Page 41 of Shattered Hearts
At my job, I’m a total zombie. Sluggish, lethargic, and beyond the reach of coffee’s restorative powers. Even Jane notices.
“You coming down with something?” She shakes some gummy vitamins into my palm. “Take these.”
I pop them in and chew. How can I tell her most of my fatigue is emotional? They don’t make gummy vitamins for that.
Looking at her perfect freckled face I wonder, not for the first time, whether I should open up to her. Really open up. Just tell her the truth.
When she asks me about my weekend, I’ll say,I got tapped to fake my sister’s marriage with a man I’ve secretly had a thing for for years. You?
If I don’t start with that, she’ll never understand when I explain that the same man has been chauffeuring me to and from work lately and driving me crazy in the process.
Jane would get me. It’s not like the people who work at a women’s shelter come from perfect, magical home lives and we just decided to share the love and sunshine with the less fortunate. We’re all here because we used tobethese women.
Jane may very well have connections to the criminal underworld in her history. And yet, I’ve never been able to open up to her or Michelle. Maybe I still feel too guilty about my past as an informant. Growing up in an environment touched by gang violence and escaping is one thing. Trying to find success and acceptance in that environment and escaping after getting singed is different. Less innocent.
But it’s not as though I could explain my mafia connection without mentioning it. As soon as the question of my background came up, what would I tell them? Before this, I spent a few years studying information mafiology in the field?
This is why it’s so hard for me to make friends.
And without friends I can talk to—really talk to—there’s no place for my chaos to drain. Instead, it cycles through me over and over, like filthy water that never comes clean.
In some distorted way, even though my friend situation was hardly any different when I was still a part of the Gallaghers, thinking about Finn helped me during some of the rougher years I spent there.
Being in the same organization as him was motivational to a lost and lonely outcast daughter. But now, all those years of emotional muscle memory are going haywire.
Harboring romantic feelings for Finn would be foolish and irresponsible. He’s engaged to my sister.
And regardless, I want out of the Kings after this charade is over. For good.
Finn Gallagher is off-limits in reality and in my imagination, which is why these car rides are becoming a problem.
But what can I say to him to make him understand?
Finn, you escorting me to and from work confuses my heart. Let’s keep a safer distance.
There’s no easy way to raise my objection, and how the hell do I work up the courage to try while he pumps the car full of angry-man pheromones and kills off my good brain cells?
“Riley?” Jane pinches my sleeve.
“Hmm?”Get a grip and focus on your job.“I mean, yes?”
“You’re in charge of rounds today.”
On Wednesdays at the shelter, we conduct wellness checks, going from person to person to see how they’re doing. Today is my day. I grab the appropriate binder and head out to the shelter floor.
Charlene is on the wellness check schedule for today, and as soon as I see her name, I think back to my intake with her monthsago. Last December…
She’s come a long way since then. Her bruises are gone. Her cuts have healed. The more serious lacerations on her body have transformed into scar tissue, and she’s begun smiling again. Just a little, here or there. In her blue-green eyes, I see the same metaphor our shelter was named after. A concrete rose. A tough plant coming up through the cement that once laid waste to it.
I can’t deny seeing her around lately also brings up questions I don’t know how to answer. Based on her case, Harper’s predicament, and the clues I sleuthed out of Shane’s remarks on Saturday at the reception, I’ve pieced together what I think is the truth. A shipment was stolen from Madden, my father needed saving, and Shane came to his rescue in exchange for Harper’s hand.
Those pieces fit fine, but something still nags at me. Exactlywhois ballsy enough to bust into Madden and steal a product shipment in the first place? Who would be stupid enough to even try? And who would be smart and strategic enough to actually succeed?
My mind pivots to something else gnawing at me. Finn’s attackers. Who would attack him in broad daylight? For whatpurpose? Officially, the attack is Gallagher business, and I don’t feel like I have the right to ask Finn more than I did on Sunday morning.
Curiosity eats at me anyway.
I know I shouldn’t make a big fuss. Finn is a mob enforcer and the heir to the Gallagher Mafia. People trying to kill him and him trying to kill them is a normal part of his life. A life I’m not a part of. A life I gave up in exchange for freedom and independence.