russians are aligned with a number of terrorist cells around the world. We’ve found AK-47s from our local Russian friends in the hands of terrorists, and with the backing and connections of the Irish and Flynn O’Brien, they’ll be even larger and more powerful than ever before. If we wait until it’s obvious, until they’ve been discovered and their alliance uncovered, it could be too late. It will be too late. And does Chicago truly want a terrorist attack on their hands?”

  The room was so quiet, you could hear the proverbial pin drop. Not even Vaughn spoke up this time.

  “I didn’t think so,” I said, looking over at Officer Vaughn with a smug grin. “And you see, that’s why I’m here. Because there’s no one–and I mean no one–who knows more about the Irish Mob than me.”

  “Why? Because you’re a pretty, young Irish lass?” Vaughn cracked. No one laughed, and I had to smile about that.

  “No, Officer Vaughn. Because unlike you and anyone else here—I was born on the inside.”

  Two

  Flynn

  “I hate St. Patrick’s Day,” Colin bitched, sidling up next to me at the bar.

  Colin had red hair and the signature freckles of an Irishman. If he were a few inches shorter, he might be mistaken for a leprechaun himself. No wonder he hated the holiday.

  “You’re Ir
ish,” I said. “That’s a blasphemous thing to say.”

  Colin O’Brien was my cousin and my best friend. We were practically brothers, having grown up together and all.

  He passed me a beer–it was his turn to pick up the tab, and smiled. “Yeah, but if I see one more college lad wearing neon green shamrock glasses, drinking a Sam Adams Red, and talking about Lucky Charms, I’m goin’ to knock him around until he shits a pot of gold.”

  The Golden Shamrock was full–fuller than normal for a Wednesday night. But it was the day of the year everyone thought they had a wee bit of Irish in ‘em. Except—of course—they didn’t. They just liked to wear green, drink shitty, fake Irish beer, and talk in that stupid cereal hawking Leprechaun’s accent.

  Most of these pukes were soft and didn’t know what it meant to be Irish. Didn’t have what it took to be Irish. Whatever. It was annoying, yeah. I didn’t let it get under my skin or bother me anywhere near as much as it bugged Colin.

  “But think of all the college lassies with those stupid Kiss Me, I’m Irish Buttons, Colin,” I said. “It works out in the end, don’t it? I mean, they just love a man with an accent. It’s like catnip to a cat. Take advantage and enjoy it, lad.”

  Colin sighed. “Yeah, but why does it gotta be so hard to find a true Irish woman? One who can hold her Guinness and put up with some of me shenanigans now and again? These American women are weak, Flynn.” Colin raised the pitch of his voice, a falsetto sound as he waved his hands around like a helpless lass. “Ooh, your beer tastes like tar, so I’m goin’ to drink this shit that tastes like horse piss instead.’”

  “Oh, Colin,” I laughed. “You wouldn’t know what to do with a true Irish lassie if one fell into your lap. Seems to me you’d be in way over your head.”

  “Like you’re one to talk?”

  I raised an eyebrow at him as I took a drink of my beer, savoring the taste of it. “I’ve had my share of Irish women, Colin. Trust me on that. And believe me when I say they’re like an entirely different breed. Maybe you need to start slower–a woman with some training wheels on ‘er first.”