Children of Vice (Children of Vice #1)(38)

I followed behind him as he walked toward the glass doors and again I was so distracted by everything that I walked into his back, not realizing he’d stopped. He stood straighter, looking over his shoulder at me.

“Sorry,” I muttered, brushing my hair behind my ears.

Facing in front, I saw a small boy, maybe seven or eight, holding on to the arm of some stuffed animal…I couldn’t tell what because he only had what was left of it…the arm.

“Yes?” Ethan asked him.

“You Mr. Callahan?” The boy frowned.

Ethan nodded, and the boy lifted the stuffed animal arm and held it up to him. “It was my brother’s. He’s gone now. Mom said you’d remember him. You’d make them pay for my brother.”

“Tony!” A woman, who I could only guess was his mother rushed to him, grabbing onto him tightly. She looked up at us both, her eyes bloodshot. “Sorry—”

“Don’t apologize, Mrs. Bellucci,” he said, reaching down to pick up the stuffed arm and handing it back to the boy, telling him, “I don’t need this to remember your brother.” He took out a small pocket knife and cut his own palm, drawing his own blood before showing it to him. “This is how I remember.”

Turning toward the doors, we stepped out into the cold air. It was only late afternoon, so part of me was expecting it to be dark outside. There were press and ambulances everywhere. The Range Rover pulled to a stop right to the side of the hospital to avoid blocking anyone. Toby held the door open, allowing me inside first. He sat beside me.

“You can’t have them,” he spoke into the phone, leaning back into his seat. “Chief Moen, this is personal. I’ll give you one of them…you can make up whatever story you want…radicalism, satanism, pure insanity, I don’t care. But you’ll only get one of them alive.”

He rested his finger on his lip, staring out the window. Rage…bloodlust came off him in waves.

“In Boston,” I spoke up softly and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him as I did. “They said the Callahans are greedy and selfish, power hungry thugs who don’t care about their own people anymore.”

“They’re right,” he said, to my surprise. “We are greedy, we are selfish, and hunger for power is second nature to us. It doesn’t matter if I care or not. They are our people. It’s my duty to make sure the whole survives at any cost. And so I do. Wyatt wants to help the victims. But it is Callahan money that expanded that hospital and Callahan money that will take care of those people when the government stops. What good is saving their lives if they can’t afford to live it afterward?”

I was starting to understand why everyone was so devoted to them. “A gangster with sophistication and morals.”

The corners of his mouth turned up.

“Exactly.”





ELEVEN


“When a monster stopped behaving like a monster, did it stop being a monster? Did it become something else?”

~ Kristin Cashore





WYATT


“Good job, Dr. Callahan.” A few of them patted me on the shoulder as they exited the scrub room. I glanced at the old man they were now taking to recovery.

“It’s a pleasure to have you here, Dr. Callahan,” Chief Shen said as she washed her wrinkled hands next to me. I already knew what she was going to ask.

“It’s only for a little bit, but I’m glad I could help.” I smiled politely.

“Your whole family is here, Dr. Callahan. I’m surprised you chose Boston over Chicago.”

“I needed a change of scenery,” I said, drying my hands, and pulled off the scrub cap.

“If you’d—”

“I’m happy in Boston for now, thanks.” Leaving before she and every other doctor in the hospital tried to recruit me to work with them, I followed the yellow hearts toward the older part of the hospital until I got to the stairs. I knew they only waited for me because they hoped more money would flow into the hospital. I was the ATM doctor, didn’t matter how good I was. People still looked at me, expecting me to just hand hundreds of thousands to their grant research or build a damn new wing of the hospital for them.

Stepping out into the cold, familiar alley, I inhaled the cold air, reaching into my pocket to grab the pack of cigarettes. Lighting one, I didn’t smoke it but left it on the stairs next to me…the mere scent of it reminding me of the many times I’d caught my father hiding in this very same alley for a smoke break. I’d lost count how many hospital visits we’d had to endure. But I always remembered coming out here to sit with him.

“You’d think I was insane too, right, Pop?” I asked softly. I stared at the sky, the fading scar of smoke in the distance still evident. “Can’t say I mind, though…I have peace.”

Every time I came to this godforsaken city I felt as though my lungs were collapsing. It never ended. We’d get revenge, someone else sought revenge against our revenge, and over and over and over again until mothers were burying their children and vice versa. The circle of viciousness lived on from generation to generation. I just wanted it to end. And so I took myself out of it. I had to.

“Did you hear the Callahans got themselves some fancy suite?” Some idiot laughed right under the staircase. “Yea, they’re all here. Half the damn Irish in the city are here.”