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Cowering on the ground, he was shocked at her rage “I didn’t have a choice Kelly was the only one willing to lend me the money, but he’s different than the other loan sharks Hethat, if it came down to it, would have the value to pay hi IRA old school, and they don’t play He knows all about you and that you fucking have the twenty-five grand It’s nothing for you! I know you got this house in the divorce, all paid off, and that Michael gave you cash to go away You hty or ninety thousand a year, and you still sock everything away I know you have it He knows you have it For fuck’s sake, just give it to o away!”
She felt pain and anger at his words, at his demand to take what she had worked so hard for, and his expectation that it was nothing for her to just give it all away again pushed her too far She kicked him then, hard in the side, and was satisfied to hear him cry out in pain “Get the fuck off my porch and stay the hell away froet offthe cop
s and having you arrested”
Sla the door closed she sank down to her knees as she cried over what she had done She wasn’t a violent person and she didn’t want to hurt her brother, not really Even though what he had said to her had felt like a kick to the chest Yes, she could likely write a check for twenty-five thousand, but Miranda had worked too hard for too long to give it away like it was nothing It was her security She wasn’t going back to the way she’d grown up
Memories of the hand-to- that wasn’t absolutely necessary, flooded through herin the tiny house they’d lived in Miranda loved and missed her father, and she knew he’d done what he could, but she knew her nosis to death in only eighteen short months could have been won if they had had the insurance they couldn’t afford Standing over her e of twelve, Miranda had sworn she would do things differently, and she had
Complete and utter to commitment to school had paid off, and she won a full scholarship to DePaul She had also worked part-tiiven to her father to help with costs that came up for him and Peter Her father worked as a mechanic, but slowly his body had been unable to take the stress, and he went froh to keep the bills paid
She had e, and while they e hadn’t been one where she ever felt she could slack off in pulling her weight financially Michael was significantly wealthy because of owning his own boutique brokerage firm and market investments, and he had practically lived in his office He had only encouraged her to succeed, and was proud of her own sixty-hour eeks Because of her willingness to corown year by year Peter hadn’t been too far off in his guess at her salary, and her end-of-the-year bonus often put her over his guess
Regardless of what she had, Miranda was tired of Peter wanting everyone but himself to pay for the mistakes he had made When their mother died, Peter had been just ten years old, and it was as if he stopped e The loss of their et back on the school Then hanging out with the kind of kids who had already been to juvie, and it hadn’t taken hi to wind up there himself Her father had been unable to control Peter, who had repeatedly thrown up not having a et-out-of-jail-free card With their father’s death, Peter had been shocked into behaving for close to a year As Miranda had just iven Peter her share of their father’s s off the last outstanding bills, it hadn’t been much
Eventually, Peter found his way into trouble, and rather than have Michael find out, Miranda had helped him Peter had skipped town and all had been quiet until five years later, when Peter had showed up needing , and Miranda hadn’t been in thethat Miranda had only then found out Peter had been in prison for the last four years on burglary charges When Michael ca Peter to spend the night than to air out his issues She could also ad, Peter had gone quietly and two days later Miranda had found out what her pride had cost her Over the two days, Peter had hit her account in multiple withdrawals until it was empty He’d stolen almost fifteen thousand dollars from her
In the week frole account she had and Michael closed his own accounts, Miranda suffered the silent treat ain A week later, he had shown up s from ear to ear and with a roll ofit to be enough to get back onto her good side Miranda had taken the ain He had only shrugged and walked away Now here he was again, and it shouldn’t hurt so badly, the things he said, but they did
The next h she was sure she had seen the last of her brother, she couldn’t forget his words of warning about Declan Kelly Nooff her worries, she couldn’t help wondering about Declan Kelly and what he would do She knew that although the conflict between the Irish Republican Arinally grown to fund theain, it wasn’t hard to find some type of crie percentage of Chicago Chicago had practically been founded on crione away or been jailed out of existence, it had si
Knowing it and seeing it were two different things, and Miranda had to ads she knew about a world like that was from the few movies she had seen While the movies were about the Italian mafia, she couldn’t see what the roup to the next
Checking her accounts, she saw that if she shifted a few things that she could coer flared and she snapped the laptop closed No, if Declan Kelly wanted her iven to Peter She wouldn’t get ahat she had done to Peter, but she also wasn’t going to give hi, and she did her best to focus back on work and push Peter and Declan Kelly to the back of her mind
As she walked ho over the audit she had been working on that day She was nearly done, and she was checking her ht up in her thoughts she was al on her s her door One of the e barrel chest, dark, curly hair, and dark brown eyes He was every bit as inti to be The other man was a few inches shorter than the other man and wasn’t nearly as broad, but he was stocky and as fair as the other ht blue eyes He was s Miranda wasn’t buying it for a second
“Mrs Beckett?”