Conall Read online

  CONALL

  by

  Reana Malori

  Dedication

  For my sisters in crime, Shara Azod, Marteeka Karland, and Kassanna. You ladies dared me to take a step outside of the box and join you in something unique and great. You ladies rock!

  Disclaimer

  This book is not for the faint of heart. Although a contemporary romance in the truest sense, the characters engage in, reference and have experienced things that may be difficult to read. This story includes elements of, or references to physical assault, murder, rape, and child abuse. These elements do not take away from the story, but serve to enhance the reader’s understanding of the character personalities.

  CONALL

  Conall

  I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothing hiding in plain sight. My dual nature allows me to walk in two worlds. I take every opportunity to play on the dark side. The world is my stage and the people my prey. Always on the hunt, I’m the one you don’t expect until it’s too late, and my 9mm is at your temple. Darkness claims my soul, and has molded me into who I am. But to my brothers I am whole, even human and that’s all that matters. Call me Conall O’Shea, the damaged, cold, and ruthless killer.

  Tatiana

  Protecting my brother is the only thing that matters. Even if that means walking toward danger instead of running away from it. Conall is the only one who can help me save my brother, even if that puts me in his line of sight. He doesn’t scare me. Well, not that I would admit anyway. More than anything, he fascinates me. His polished exterior and the beast underneath just waiting to be unleashed. Something about the darkness inside of him calls out to me. I just hope I can handle all that he is without losing myself in the process.

  Conall © 2016 Reana Malori

  Cover Art: © 2016 Marteeka Karland

  Editor: April Allen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Due to copyright laws you cannot trade, sell or give any eBooks away.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Patrick “Paddy” O’Shea was a bastard. He had no loved ones, no real friends. People feared him, and that’s what kept them loyal, most of the time. His iron-clad rule in the south of Boston was absolute, having built layers of snitches to watch his snitches to watch his crews. Politicians, police, even some members of the FBI were firmly in his back pocket, and he kept them there by bribery, extortion, and good old-fashioned threats of violence.

  Old Man O’Shea, as he was referred to by the locals, showed no mercy. To anyone. He ruled with an iron fist and had no softness within him for anyone, including his own sons. Kieran and Conall were born to him from his wife, Fiona, a raven-haired, blue-eyed beauty he’d met on the Emerald Isle. Rumor had it he beat her, degraded her, and eventually killed her spirit, which then killed her body. Paddy made sure nothing could ever be proven. Fionn and Shannon were his children by his lifelong mistress, Gillian. At least, it was suspected she was his longtime mistress. She hadn’t actually been seen for years.

  His sons had not been raised by their mothers. When each boy turned six, he was taken and raised in the worst slums by the most hardened criminal in the old man’s organization. Not even they knew they belonged to the notorious crime boss until they reached maturity. Paddy wanted his sons strong, tough, and utterly ruthless. He never suspected they would cling to one another and form a bond so strong nothing could break it. Nor had he ever imagined that, instead of loyalty, their upbringing would breed resentment that went beyond anger. That they would join together and combine forces to bring down the very man who thought himself untouchable…

  * * * * *

  The twisted body lay on the floor of the empty warehouse in a grotesque position of death. The gaping mouth and lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling as if the last act of their pathetic life had been to look up to the heavens and pray for mercy. Too bad none would be coming. Trash and filth littered the room where the body had been discovered. Putrid smells filled the room and turned Conall O’Shea’s stomach. Nothing about this was humane, but this is where he found himself spending his evening.

  “Clean this shit up,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

  “Boss, don’t you think it’s better to just leave this alone?” Dillon Blake had been with Conall for years and usually knew when to speak up and when to shut the fuck up. Tonight, he was off his game and asked the wrong question.

  Turning his cold, emerald gaze to the head of his security detail and trusted ally, Conall had to restrain himself. “No, Dillon, I don’t.” Taking a deep breath and sparing a glance at the young woman that he had spent a few nights with, he looked back at Dillon. “She didn’t deserve to die like a piece of trash. No one should be left to wallow in their own piss and shit. Dying like a fucking animal in a dirty ass room in the middle of the goddamn ghetto is not what anyone deserves.” His voice gained volume as he continued to speak. “Now, I won’t tell you again. Clean this shit up. I want her out of here.”

  Well and truly chastised, Dillon snapped his fingers at the other two guys in the room with them and motioned them over. Conall stomped out of the room and headed down the stairs to the car waiting for him. The sleek black vehicle fit him perfectly and his driver was standing at the door waiting for his exit from the building.

  If there was a moon out tonight, it was hidden from his gaze. There was no light in this back section of Crook Manor, an apartment complex in the heart of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. With only one way in and one way out, this was where most of the drug dealers and addicts would hang out and get high. Lip curling in disgust at what he had just seen, Conall stopped to get his bearings and glanced around him. There was a feeling of desperation in the air. So thick, he could almost choke on it.

  Liz was a good girl and he never should have hooked up with her. Boredom had been pulling at him for a while and he’d given in to his base urges. She was nothing more than a pussy he could fuck when the need hit him, still a nice girl taken from this world by someone trying to send him a message. Paddy O’Shea. His Da.

  “If he thinks I’ll be hurt by this, he’s more delusional than I thought,” he whispered out loud. “This is too fucking much, even for him. It’s time to end this shit.”

  Refocusing on what he needed to do, Conall pulled out his phone and pressed speed dial one, “Kieran. We need to move up the timetable.” Climbing into the car, his driver closed the door behind him and went to the front. The purr of the engine always calmed him and as he spoke to his older brother, Kieran O’Shea, a plan started to form. Paddy was a blight on society and to his four sons, well, he was a rabid dog who needed to be put down. They were the only ones who had the right to take his life and they would make damn sure he knew they were the ones who signed his death warrant.

  Chapter One

  Two Months Later

  Conall hated this shit. His fucking shoes were dirty and he was tired of wallowing in the slums to get shit done. Ferragamos cost a shitload of money and now another pair was wasted. These were his favorite shoes, dammit! Throwing another punch toward his intended target, it landed square on the bloodied, broken face of the man his f
ather had hired to finalize another fucking drug deal right in their backyard. This was their home and the old man knew how Conall and his brothers felt about drugs in their city. Usually Conall left the fun to his brothers, especially since Fionn got off on this kind of shit, but this was one situation he wanted to handle personally.

  His role was to stay in the background and handle things from his office. Negotiating multimillion-dollar corporate business deals was the world he lived in. Where he excelled. And he loved it. Oh yes, he quite enjoyed his life of feigned leisure. A cushy office in the heart of Boston, employees that carried out his every order, people surrounding him every…fucking…day as if he were the Prince of England. Yeah, he needed a release and the dumbass right here was just what he needed.

  “You were warned not to come around here dealing that shit.” His fist slammed into the guy’s jaw and he felt the bone give under the blow. Shannon O’Shea, his other half-brother, had schooled them all in how to throw a mean right hook before they were ten years old.

  A gurgling sound reached his ears and he knew the guy was trying to say something. “You’ll pay for this. Your father…”

  He never got to finish that sentence because Conall’s fist delivered another vicious blow to his face, snapping the guy’s head back from the sheer force. “See, now you got me upset. You should already know that I don’t have a father. He died the day he sent me and my brothers to live with the son of a bitch in Lowell.”

  Wiping his hands with a cloth to clean off the blood, he glanced up and looked at the men surrounding him. They had his back and he trusted them as much as he could. But they weren’t his brothers and for that fact alone, he still kept his guard up around them.

  “Now, answer my question. Who are you getting your supply from?” Conall’s calm veneer usually fooled the Boston elite into thinking he was like them. Reformed, upper crust, and well-respected. Little did they know, it was all an act.

  Pulling out his custom-made Colt .45 ACP, a present from his brother Fionn, he held the pistol to the side of the man’s head. The smile that came over his face would scare the devil. That’s when the wailing and tears began.

  “I can’t tell you. If I do, Old Man O’Shea will kill me,” the dead man walking pleaded for his life. “Please, Conall, I thought you were the reasonable one. Your…” he paused, and then changed his wording, “Old Man O’Shea said you would listen to reason. It’s just a money game. Whoever runs the neighborhood drugs, controls the city.”

  “I’m tired of this game. You have ten seconds to tell me what I need to know.” Conall was going to kill him anyway. There was no way he would allow this scumbag to live. Paddy was poison and anything he touched died, including Conall and Kieran’s own mother. Looking back down at the first real lead he had in this game of cat and mouse, he started counting, “Ten…nine…”

  “Okay! Okay! Conall, please! It’s the Italian guys from Federal Hill! They’ve been working with your father for years. They think the drugs are being shipped out of Rhode Island to other places. Old Man O’Shea has been playing them the whole time. He’s got the darkies in Crook Manor and Prospect Heights selling to their own people, right in their backyard.” Suddenly blabbering everything he knew, it was as if the man had suddenly contracted diarrhea of the mouth. Too bad it wouldn’t save him from the certainty of getting a bullet in the brain.

  Conall almost smiled. He would have had more respect for him if he had actually kept his mouth shut. Now he was a snitch bitch, and snitches disgusted him.

  The man continued spilling secrets, “I was meeting one of the runners here tonight to hand off a package. The old man…well, he knows how you and your brothers feel about drugs. He doesn’t give a shit. He…he says if you guys don’t get on board with the new way of doing business, he’ll have to kill you.”

  “Is that right?” That someone would actually admit they knew Paddy wanted his sons dead was surprising. Typically, Paddy’s guys were loyal to a fault, even though he treated them like shit and ruled with an iron fist. Focusing again on the task at hand. “Anything else?”

  “Doesn’t that get me something? You can’t cut me a break? Please, Conall, have mercy,” he begged.

  “You’re right. I should have mercy. Too bad it was beaten out of me when I was seven years old.” His finger squeezed the trigger and the old man’s lackey jerked from the expulsion of the bullet into his brain. Matter sprayed out the other side and the body in the chair immediately went lax.

  “Dillon. I need to go meet with Kieran and let him know what I found. I have that charity event tomorrow night at the JFK Library, so I’ll need to have Margorie pick up my tuxedo from the cleaners.” Cleaning his hands with his cloth, he began walking toward the front of the room. His coat was thrown over a chair that had been left behind by the previous occupants. “I’ll be in the office tomorrow at eight for a meeting with some potential new clients from Hong Kong. I need you there to screen them before they get up to my office. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.” Dillon wasn’t surprised by the quick change in Conall’s behavior and his ability to switch from ruthless killer to businessman. He had seen this change many times before. Conall was an enigma. That ability to live and move efficiently between two worlds was something that seemed to come naturally for him.

  “The cleanup crew needs to be called. I want everything in this building cleaned out and then I want no traces of this building left standing.” The green of his eyes had changed and his pupils were almost black.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Conall grabbed his coat and exited the room where the smell of death was beginning to permeate the air around him. Kieran would not be happy about the information he’d uncovered tonight. Drugs. That was the lowest shit Old Man O’Shea could get into. And dealing with the Italians on Federal Hill to boot? He was not in the fucking mood for this shit. The old man was a fucking fool and now they had to not only get rid of him, but deal with the fallout and trying to smooth things over with the guys in Providence. Seated in his car, his driver sped through the outskirts of Boston and sped toward Irish, the bar owned by Kieran. He needed a drink. “Fuck!”

  * * * * *

  Antonio “Tony” Barbosa was practically pissing his pants. What the fuck had he gotten himself into? Conall O’Shea had just killed someone in cold blood and Tony had watched him do it.

  He was no angel himself, but damn. The guy he had been told to meet at the old warehouse in Dorchester was now dead at the hands of one of the most influential businessmen Tony had ever heard of. Everyone knew of Blackbird Consulting and the founder’s connection to Kieran O’Shea, the local councilman. Hell, it was no secret that their father was a shady fuck who did whatever he wanted to do and had half the city in his back pocket. The only question was who owned the other half. Tony had a nagging feeling he had just found out.

  When he’d arrived at the meeting place, all he had to do was pick up the package. The money had already been exchanged through other means, so he had none of the payment on him. Literally, he was just an errand boy. Now, he was witness to a fucking mob hit and he knew too damn much about Old Man O’Shea’s plans. His breathing became shallow and he started to hyperventilate. What the hell was he going to do now? Tatiana, his older sister and self-appointed guardian, was going to kill him. That is, if the Irish Mob didn’t get him first. Then again, with this fuck-up of epic proportions, the Italian Mob might get to him first.

  One day he would learn. His sister had been warning him to clean up his act for years now, but he had ignored her. He’d always scoff at her when she lectured him about it. What the hell did she know anyway? She was a goody two-shoes and would never understand what he had to go through. Well, apparently, she was right and he was well and truly fucked.

  Hearing the shuffling of bodies and the voices of the men that had been left behind, Tony continued crouching behind the stack of old carpets that were piled in the corner. Prior to the meeting today, he had scoped out the building a
nd found an alternate entrance that would keep him hidden until he wanted to be discovered. Thank God he’d found that second entrance. It had saved his ass today.

  “Think, Tony!” he said to himself over and over again. “Get the hell out of here.” Since they hadn’t seen him yet, he knew if he could find a way to get out of this building, he would be okay. Bending down, he untied his shoes and slipped them off. Placing them inside his coat, he knew there was no way he would leave them behind. Just his luck, they would find them and find a way to trace them back to him, somehow.

  He’d never moved so slowly in his life, but somehow he managed to get out of the room and exit the way he’d come in. There wasn’t a door, but a series of twists and turns in a back hallway and as long as he stayed low, stayed quiet, and got the hell out of here, he would be free. Now, all he would need to do is make up some bullshit story about how his connection wasn’t at the meet like he was supposed to be. Then what?

  Tatiana! She would help him. She always helped him.

  Finally exiting the building, he ran for his life as if the devil were on his heels. And if the O’Sheas ever found out what he had just seen, the devil would be the least of his worries.

  Chapter Two

  Conall looked out over the city from the full-length window in his office and sighed deeply. The charity event was tonight and he really did not want to go. Although he was very passionate about helping those less fortunate, he also had other things on his mind. Namely, how to make sure the plan he and his brothers had come up with to rid the world of the filth that gave them their last name. The memories flooded his mind and he couldn't help but cringe at the torture he and his brothers went through at the hands of Danny “Danny Boy” Sullivan. Old Man O’Shea had claimed he was just doing his part to help make them into men. But the constant beatings, forcing the brothers to fight not only each other, but other kids in the neighborhood, teaching them how to be thieves and delinquents, and punishing them with fists and sticks, could never be mistaken for helping them.