Page 28 of Arranged Addiction

It’s of their wedding. It’s one of my favorites. Mom’s in her dress, looking young and beautiful, and Dad’s holding her against him. They’re having a dance. All around them are good-looking people dressed up, laughing and clapping, frozen in that moment forever.

“This man is Lockie Deasley. He’s dead now.” She’s pointing at a handsome man in the foreground, mostly in profile. Her finger moves to another man, this one square and tough-looking. “This is Cosimo Falanga. Well-known street tough for the Castagna Famiglia. And this over here is Dante Castagna, son of the Castagna Don. They’re both dead. The Castagna Famiglia fell apart a few years after this picture was taken.”

I stare at her, trying to make sense of what she’s saying through the mush of my grief-ruined brain. “My parents had gangsters at their wedding?”

She keeps pointing at people. “This is Fintan Discoll. He’s still around, actually. He worked for your parents for years. A good mechanic these days. An even better car thief back then.”

“Why did my parents work with a car thief? What do you mean, they had secrets?”

“This one’s Grigori Zharkov. Your mom used to complain bitterly about him. Real asshole. But high up in the Zharkov Bratva. They were killed off during an ugly war eight years ago, and most of the survivors disappeared to Russia, or at least that’s what I heard. Who knows. I think there are maybe five more dead people in this photo, excluding your parents, and all of them met a violent end.”

I push the photo book away, staring at her. Anger rushes through me. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Your parents were connected in ways I never told you about. I knew you’d have to hear the truth about them sooner or later, but I hoped it would be under better circumstances. Now though…” She trails off with a bitter sigh and stares at the picture like she’s lost in memory.

“Sheila. Please. What are you talking about? My parents were connected, how?”

“They ran an organization. Some people would call it a crime family, but it was more like a gang. Your father, Joshua Brennan, was the boss. Your mother, Maeve, was his second-in-command. Those two were a real terror back in the day.”

My heart’s racing. Sweat dribbles down my back. “My parents were criminals?”

“Don’t ask me exactly what they were up to. I barely talked to my sister when she was alive, and I hated that husband of hers.” Her nose wrinkles. “He was the most arrogant man I’ve ever met.”

“I thought you liked my parents.”

“I loved my sister. I tolerated her husband. But there’s a lot you don’t know, Casey.”

I rub my face with both hands and leap to my feet. “Please stop. I can’t handle a history lesson right now.”

“I wish I could.” Sheila sighs and moves her glasses up into her hair again. “But Declan told me it’s time you heard some of this.”

“Declan? What’s he got to do with my parents? How do you know him, Sheila?”

She stares at me, her face quiet and still. I know that look well. She’s trying to remain calm as I start to spiral. It’s the way she used to watch me when I was an emotional teenager losing my mind over something stupid.

“You were told that your parents died in an accident. That’s only partially true.”

I stop moving. My mouth opens in outrage, but I’m so upset and shaking that I can’t make any noise. Instead, I grip the back of a chair.

Sheila nudges my coffee toward me. “Take a sip.”

I do it, even though I don’t want to. Getting something warm in my stomach helps.

“What really happened to my parents, Sheila?”

She holds my gaze, unflinching and hard.

“They were killed.”

I take a step back. “You’re lying.”

“I wish I was. The story about the car accident is somewhat true. They were murdered in their car. Riddled with bullets and burned to a crisp.”

“Stop it.”

“Their killer was never found, but he’s been presumed dead for years. I don’t know the details of exactly what happened between them, and I never wanted to ask. But Declan found this last night at Natalie’s apartment.”

Sheila pushes a piece of paper across the table toward me.