Page 22 of The Mobster’s Daughter (Massachusetts Mafia #2)

“You mean after he stopped yelling?” Finn scrubbed a hand over his face. “He wants his daughter back, unharmed, and he wants to know how you’re going to get her home. How are you planning to do that?”

“We have to find her first,” Grady muttered. “Why was she here?”

“She wanted money,” Finn explained. “To d isappear.”

“That’s what I thought.” Grady hissed as the alcohol hit his wound.

“I got the plate number.” Finn tapped at the keyboard on his desk and watched the computer screen. “Twenty minutes, and I’ll have an address.”

“It’s a start.” Grady cleared his throat. “I have a friend, he’s … uh, coming here to meet me. He’s going to help me find Caitlin. It’s Dante Bianchi.”

Finn’s eyes widened. “ The Dante Bianchi? The guy who tried to kill my uncle ten y ears ago?”

Grady sighed. “It wasn’t him.” He pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the memories from flooding his head.

“If it wasn’t him, who was it?” Finn asked, genuinel y curious.

Grady had kept this secret for ten years. He’d told himself it was to protect her , the woman he had loved, but maybe it was to protect himself. If Sean found out the truth, it would be the end of their friendshi p forever.

I think when I fucked his daughter, I effectively ended that f riendship.

He didn’t look at Finn as he spoke; instead, he concentrated on cleaning and bandaging his wound.

“Did you know I was engaged once? A long time ago?” Grady asked. “Her name was Oona Coleman.”

Finn shook his head. “I had no idea. I thought you were a loner.”

Grady shrugged. “I am. Now.”

“Okay, so you were engaged. What does that have to do with Dante trying to kill Un cle Sean?”

“It was Oona, my fiancée. Oona tried to kill yo ur uncle.”

Grady stared at the steam from his coffee cup rising in lazy curls.

The busy hum of the diner was familiar and comforting, though it didn’t ease the tension gnawing at the edges of his mind.

Oona sat beside him, her hand on his arm, but even the touch of the woman he loved couldn’t help the unease racing through him.

Something was off; he felt it in his bones.

“Have you talked to my loser brother-in-law?” S ean asked.

Grady turned his attention back to his boss. “No, he won’t return my calls. I’m going over there lat er today.”

The diner’s door swung open, the bell hanging over it jingling loudly, bringing a gust of icy air with it. Dante, who stood at the counter flirting with the new waitress, looked over his shoulder at the man who had come in. Grady also glanced that way as well, but nothing seemed out of place.

Oona patted his arm. “We shou ld leave.”

“Leave? Why?” he asked.

“I … I’m not feeling well.” She shifted in her chair. “ Let’s go.”

“You just got here,” Sean said. “Why do you want to leave already?”

Oona shot a glare his way, picked up her mug, and took a drink of her coffee. She tapped her fingers on the table and looked around, then she jumped to her feet. “I’ll be right back.” She hurried toward the restrooms on the other side of the diner.

Less than a minute later, a blast ripped through the building, shattering the quiet morning like a pane of glass hit with a crowbar. The force threw Grady from his seat and his body slammed onto the floor as the world exploded around him. The roar was deafening, drowning out everyt hing else.

Grady couldn’t move or think. His ears rang, his vision blurred, and he tasted dust and blood in the back of his throat.

He blinked, and things slowly came into focus.

Sean was a few feet away, not moving. Grady forced himself up, staggering to his feet as he attempted to ignore the pain shooting through his body. He limped to his frie nd’s side.

“Sean!” His voice was rough, gravelly, panicked. “Sean, can you hear me?”

His boss’s eyes flickered open, dazed but aware. He groaned when Grady grabbed his shoulders and tried to pull him up. He didn’t know why, but something deep inside of him told him to move, to get Sean out of the diner now.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Oona stood in front of him, pale, eyes wide. In her hand was a gun, pointe d at Sean.

Disbelief mingled with confusion. Why was his fiancée pointing a gun at his boss?

“Oona?”

Her hands shook, but she didn’t lower the weapon. “I’m sorry, Grady,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Grady’s heart pounded in his chest, and his mind raced. Not Oona. It couldn’t be her. But her finger moved to the trigger, and the world around him slowed as she pulled it.

Before he could process the betrayal cutting through him, he shifted left, throwing himself between the woman he loved and his best friend.

A searing, white hot bolt of pain drove through his side, taking his breath away.

He stumbled but somehow stayed on his feet.

He clamped a hand over the wound and warm, sticky blood oozed through hi s fingers.

Grady turned to Oona and saw the horror in her eyes as she realized what she had done.

“No!” she screamed. Tears streamed down her face. “G rady, I—.”

“Run,” he gasped. “Go, O ona. Run.”

She hesitated, her eyes darting between Grady and an unconscious Sean. “I can’t. You don’t understand. I have to f inish it.”

“Go!” Grady yelled. A fresh torrent of blood pulsed from his wound. “Before they come. They will kill you, Oona. I swear to God, they will kill you, and there is nothing I can do to s top them.”

Love and guilt warred within her, reflected in her eyes. She knew as well as he did there was no turning back. If she didn’t leave, she was a d ead woman.

Dante, his face unreadable, emerged from the shadows. “You heard him, Oona. Go,” he ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Do it. Now.”

Oona looked at the gun still in her hand, then at Grady. Her lips trembled. Finally, she turned and ran through the diner’s shatt ered door.

Grady’s legs gave out, and he collapsed on the floor. Dante was at his side in a second, his hands pressing on Grad y’s wound.

“You’re an idiot,” Dante muttered, his voice thick wit h emotion.

“Yeah, well—” He coughed, unable to catch his breath. He tasted blood on his tongue. “Sean is my friend. I had no choice. Nobody else was gon na do it.”

Dante’s face tightened, but he kept his mouth shut. He glanced at Sean, still unconscious on the floor. “Did you know she could do something l ike this?”

Grady groaned and shook his head. “I had no idea.” He clutched Dante’s arm. “Do not let her get caught. Promise me you’ll help her get away.”

Dante grimaced, then he nodded. “I’ll take the blame,” he said in a low voice. “I can handle it. I’ll disappear, make myself scarce. That should get the heat off Oona.”

The wail of sirens filled the air, piercing in the explosion’s aftermath.

Grady clung to consciousness, though he knew it wouldn’t last much longer.

He closed his eyes and pictured Oona running from the mess she created.

His heart split in two, and a steel barrier formed around the remaining piece, suffocating any love he had left for the woman who tried to kill h is friend.

As the darkness closed in on him, Grady’s last thought was of her and her betrayal.

Never again. I can’t let myself get close to anyone e ver again.

“Dante kept his word,” Grady said. “He took the credit, claiming he had been hired to kill Sean, but he’d been injured in the blast and failed.

He disappeared, but after that, he became the O’Reilly family’s number one enemy.

Two years later, Oona showed up at my place.

She came to me, distraught, out of money, and nowhere to go.

She explained the Muldoons paid her to murder Sean and, if possible, me.

After she failed, she went to them, and they turned her away.

Oona begged for my forgiveness and vowed to make it up to me. ”

“What did you do?” Finn murmured.

Grady raised an eyebrow and stared at him for a long moment before he said, “I took car e of her.”

Finn’s eyes widened. “You … you killed her? I thought you l oved her.”

Grady nodded. Killing Oona had been the hardest thing he had ever done; it had made the steel fortress he’d put around his heart virtually imp enetrable.

Unti l Caitlin.

He cleared his throat. “I had two years to think about what happened. My love for Oona died the day she shot me. It took me some time to figure that out. The day she arrived at my house and begged me to run away with her was the day I realized I didn’t love her anymore.

I felt nothing for her. Nothin g at all. ”

A chime came from Finn’s computer. He turned to it and typed something on the keyboard.

“I got the address,” he said. “It’s in Lincoln.”

Grady stood up. “Good. When Dante gets here, he and I will go. Anybody your uncle sends as backup can follow.” He picked up his jacket, but one arm was soaked in blood and rapidly stiffening. “I need a shirt and a jacket if you have one.”

Finn hit a button on the phone on his desk. A young woman answered. “Ronnie, bring me an extra-large polo and one of the black leather jackets in the back closet.” He disconnected the call and turned to Grady. “Anyth ing else?”

“Guns. I n eed guns.”