Exhaling: A Mafia Romance (The O'Keefe Family Collection Book 3) Read online

  “I didn’t do all this. In fact, I’m laying down like a waif right now. I did not make dinner for everyone. I did not clear out Vince’s second office for you. I did not get out of bed.”

  Angelo jogged up the stairs to check Fallyn’s work while Killian steered his sister toward the couch in the living room. “You’re laying down right here, kiddo. I mean it. I appreciate the dinner and all, but the doctor said bedrest, which last time I checked didn’t mean climbing stairs, cooking, and cleaning up after things you don’t need to know about.” He slid a throw pillow under her head and then pressed another between her knees as she lay on her side. “Got it?”

  “Thanks, Dad,” she griped, not feeling bad even when Killian stiffened at her slight. “You know, I’d like to see you lay around for weeks and be totally useless. How would you like to be treated as if you can’t lift a finger for yourself?”

  Killian touched the tip of her nose. “I didn’t sleep with Vince, so luckily I won’t ever have to know what that’s like. Pay the piper, kiddo.”

  Angelo called down to them, “Where did you put everything, Fallyn?”

  “It’s all in the laundry basket in the back of our closet buried under dirty clothes. Have fun with that.” She tried to get back to the happiness of the grand day when Killian reached out and held her hand. She’d missed her big brother, who’d been busy helping Vince this week. “Did you get to see Keenan?”

  Killian nodded with new light in his eyes. “He looks so shell-shocked. You should see his face. I mean, they have time in the yard where they go outside, but when he stepped out into free air? It’s like he’d never seen the sun before. It all happened so fast for him, so he’s still reeling. The guys are waiting two streets over so the parole officer can do a check of the house without the usual suspects creeping around.” Killian squeezed Fallyn’s hand. “I still can’t believe Vince did all this. I really hope there’s not an angle I’m not seeing.”

  “There’s not,” Fallyn ruled with some amount of confidence. “How goes the hooker roundup?”

  Killian scratched his jawline before answering. “Slow, actually. We got the ones to move that Vince needed us to, but he’s right. They’re driving away business and driving down property values. Almost as stubborn as the dealers, returning to their usual haunts days after we chase them out.”

  “That sucks.” Fallyn made to sit up when she heard Vince’s key in the front door, but Killian laid her back down.

  “Clearly I’ve got this. You relax.” Killian hugged his lost brother again when the door opened, clutching him tighter than drawing a full breath would allow. “I don’t think I’ll get used to doing that for a while, so you might want to just grin and bear it.”

  Keenan sat at the kitchen table and submitted to the parole officer securing the anklet to his leg, looking down at the leash with only a small amount of forlorn. The officer excused himself and moved through the house to do a check. After a thorough search that turned up nothing incriminating, the officer left with a grave warning to Keenan not to violate the terms of his parole.

  Fallyn didn’t want to wait for them to come to the living room, so she got up and padded slowly to the kitchen, eyes wide at the brother she had not seen in anything other than an orange jumpsuit in years. He wore a green t-shirt and jeans, looking every bit like the brothers he was anxious to rejoin.

  Vince was the first to see his wife poke her head around the corner. He greeted her with the absence of the smile he usually saved only for her. “I see you’ve been busy.”

  Fallyn didn’t have it in her to apologize or make excuses. She saw nothing else except for Keenan, and closed the distance between them in the next breath. “You look a little more like you again.” She waited for him to stand and then wrapped her arms tight around the brother she’d not been permitted to touch for years. “I… You… I missed you so much!” Her eyes brimmed with tears that quickly spilled over onto her cheeks.

  “I still don’t totally understand how I got here. I mean, they explained it all. I stood for the hearing, and now I’m out? It all happened so fast; it still feels like I’m dreaming.” Keenan gripped his sister tight. “This is real, right? I’m in Papa D’s house right now, not prison, right?”

  “It’s real, Keenan. You’re right here with us, and that’s where you’ll stay.”

  Keenan shifted her so her belly was off to the side. “I don’t think I’ve ever hugged a pregnant woman before.” His eyes flicked down to her, finding his first genuine smile since he’d walked into the grand house. “Can I feel the baby? My niece or nephew?”

  “Of course.” She took his hand and placed it to the left of her belly button, where the baby had taken up residence. “Feel that lump? That’s the butt. Totally freaky, right?”

  Keenan’s eyes were wide. “Whoa! Seriously? That’s crazy! There’s a whole person growing inside you! And I get to be here for everything? I mean, you’ll come home from the hospital, and I’ll get to see the whole first year.” Then Keenan did something no one expected. He forsook the lure of the belly and made a beeline for Vince, ignoring his noise of surprise when Keenan engulfed the deadly man in a hug. Keenan held on longer than Vince had ever been hugged by a man, squeezing tight as tears brimmed in his eyes at the reality that he was free and with his family. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Vince looked to Killian in alarm when Keenan started crying, and Killian silently urged him to just let the affection happen. “Um, it’s fine, Keenan. Really, no trouble.” Vince patted Keenan’s back awkwardly.

  “I take back everything I said about you to Fallyn to warn her away. That you made this happen? I’ll never forget this. I’m in your debt. You name it, and I’ll do it.”

  Killian and Vince both shook their heads. “No. I didn’t do it to get a slave in my house. I did it so Fallyn would be happy. You can look after your sister while I’m working,” Vince explained, wondering when the hug might end. “Your parole’s pretty strict, so there’ll be no fighting for you for a long time. Just helping Fallyn is all I need from you.”

  Keenan kept holding onto Vince, the tears that welled now spilling onto Vince’s shoulder. “You have no idea what you’ve given me. Our family? We live for each other. When one of us is cut off? It’s like losing a lung. I could barely breathe in there! You busted me out just to make my sister happy? You really do love her.”

  Vince smiled at Fallyn through his discomfort, relaxing when his wife grinned back at him. He gusted out a breath of relief when the doorbell rang and Keenan released him, announcing the grand entrance of the rest of the O’Keefes. Vince shook off the hug like it might be infectious. “From now on, only you get to hug me for that long,” he said to Fallyn.

  In that moment, all Fallyn saw was the love her husband had for her, to get her brother out of jail just so she wouldn’t be scared for him. Vince glowed for her, his intimidating demeanor shedding itself with a single look cast in her direction. “You brought my brother home,” she whispered, leaning up on her toes to kiss his lips. Each movement of her lips was filled with gratitude and appreciation for the man who would move heaven and earth, bending the legal system just so she didn’t get upset. “You love me.”

  “You’re just now figuring that out?” Vince teased, stroking her lips with his once more before the O’Keefes started to filter into the kitchen. His eyes fell on Patrick O’Keefe being escorted to the dining room by Nurse O’Malley. He kissed Fallyn’s fingers. “I’ll be right back.” Vince caught Killian’s eye and nodded him over to the corner of the kitchen where they could converse. “Patrick’s welcome here, of course, but he hit Fallyn before. I won’t stand for that under my roof. If you want this to work where he comes back, you have to keep Paddy away from Fallyn. I mean it, Kill. I won’t see my wife knocked around in my home.”

  Killian nodded stiffly, looking like he wanted to argue, but knowing he had no leg to stand on. “Understood. I’ll take care of it.” Killian waved Carrigan over after he’d received
a bone-crushing hug from Keenan. “I need you to watch Fallyn. Stay on her the whole time Dad’s here, got it? Vince won’t let Dad come back here if he hits Fallyn again, so intervene before anything gets out of hand.”

  Carrigan met Vince’s eyes and shook his hand. “I got it. We’ll make this work.” He turned with a big smile and arms outstretched. “Fallyn! It’s been too long since I’ve made a wish on your belly.”

  “It’s not a genie’s lamp,” Fallyn complained as Carrigan’s arm went around her back while the other hand roamed her belly in search of the baby he adored.

  22

  Keenan to Lean On

  Getting Keenan acclimated to normal life took more than a day, but as each sun rose and fell, he grew closer to understanding how life operated again. Vince’s home became the landing point for the O’Keefes, since it housed Keenan, Fallyn and the coming baby. At any given hour of the day, there were no less than four people milling about, joking, cooking, laughing and catching up.

  “You’re doing it again,” Fallyn commented, discarding a two of spades in hopes of a card with a crown on it. “That quiet thing.”

  Keenan looked up from his cards at his supine sister on the couch and shrugged. “It’s all just a little overwhelming. So many choices. Like, I get to decide what to wear, what to eat, when to eat, when to get up, when to sleep. I never had this much trouble making those decisions before, but after three years of someone else mapping it all out for me? It’s just hard to wrap my mind around it, is all.”

  “That makes sense. Do you want me to set your clothes out for you? Take one decision off your plate?”

  Keenan tossed his sister half a smile, breaking himself out of his perplexed state. “Thanks, Mom. I’m alright. Just taking a while to adjust, I guess.”

  “Rats. You could’ve been my new Barbie.”

  “That’s exactly what I was afraid of.”

  Carrigan tossed two cards into the discard pile atop the glass coffee table. He was sitting on the floor leaning up against the couch Fallyn was laying on. “Have you been out of the house yet? You have a two-mile radius, you know. Why don’t I take you out for dinner or something? I mapped out a whole list of places that are within your anklet’s reach.”

  Keenan shook his head. “Maybe after the baby comes. I don’t feel comfortable leaving this one.” He winked up at Fallyn from his spot on the floor on the other side of the coffee table from Carrigan.

  Fallyn rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. You don’t have to babysit me. I can take a nap or do whatever while you go out. Just because I’m benched doesn’t mean you have to be. Go ahead. Go have fun with Carri.”

  Keenan shifted his cards in his hand. “Vince told me I’m supposed to watch you. Make sure you stay laying down and get you whatever you need. He got me out of prison, Fal. I’m not going to drop the ball on the one thing he’s asked me to do. I can go out once the baby comes and you’re up and about.”

  “You’re not on lockdown,” Fallyn reminded him. “Vince never told you that you couldn’t leave the house. He doesn’t own you, sweetie.”

  “I really don’t mind. I want to make good on something in my life.”

  “What are you talking about? You make lots of things good.”

  Keenan sighed, the weight of the world compressing a little air from his lungs. “Prison gives you a lot of time to think. I haven’t been a good person. I’m not talking about the family business end of things. That part’s unavoidable. I’m talking about taking care of my siblings. Putting something good back into the world. You lot came to see me all the time when I was locked up. That’s love. Lots of guys in there don’t ever get a visitor. I got several every week.” He kept his eyes on his cards to keep from giving away the depths of his vulnerability from a position of weakness. “It kept me going in there when things got hard. I need to make your lives better, the way you made mine.”

  It was the third guilt-ridden speech Keenan had given in the four days since he’d been released. Carrigan put his cards down so he could give his brother his full attention. “Listen to me, Keenan. It could just as easily have been any one of us in there. You think all our hands aren’t drenched in blood? If I would’ve been the one the law slammed down on, I know for a fact you would’ve come to see me all the time. I’m just bummed we couldn’t figure out a way to get you out ourselves. I really hate that you feel this debt to Vince.”

  “Vince isn’t all that bad,” Keenan offered before Fallyn could open her mouth to defend her husband. His siblings both cocked their heads at him, confused at Keenan’s sudden declaration of loyalty. “He doesn’t treat me like I owe him anything. He asked me to look after Fallyn because I just so happen to be here.” He ran his hands through his freshly cut hair. It was buzzed on the bottom and cropped shorter on the top, giving him a clean look to compensate for his constantly wide eyes and overwhelmed state. “You should see him with her, Carri. I wanted to hate him on instinct, but I don’t think we could’ve found a guy more in love with her than he is. I mean, Fal sneezes and he’s getting his keys to take her to the hospital.”

  Fallyn shifted on the couch to try and find a more comfortable spot. “He’s a little overprotective. He’ll calm down once the baby’s here. I hope. Or he’ll get worse since there are two of us to obsess over. It’s cute. Good thing I’m used to you lot, or it would be a little much.”

  “He’s decent to me, too. Doesn’t treat me like he could, being who our family is and that he freed me. I don’t know how I missed it through the years, but he’s not a bad guy. Well, not as bad as we all thought. Or maybe he’s the same version of bad that we are, which I can live with.”

  Carrigan shrugged. “Well, I’m glad you’re good here. It feels like we can all breathe a little easier now.”

  Fallyn rolled onto her side to try and sit up, but any kind of movement was problematic. Keenan and Carrigan stood and each gripped an arm, gently pulling her up after she insisted she was only standing because she needed to go to the bathroom. She waddled to the kitchen after using the restroom, determined to make the most of her rare moments of freedom. She pulled out leftovers from the night before and heated them up, her mouth watering at the smell of the lasagna. She ate her meal standing up at the counter – she was so tired of lying down.

  As she finished the last bite, her eyes fell on her purse that Vince had stashed in one of the glass door cupboards next to the fridge. Since she had been on house arrest every bit as much as Keenan, she had not used her purse in days. Something inside of her shifted, and she knew she had put off finding out about her father long enough. There in the solace of the kitchen, Fallyn took her purse out of the cupboard and pulled out the white envelope that had long since fallen to the bottom of the pink bag. She felt like she needed to open it with a glass of whiskey in her hand, but knew that was not an option. So long had she put off learning about her parentage, that to simply open the envelope and pull out the form felt like cheating somehow.

  The results were simple enough to understand, but she read them through so many times, the words began to lose all meaning.

  Keenan met her in the kitchen, a look of mild scolding on his face. “I could’ve gotten you something to eat. You’re supposed to be lying down.”

  Fallyn looked up at her brother in a new light as her mind tried to wrap around the shifting worldview. Her hands shook as she gripped the paper to her chest. “Keenan?” she whispered as the room started to tilt. She grabbed at the counter, but it did little to keep her upright. So enormous was the weight of the test results that her knees began to buckle – they were so unused to supporting her these days.

  “Whoa! Easy, Fal.” Keenan caught his sister and lowered her to the floor slowly. “What happened? Is it the baby? Were you standing for too long?” He knelt next to her, holding her hand and brushing a piece of hair from her petrified face. “Do you want me to call Vince?”

  Fallyn usually recoiled from the babying Vince did whenever she was mildly uncomfortable, an
d the panic he had when she was actually hurt. This time, she knew there was no pulling herself out of the depths of despair. Though it was seven o’clock and he would be home in an hour, Fallyn nodded to her brother.

  “I’ll call him. What’s this?” Keenan tried to pry the paper from her hands, but she only gripped it tighter. “Okay, okay. I’ll call him now.” Keenan pulled out the phone Killian had bought him and called Vince after a few fumbles with the device that was still a little outside his technological reach. After he summoned Vince home, he called over his shoulder. “Carrigan! Get your butt in here. Help me get Fallyn to her room.”

  Carrigan’s green eyes grew wide when he rounded the corner and found his sister on the floor. “Hey, you alright? You didn’t fall, did you?”

  “I caught her just before she hit the floor,” Keenan assured him, gripping one of her arms. Carrigan took the other, and the two lifted their very pregnant sister off the cold floor. Carrigan tried to take the paper from her, but she guarded it like it was her last meal on death row. “Move slow, sweetie. Is it the baby? Should we be taking you to the car?”

  “My room,” she insisted. “Nothing’s wrong with the baby. Just got a little dizzy, is all. Can you get me to my bed? I just want to lie down for a while.”

  Keenan raised his eyebrow to Carrigan. “Now you want to lie down? Okay, I’m officially worried.”

  The stairs were problematic, but Fallyn moved slowly up the steps to her room without incident. She was determined to make it to the bed and kick her brothers out before she broke into tears, but every step tormented her emotional state and pulled her mood further downward. When her head finally hit her pillow, a silent tear squeezed out of her eye and slid across her face. “I’m good now. You can go back down with Carrigan and hang out.”

  Keenan sat next to where his sister lay on the bed. “I can’t tell if you’re legitimately upset about something, or if you’re having a hormonal mood swing. Either way, I’ll stay until Vince gets here.”