Bad Bishop by L.J. Shen - 55

Lila went into labor at our new house surrounded by enough medical staff to open a field hospital.

There were four nurses, one doula, two OB-GYNs, one pediatrician, and an ambulance on standby.

Some would have called it deranged. I called it adequately cautious.

“Is she giving birth or being exorcised?” Enzo followed the trail of personnel when the staff filed inside. Imma and Chiara were with Lila in the next room, yelling hysterically at her to take deep, calming breaths.

“A lot of shit can go sideways during birth.” I led us into my office. Not that I needed to explain myself to him. His biggest responsibility was not shitting his pants.

Enzo gave me a whatever-you-say-little-princess look, lighting a cigarette and flicking the match out my office window with a knowing smirk.

“Now you can’t go anywhere near her for the next month.” I pointed at the cigarette.

“Fuck off. She’s my sister.”

“That’s unfortunate. I’m sure our kid will still be bright.”

“No thanks to you, Carrot Top.”

I tsked. “Is that all you’ve got?”

“You’re right.” He rubbed his chin absentmindedly. “I need to work on my material, now that you’re about to become the most insufferable, overprotective dad that has ever disgraced this universe.”

“You mean graced.”

He smiled breezily. “I don’t remember stuttering.”

I heard the crunch of gravel beneath my office window, signaling that a car was approaching. I glanced out the window. A catering truck parked across the street, so as not to block the way to the other vehicles.

“What’s that?” Enzo stuck his head next to mine, looking down.

“She missed prosciutto during the pregnancy.”

“Let me guess, so you bought an entire drove of pigs?”

I wondered how mad she’d be if I relieved her brother of a few of his organs.

“No.” I glowered at the idiot. “But I did order seventeen different types from Parma to make sure she has variety.”

“Man, you’re so whipped all you need is a cherry on your head.”

“Keep running your mouth and the room will turn red,” I warned.

Enzo snorted. “Stop seducing me, bro. I’m into chicks.”

The lies people told themselves were too much sometimes. Not that I gave enough shit to put a mirror in his face.

“Tiernan.” My mother-in-law pushed the door open without knocking, out of breath. “She’s asking for you.” Her gaze flicked to her son. “ Sfacciato ! Put that cigarette down before I burn a hole through your forehead.”

“What cigarette, Mama?” he asked with smoke skulking out of his mouth, tossing the thing out the window and smiling angelically.

I sauntered to the next room, finding Lila sulking on a big bed in a very small babydoll dress and no underwear. She was covered in sweat head to toe and looked exhausted. Her water broke almost two hours ago. The first hour, she was her sweet, perky self. The last thirty minutes, though, I had to clear all the sharp objects from our bedroom.

“ Gealach ,” I greeted. “Did you change your mind about me being here?”

She had asked me to evacuate her bedside until the baby was out. Not because she felt uncomfortable with me witnessing the birth. Apparently, threatening the medical staff and trying to blackmail the baby while still in the womb to make his exit quickly and painlessly was considered “unbecoming,” or, as Imma put it, screanzato . Unhinged.

“ No, ” Lila signed. “ I still don’t think you have the stomach for it. ”

Ridiculous. I had killed hundreds of people with my bare hands.

“What’s the issue, then?”

“ I need you to get rid of Mama and Imma. ”

I stared at her like she asked me to carve Wyoming out of the map and drag it into the Black Sea.

“Are they bothering you?”

“ My mother already panic-vomited twice, and Imma bursts into tears every time I have a contraction. The woman is a nurse. They’ve both completely lost it. ”

“You are loved, darlin’.” I leaned down to kiss her forehead.

“ Love is overrated. ” She swatted me away. “ Get rid of them. ”

“I’ll have them go down to the living room until this is over.”

“ No. ” Lila shook her head adamantly. “ I don’t want them in this zip code, Tiernan. ”

I shot her a flat stare. “I’m a murderer, not a magician. I only know one way to extract people by force.”

A contraction shuddered Lila’s entire body, making her arch and spit out a string of words in Italian I was sure wasn’t a love poem. In the hall beyond the closed door, I heard Imma breaking down in a sob. Chiara moaned like she was delivering the child.

“ FIND A WAY, ” my wife signed.

I scurried my ass out before she made herself a widower and kicked the two women out.

_______

Four hours later, my son ripped into the world like a lion. With a victorious roar, fists curled in anger, legs kicking and thrashing, protesting the invasion of his perfect bubble.

Earlier, Lila allowed me to stay with her if I promised to be on my best behavior.

I held my wife’s hand and watched as he appeared between her legs in all of his purple-white flesh glory. New and wrinkly, unfocused, his ribs tightening each time he took a greedy breath to resume his screaming.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about his scrunched, long-suffering face. It was full of white stuff.

It was his head that confirmed the suspicion I’d had for the past few weeks, since Lila killed the wrong guy.

More specifically, the shocking thick mane of hair covering his entire skull.

The unmistakable, rare, and familiar shade of dark red. Burgundy.

Of the Callaghans .

Red. All I saw was red. Rage took over my entire fucking being.

Fintan.

Fintan was the rapist.

It all made sense.

His name was on Sam Brennan’s list. In plain sight all along.

It had never occurred to me to look into him as a suspect before the warehouse incident because…

Because you’re a fucking gobshite who spent your entire life assuming the best about him.

I’d ignored his name because he disappeared often to get drunk or make illegal bets. Him not being by my side on that night was nothing special.

He had a girlfriend, but that meant very little to men of our trade; he had substance abuse issues, so it was likely he wasn’t on his best behavior that night. And while Fintan was a scaredy-cat not accustomed to violence, he certainly possessed a mean streak.

He’d taken one look at Raffaella, concluded she wasn’t going to fight back, rat him out, or complicate his life—and decided to destroy hers.

The writing was on the wall. How he protested the marriage from the get-go. How angry he was when it went ahead. And how concerned he’d been when he first heard Lila was sentient.

The last nine months rushed into the forefront of my mind.

He’d sent her a letter, had likely slipped it under the door himself. Why?

The answer was simple—he wanted her alone so he could kill her and get rid of both her and the baby. Bury his secret with them.

He tried twice—once when he crashed into her and Tierney in that intersection, after which he panicked and tried to pin it on Angelo—and a second time when he arranged a time to meet her at the dock, but I showed up instead.

He was the one who sent that Roger prick to the port and ordered him to kill whoever showed up, Lila or me. Because once I was gone, there’d be no one to retaliate.

He thought he could get away with it.

Until the very last moment.

The red flowers at Fermanagh’s…

My jaw locked. They were unevenly red. Old.

He kept her blood-soaked tiara of roses.

Made her live under the same roof with it.

My heart thrashed so hard it nearly cracked my fucking ribs.

I couldn’t make a stink about it. Not here, not now. With Lila writhing and aching as the doctor stitched up the sore place between her legs. A nurse dabbed her temples with a cloth, and my wife’s arms stretched open, waiting to be filled with the baby she just birthed.

My baby.

He was fucking mine.

I would raise him as my own, and he’d look exactly like me.

No one would question his origin.

“ Gealach , he is beautiful,” I praised, pressing my lips to her sweat-coated forehead. She shuddered under my lips. I pulled back and caressed the damp hair away from her face.

One of the nurses placed a much drier, slightly less sullen version of our newborn in her arms.

His hair.

I couldn’t stop staring.

Did Lila know?

I couldn’t stomach what it must do to her.

She sniffled, looking up at me through glittering eyes, waiting for my words. She couldn’t offer me any of her own, seeing as her hands were busy cradling our baby to her chest.

“You did so good. I’m proud of you.” I kissed her mouth, then leaned down to kiss the crown of my son’s head. I looked back at her so she could read my lips, speaking as slowly as I could.

“I love you, sweetheart. You fractured my soul and dug so deep into it, you are now ingrained in all that I am, and all that I ever will be. As for our son.” I placed a hand on his tiny shoulder, smiling down at him. “I already love him more than I do anyone else in the world.”

But you.

She would always come first.

Before our son. Before myself.

I stayed for twenty more minutes, fussing and cooing over them, feeding her prosciutto and watching as she nursed the baby for the first time.

Finally, when the baby was napping, she turned and told me, “ You haven’t had a second for yourself. Why don’t you go take a shower and a nap? ”

“It’s fine,” I said, even though every fiber of my body itched to go to Fintan. “I’m happy to stay.”

He was probably halfway across the continent by now. Not that it’d help him.

She shook her head, smiling.

“ Mama and Imma should be here any minute in case I need anything. And now that he is napping, it’s smart if I do the same. Please. Go rest. For me. ”

“Does he have a name?” I rubbed my thumb across her flushed cheek.

She looked down at the pink scowling thing sleeping in the bassinet next to her. “Gennaro, I think.” A tender smile touched her pink lips. “He looks like a Gennaro, right?”

He looked mostly like a Fintan to me.

He also looked entirely too Irish to carry such a distinctively Italian name.

“Yes,” I said, nevertheless. “Gennaro. Nero. Perfect.”

I loved her just a little more than anyone ought to be loved. For taking her tragic circumstances, accepting them, and shaping them into a triumph.

“Nero, stop hanging from the chandelier,” I tested the name humorlessly. “Nero, put that gun down. No firearms before you’re six. Yeah. Got a nice ring to it.”

She grinned at me, aglow. “He’ll be Nero to the world, but Enni to me. I’ll protect him in all the ways my parents never protected me.”

I believed her. She was going to be the mother she’d deserved.

“Go now.” She reached to caress my jaw. I leaned into her touch instinctively.

“You sure?”

“Certain,” she verbalized.

Nodding, I kissed her again and closed the door behind me.

“Sir.” One of my errand boys appeared as soon as I stepped out into the hallway, catching my step.

“Do you need your drivers? Soldiers? Should I fetch anyone?”

I shook my head. “Get the car running. I’m leaving alone.”

I wasn’t going to take a shower, a nap, or a piss.

On my way out, I bumped into Imma, Chiara, and Tierney making their way to Lila. They were carrying food platters, plush teddy bears, and handknitted blankets.

“How’s the bundle of joy?” Tierney cried out with joy.

“See for yourself,” I answered cryptically, not stopping to greet them as I advanced toward the door.

Five minutes later, I was in my car, driving toward my father’s place. Fintan’s phone was still there. I knew, because I had a tracker on it, as with everyone in my family.

How did the saying go? If you love someone, let them go. Just make sure you know exactly where their ass is twenty-four seven, because you have deep-rooted trust issues.

You put him in charge of her.

Forced her to spend time with him on a weekly basis.

He was her keeper. After our wedding. At the hospital. The only man who was allowed to stay with her alone.

I veered off the convoluted country path to the shoulder of the road, pushed the driver’s door open, and vomited the entire contents of my stomach onto my shoe.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve, I took a few deep breaths, forcing myself to calm down. I’d never been this disoriented in my entire life.

Repositioning myself in the car seat, I flicked the engine back to life and resumed my driving.

Fifteen minutes into my drive, my Bluetooth rang with an incoming call.

Fintan, the screen said.

So. Tierney met her new nephew.

Figures. My sister’s favorite cardio was running her mouth.

I hit the green button. Why the fuck not?

“This is not what it looks like,” my older brother said in a high-pitched voice.

I allowed a beat of silence, just to screw with his nerves, before replying dully, “If you want to prolong your death by making me do a paternity test before killing you, I’m not opposed to that. As long as you’re aware I’d be twice as pissed if I find out you lied on top of raping my wife. And let’s just say I’m already not in a generous mood.”

I was never angry. It was a pointless emotion, and I was notoriously stingy with those. But right now, I was sick with rage. Poisoned with the cloying, unfamiliar feeling of helplessness.

He hurt her.

My own kin.

She was going to look at our son’s eyes, and face, and hair each day for the rest of her life, knowing it was a Callaghan who ripped her innocence from her.

“I didn’t s-say…I mean, what I was gonna…” He stumbled over his own words. “I did it. I’m not d-denying it.” Fintan broke into a sob, and I heard glass shattering on the other side of the line. “B-but listen to me. J-just listen .”

He was slurring. He was drunk. Again. Usually, that’d make me concerned. Now, my only worry was that his liver wouldn’t fail on his miserable arse before I had the chance to finish him off myself.

I deserved the fucking honor.

I heard a duffel bag being unzipped. Clothes stuffed into it in a hurry. He didn’t even have the foresight to make an escape plan. How did we share DNA?

“I’m not okay in the head, Tiernan. I’m not. I need help. Think about it. I watched Mam being carved open like a bleeding animal when Igor pulled you and Tierney out. I was just three. A small boy. I was sitting in a pool of her blood when Da found me.”

“Your sob story didn’t give you the right to rape my wife.” I choked back a roar, keeping my voice flat and even. “We’re all fucked up in the head. You’re nothing special.”

A text message popped on the screen.

Tierney: I gave him a thirty minute head start. Where’s the joy of the hunt if the prey just sits there, waiting for slaughter?

Tierney: Cute baby, btw. <3 <3 <3

“I—I didn’t know she’d turn out to be your wife!” Fintan whined. “Not t-to mention that you’d catch feelings for her. I thought it would be the f-first and last time I’d ever see her. And you know what they said about her!” he spluttered. “That she was severely mentally d-delayed. Too dumb to know what’s ha-happening around her.” He hiccuped.

Keys jangled. Dropped to the floor. Being picked up again.

I said nothing.

“Please, please believe me when I say I never meant for anything to happen this way.”

“You had seven months to come clean to me. Why didn’t you?”

Silence. I was nearing Da and Fintan’s mansion.

“I thought I could take care of it in another way.”

“But you didn’t. You should be halfway across the ocean by now. Why did you stay?”

“I—I kind of figured it could…that I would…I mean, if the baby wouldn’t have come out with red hair…” He swallowed audibly. “He could’ve come out blond. Or, with brown hair. Or, I don’t know…” Another pause. “It doesn’t have to change anything between us. This all happened before you got together. I haven’t touched her since and never, ever will. And she doesn’t even remember .” He choked out that last word, breaking into a fresh bout of sobs. “I swear, Tiernan, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. It was just harmless fun. And I was plastered. I mean, completely drunk. Had I known you were going to wed her…fall in love with her… Christ , I’d never .” He sounded on the brink of vomiting. “You’re my brother. I love you. You’ve always been my number one. Please. There’s no need for anyone to know this. I certainly won’t tell. And…and…Lila!” he exclaimed. “Think about her and the baby, how crushed they’d be if they found out. We’re getting along so nicely. She trusts me.”

That, she did.

I thought about all the times I left her with him again.

I’d punch my own face if I wasn’t driving.

“And I’ll do whatever you want me to. Go to rehab. Move away if need be.” A wet snort escaped him. I couldn’t believe I carried the same DNA as this pile of shite. “We can pretend it never happened. As far as the entire world knows—it never did. Only me, Tierney, and you know.”

“The accident in which she almost lost the baby…” I said, leaving the rest of it hanging in the air.

Fintan understood what I meant. “I…I sent people to do it. But I told them not to kill her, just the baby,” he lamented. “I swear it.”

“Who?” I demanded. They were as good as dead now.

“The loan sharks I used to owe money to.” Pause. “I told them if they managed to kill the baby, I’d pay them five million.”

I stopped in front of the Tudor-style, white-bricked mansion and killed the engine. Closed my eyes.

He is your brother.

He picked up your pieces when you found your way home.

Taught you English.

Saved you from offing yourself when you didn’t think life was worth living.

Taught you how to find joy in the life you have left.

If it wasn’t for him, you’d have killed yourself after killing Igor. You wouldn’t have Lila. Or Nero. This life.

“Please.” I heard him again. I opened my eyes and looked out the window to the second floor, immediately finding him peering from behind the curtain of his bedroom.

“Tiernan, forgive me. I would’ve never touched a girlfriend of yours. Let alone your wife. Anyone who’s important to you. I’d never done anything like it before. Not ever. I was feeling wild that night. And drunk. So fucking drunk. I was livid with the Camorra for taking out your eye and having the audacity to invite us as guests. I knew the Ferrantes only issued the invitation to show off what they’d done to you. Like you were a circus monkey or something.”

This was likely true. I’d shown up anyway, not too proud to give up on the chance to squash my beef with Tate Blackthorn. He’d been meddling in my legal business for months before that.

“It was my fuck you to them for what they did to my little brother. A one-off. An only -off. You have to believe me.”

I didn’t utter one damn word.

“You forgave Alex Rasputin for what his father’s done. You spared his life. I’m sure you have it in your heart to forgive another brother. I’ll get better. I’ll get sober . I’ll repent this sin. I swear to you. I will. And I’ll be the best damn uncle in the entire world.”

“I believe you,” I said, finally. “I’m going to come inside now. You will greet me unarmed. You will have a duffel bag ready with your bare necessities. I’m going to drive you to a rehab center in Connecticut. And I’m not going to discharge your arse until you’re as sober as a nun for one whole bleeding year. After which you’re moving to Ireland, and I’m never seeing you again. Am I clear?”

“Y-yes,” he spluttered, breaking into a sob. “Thank you, brother. Thank you so much. I won’t let you dow—”

I killed the call and got out of my car before waltzing toward the front door. Fintan’s sports car was the only one parked in front. Shame he wouldn’t have time to say goodbye to Da or Maggie.

I unlocked the front door and stepped inside. A few minutes later, Fintan took the stairs down, holding a duffel in his hand. He stopped when he reached the last step.

We stood in front of each other, somber and subdued.

He looked like hell. Face splotchy and swollen, eyes bloodshot, hair a tangled mess.

I forced myself to push aside the thought of him touching my wife, prying her sweet, delicate thighs open, pushing into her virginal cunt, snatching her virtue, spilling his seed inside her, hitting her, splitting her lip, her temples, her cheeks…

My nostrils flared.

You’re alive because of him.

Remember that.

I opened my arms, palms up, my expression tranquil, my posture casual.

“You are absolved. Come and get your forgiveness, brother.”

His breath picked up, the tension between us brewing like a cyclone that started in the very foyer we stood at. “Just like that?”

“You saved me when I wanted to kill myself,” I said. “I’ll spare your life this one time. There won’t be a second.”

His entire posture deflated. His resolve broke, and he hurried into my embrace, throwing his arms around me, weeping into my neck. “Oh, God. Tiernan. God. Keeping this secret to myself all these months…it ate me alive. I couldn’t bear it.”

His duffel fell to the floor. I held him for a moment, breathing in his familiar scent, of alcohol and leather and his favorite cologne.

Placed a soothing palm on the back of his head with my left hand.

Pressed my lips to his ear.

Used my right hand to draw my gun.

“You’ve always been a stupid cunt, Fin. But for you to think I’d let you get away with what you did to my wife, you’ve really outdone yourself.”

I put a bullet in his spine. He dropped to his knees before me. I stepped back, watching him tremble and convulse, holding his back with shaky fingers as he stared in horror at the scarlet liquid pouring out of him.

The surprise and disappointment in his face were exactly why I’d lied to him. Why I gave him futile, foolish hope.

“B-brother…” he stammered weakly.

“You’re not my brother. Alex is. Always was. Not you.” I rounded his limp figure on the floor. “Now I’ll ask questions, and you’ll answer them. I’ll kill you anyway. If you say the truth, I’ll take minutes. If you lie—hours. Am I understood?”

He nodded quickly. Hysterically.

“Why did you do it? Remember. The truth.”

“I swear I did it because of what they did to you,” he groaned, losing blood. I was lying. He was going to die in the next fifteen minutes or so. I would still make it painful, though.

“But also…she was so fucking beautiful, Tiernan. It was almost painful to watch.”

“Did you plan this all along?”

He shook his head.

“ Words , fucker.” I stopped my pacing to grab his ear and rip it from his head.

He arched, howling in pain. “N-no,” he cried out, heaving. “Th-there wasn’t a plan. She was just there. Gorgeous. All alone. Nobody paid attention to her. Nobody but me.”

“You followed her into the woods?” I prompted.

He gave me a hesitant look, probably knowing I was going to rip something else from him soon. He wasn’t wrong about that.

“Answer me,” I said.

“Y-yes,” he chattered. “She went outside, and I followed her. At first, I thought I’d corner her in one of the rooms, cop a feel, n-nothing more. But then she surprised me by leaving the property through the cellar and heading to the shore.”

“Was she upset?” I kneeled down and undid his trousers. Touching my own brother’s knob was not on my to-do list in this lifetime. Poetic justice required it, though.

Fintan winced, knowing where it was going.

“Sh-she…was beside herself.”

“Did she fight you?” I took my dull knife out of my pocket. He stared at it in horror.

“ Did she ?” I roared.

“Yes,” he admitted. “She fought tooth and nail. Managed to get in a few blows. Cracked my rib.”

I grabbed his limp knob in my fist and slashed his balls off. Blood sprayed everywhere.

His scream put another hole in the ozone layer. Fucking weakling.

“I tried to finish her off in the hospital room when you were in Vegas,” Fintan spat out blood, staring at me with wild hatred in his eyes. “But your asshole brother-in-law, Enzo, had the foresight to loiter there. He wouldn’t fucking leave. Even when he wasn’t in the room, he was just beyond the door.”

In the end, I did the right thing by keeping Enzo in New York. He saved my Lila.

“You’re about to die in the next three minutes,” I informed him flatly. The color slowly drained from his face. “Blood loss. There’s no saving you now. One last question.”

He stared at me, pure hatred radiating from his eyes.

“Go ahead.” He sounded surprisingly calm, having come to terms with his own demise. “One last answer before my forsaken soul ensures you join me in hell, lad.”

I chuckled wryly. “Don’t need your letter of recommendation. I have a saved spot there. My question is…” I stalled, bracing myself for the answer. “Did she bleed?”

“Huh?”

“Did she bleed when you raped her?”

“Oh, yes.” A serene, psychotic smile spread across his lips. “She did. From her face, from all the beatings. From her cunt, from plowing into her while she was dry and virginal. It was a thing of beauty. For one moment in time, she was an ugly, terrible mess—”

I kissed the cross pendant on my neck—for Lila, not for me.

Apologized to Mam in heaven.

And shot my own brother in the face.

Rolling him over with the tip of my loafer, I spat into the blood-gushing hole at the center of his forehead. I punched in a number and glued my phone to my ear, not removing my gaze from the corpse. The line picked up before the connection sound started.

“Lyosha, I need you to take the fall for something.”

His silence told me he immediately understood.

I’d long suspected Fintan was Lyosha’s mole. Everything made sense. Fintan needed the money to keep gambling without getting into more debt—and Alex paid that money in exchange for information to keep his finger on my pulse.

Fintan never gave up on alcohol and gambling. He simply sold all of my secrets and plans to the Bratva and used the money to pay for his addiction. This was how Alex knew about the most intimate details of my life—including when Lila shot me on our wedding night. How she stitched me back together. That I was falling for her.

This also meant Fintan gave Alex the heads-up before I came to Vegas to claim his life. If things were different, I’d be dead.

But me being dead was Fintan’s ideal outcome. He’d seize full control of the Irish operation, all the money and prestige, and there’d be no one to avenge Lila’s rape.

Fintan betrayed me in every single way possible.

“When and where?” Alex asked.

“I’m texting you the address now. It needs some tidying up.”

“I’ll bring my… cleaners , Koshchei .” I heard the curve of a smile on his mouth.

In the end, he was more of a brother to me than Fintan ever was.