Page 18 of Arranged Control

I linger over the sink. This is exactly what I didn’t want. A new responsibility. A person who will rely on me.

A man who is fundamentally unreliable.

I feel the breeze shift, ever so slightly, and I change along with it.

Chapter 6

Seamus

Ilinger on the sidewalk outside Fergus’s girlfriend’s place. It feels like a sticky black oil is tossed all over my skin. The way she stared at me, eyes empty and lifeless, a crying baby in the background. Fergus’s little kid. Now without a father. All for fucking what?

I promised we’d take care of her. I’ve made that promise before, and I’ll do it again. So long as the Whelan Clan’s capable, we’ll always honor those that died in our service. But it won’t be a rich life, and I sure as fuck won’t be that baby’s daddy.

Messed up situation all around. We all know the risks in this life. We accept them, but it’s one thing to know and another to see it all come crumbling down.

I take a deep breath. I brush off my arms.Bend with the breeze. When I open them again and walk to my car, it’s like I’m a new man.

That’s how I survive.

Finn answers his phone on the third ring. “How’d it go?”

“About the same as always.”

“Crying and shit?”

“Not just her. The baby too.”

He curses and lets out a long breath. “Good for you. Don’t know how you have the stomach for it.”

“That’s my job. Every man that works for me knows I’ll do it for them. It’s not much, but it’s something.”

“Do me a favor. If I get killed, don’t go anywhere near my next of kin.”

I laugh lightly. “As if you’ll ever find a girl willing to marry you.”

“One of these days I’ll trick someone, don’t you worry.”

“I won’t lose sleep over it. Except you probably shouldn’ttricka woman into being your wife.”

“Oh, yeah? I guess letting Dad pick my bride for me is better?”

“Don’t be a fucking prick, Finn. You know that wasn’t my choice.”

“Yeah, yeah, and yet here we are.”

“You’re just jealous.”

There’s a short pause. “The girlispretty,” he concedes.

Irrationally, a strange sharp pang of jealousy tightens in my guts. I grip the steering wheel, guiding the car over toward Hudson Yards. “Don’t talk about my wife like that.”

“Like what? It was a fucking compliment.”

“Keep it to yourself next time, prick.”

“You’re so fucking bizarre sometimes, Seamus. I don’t get you. One second you act like you don’t care about the girl, and next you’re giving me shit for calling herpretty.”

I glare at the road. He’s right, and I know it. I’ve been treating this whole arrangement as nothing more than a weird little blip. Like one day I’ll have a wife the same way I might get a vacuum for Christmas.