Liam O’Grady had procured a coat for her and he held her hand firmly in his as he led her out. His men provided a protective cover for them as they left the premises. Bianca felt a sense of disquiet wash over her. Did this Z-category security rise from the fact that they had just met the odious Cahill?
She wanted to ask him but O’Grady had changed in his manner after the encounter with Joe Cahill.
He seemed eager to leave and she did not want to make him angrier than he was. Silently, she trotted behind him as he hustled her out.
*
The man Bianca had seen earlier, the toady fellow who had been looking at her with his pinprick-like eyes, rushed over, his large hands spread in appeasement.
“Wait, O’Grady, why are you leaving? The fun’s just beginning.”
And sending a look in Bianca’s direction, which made her skin crawl, he went on, like a salesman selling property,
“I can always get you other women to …uh…keep you happy, if…”
But O’Grady did not even break his stride, Pulling Bianca along, and simultaneously shielding her protectively, he said in a cold voice,
“Just tell St Just we had to leave in a hurry, Malachy.”
And with that, they were outside, into the cold night. The large SUV which took O’Grady around was already waiting at the entrance and she was swept in as Liam O’Grady followed her, his face a mask of fury, tight and controlled.
Bianca scuttled to the other side. Somehow, she did not want to make him more furious.
Gazing out through the tinted windows, a thought occurred to her; the glass was bulletproof!
*
Joe Cahill had been sitting in a dim enclosure, his eyes riveted on the one which had been occupied by O’Grady.
His knuckles clenched around his tumbler of whiskey as he watched the younger man stride out, his hand firmly wrapped around the girl who emerged behind him.
Old Joe sat forward, eyes narrowing in interest.
The girl was a rare beauty; small wonder that the young Irishman had been hiding her behind his back all through the conversation. When she walked, she swayed her hips in an unconscious way, without being aware of how sensual the movement was. She had a dusky skin tone, and as she glanced behind her, sensing that someone was watching, he caught sight of her face. Plump, full lips and eyes the colour of mocha. Large and heavily fringed. Brown hair, like chestnuts, falling to her waist, like a heavy sheath.
Old Joe Cahill licked his lips.
A beauty, with that figure, full breasts, and round hips. Not like many of the twig-like females crawling over the club.
This one would give a man to hold onto her body as he used her.
He licked his thick lips again, a stirring of interest uncoiling in him.
Joe Cahill had not much interest in sex these days, but that il would fetch a lot of money…
Old Jie sipped his whiskey thoughtfully.
*
Old O’Grady had been one of Joe Cahill’s men; a regular mafia fighter, just a soldier. But he had risen in the ranks and had also set up a brothel, with the blessings of Cahill. The understanding had been that O’Grady would never try to break away or challenge Cahill.
Unfortunately, it only lasted till the old man died.
*
Young Liam O’ Grady had taken over his father’s holding, running them with an iron hand, and young as he was, he had challenged the might of the Irish mafia chieftain, Joe Cahill. He had downright refused to continue to pay the sum of money Old Man O’Grady had been paying the Mafia chieftain.
One of the first things he had done was to wind up his father’s lucrative wh*re house and instead, he began to dabble in loans. Along with his sidekick, and loyalist, his half-brother, Finn St Just, he managed to take over the market and they had become the two most noted and fast-developing loan sharks in the area.
And now, the Casinos Liam O’Grady had set up were booming.
*
When Joe Cahill’s son, Patrick had tried to muscle in, demanding a cut int eh the profits, Liam O’Grady had beaten him up roughly.
Joe wiped his face with the back of his hand in disgust. His son was everything Liam O’Grady had accused him of being, a loser, an alcoholic, a drug addict and womanizer.
But he was still the only son Joe had.
And Joe Cahill would not allow some Mafia Don from outside, like Lucien Delano, to walk into his turf and take over.
No siree. Over my dead body, growled the old man and threw back the rest of his drink in a fit of anger.
*
Bianca
I sat still as the car roared along but soon, tiredness overcame me. I leaned my head against the soft upholstery and shut my eyes, my hand clutching the coat O’Grady had handed me earlier. He had also tossed a throw, soft and feminine, at me and I wrapped my cold legs in it, settling down comfortably. I snuggled into the coat; It bore O’Grady’s scent, was masculine and inviting. The throw was someone else’s one of his women, I guessed and I pushed it to my legs defiantly.
O’Grady had barely glanced my way. His face was still like thunder and he was shooting off instructions in a low voice. I sighed.
I was genuinely not interested in his doings; he could raise his voice and speak in a normal tone if he wished.
With that that thought, I fell into a slumber.
*
Liam O’Grady was controlling his temper with difficulty. Joe Cahill had been an unpleasant force from the time he was a child. Liam had hated the way his father kow-towed to the slimy man, bending over backwards to keep the filthy fellow happy.
The choicest of wh*res were sent to his parties, but Liam remembered how the same women would come back, looking as though they had been put through a meat grinder.
Beaten, abused.
*
One of the wh*res had succumbed to her injuries and his father had gone the extra mile to hush it up.
Young Liam had been furious. He remembered walking into his father’s little office and confronting him.
“Lily is dead, Pa,” he said, the seventeen-year-old angst on his face.
Old man O’Grady had merely looked at him, his face blank.
“Get out, boy!” he said rudely,” She was just a f*cking wh*re. You been f*cking her or what?”
The two men in the room with his father had laughed uneasily for Liam’s fiery nature was known to everyone.
*
“What has that to do with it?” snapped Liam, because it had been true. Lily, the lovely Chinese girl, a few years older than him, had been the one to initiate him in the ways of women. Liam had spent many nights and days with her.
His father’s flushed face should have warned Liam but he was too far gone. He had seen Lily’s broken and bruised body, had accompanied the men to hospital, and he had been the one to be informed by the weary-looking doctor, that she had had too many internal injuries and had not survived.
His father rose and hit him.
Liam staggered back, a hand to his jaw. The old man punched him again and he fell to the floor. But when he raised a leg to kick Liam, the young man lashed out, stunning the old man who fell back in astonishment.
Old O’Grady was overweight but he still laid a mean punch.
But he had never expected his son to retaliate.
*
“Get out, boy, before I throw you out!” roared his enraged father and St Just, who had been lurking in the corridor, equally disgusted by the way poor Lily had been buried in the pauper’s graves, rushed in to help his brother up.
‘It’s them wh*res that give you and your Mam a good life, never forget that! ” shouted his father.
Rubbing his jaw, Liam staggered to his feet and spat,
“The day you are laid in the ground, old man, I shall shut down your f*cking wh*rehouse.” And before his shocked father could respond, he had stormed off, with St Just behind him.
And he had done exactly that a few months later when his father died of a massive cardiac arrest.
*
The car lurched and Bianca fell against him. He looked down at her. She was so very innocent, so beautiful as she curled up, placing her head on his lap, unaware of what she was doing. He stroked her arm, soft and plump and he felt the tension in him disappear.
Bianca Cruz stirred and said his attention shifted to her mouth.
*
“Sweet Jaysus,” he breathed as he imagined her plump mouth wrapped around his member, the very thought of which had made him go hard.
He shut his eyes and leaned his head back on the headrest.
She was so …vulnerable and strong, all at once.
And he feared that she was coming to mean more than any other woman who had entered his life.