And what made him tick.

TROY

I PARKED IN front of the foggy graveyard.

My father was buried in one of the oldest cemeteries in Boston. Untamed grass, mud, moss and spider webs adorned the tombstones like Halloween decorations. The place was a rusty gate short of looking like a bad horror flick set, and I had to admit, I kind of liked the extra-touch of morbidity it had. Despite the cemetery looking like hell, I knew Dad wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. The graveyard was at the back of the South Boston church we used to go to every Sunday. Practically his second home.

Here were buried not only my relatives, but also many memories. Some I remembered fondly, some I wished I could forget, like McGregor.

I came here every Friday afternoon, before the weekend rolled around and with it, new, fresh sins to commit. Came here to talk to the man I so desperately missed. He was my priest, his gravestone my confession booth.

He never judged.

Never gave me shit for being who I was.

And coming here also reminded me that I had an unfinished business to take care of. To find out who was responsible for my father’s death.

I whistled as I wove through the graveyard, my own personal touch of irony. Visiting his grave wasn’t a sad affair nowadays. It was like going out for a beer with an old friend.

Ignoring the drizzle—it really had been the weirdest summer I could remember in Boston, and to my delight, the fall was starting out just as grim—I squatted down in front of my father’s grave, my elbows over my knees. Like all fathers and sons, we had our tough talks, even after his eternal slumber.

The past few weeks, I’d been pre-occupied again with trying to figure out who’d murdered him. Who sent Crupti. Whoever it was, they used a middle-man (a sorry ass local kid who died in an accident a few months after dad’s death) and bitcoin. The person behind dad’s death was smart. Calculated…and as good as dead.

I had people digging more, trying to figure out who sent Crupti to kill him. I intended to leave no stone in greater Boston unturned. But it was hard. All of my father’s enemies were either dead or in the clear. Something didn’t add up.

I was beginning to wonder if the person who sent Crupti was an enemy of mine, not of my father’s.

At least I’d settled the score with Paddy Rowan, the old shit. Though this wasn’t only for him, it was also for her.

I’d spoken about Sparrow with my father often recently.

“Was Robyn such a huge f*cking pain in the ass, too? Sparrow must’ve gotten her sass from somewhere, and it’s not from Abe.”

Dad didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. He never did. But I had a feeling that if he were here next to me, he would have snorted out a laugh and said something crude about the Raynes girls. I had a feeling that even if he’d loved Robyn, he’d never outwardly shown his feelings.

Couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t exactly in touch with my emotions either. Most of the time, I wasn’t even sure if they existed.

And now I was f*cking Red exclusively. I plucked a few blades of grass and threw them on his grave. It’d been a while since I’d limited myself to one woman. Catalina was my last attempt at monogamy, and that had ended up being a magnificent failure.

“Baby? Baby, is that you?”

Speak of the devil. Cat was struggling toward me in her high heels, her blow-dried hair flattened against her head, raindrops spattered on her forehead. Her teeth chattered in the cold drizzle.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that she was there. She’d always had stalkerish tendencies. Even before I first broke it off. When she still wore the sweet, shy-girl mask that made me want her in the first place. She’d accompany Maria when she came to clean for us at my parents’ house, always eyeing me through her long, curly eyelashes, smiling like I hung the moon in the sky and lit up the sun myself.

But she was also possessive as hell.

Always sniffing around to make sure I was only hers.

I stood straight, only then realizing how soaking wet I was from the rain, and stood in front of her, my face hard and unwelcoming. She stopped a good few feet away from me. The rain picked up making it difficult to make out her expression.

“She is a child,” she announced. “Your marriage was supposed to be an arrangement, you said so yourself. You said she was a burden you had to deal with for your dad.” Her body shook, and it wasn’t from the cold. “I need you back, Troy.”

She was crying, talking about Sparrow, and as much as it surprised me, I wasn’t so hot about seeing her shattered.

“Let it go.” I huddled in my soaked pea coat. “We had our farewell f*ck, said our goodbyes in my apartment months ago. We’re done.”

“Troy, baby, no.” She fell on her knees in front of me, mud splashing everywhere around us. She clasped my legs like they were an anchor as tears streamed down her face, mixing with the raindrops. “Please. She is nothing, no one. She doesn’t want you. Doesn’t need you. Doesn’t deserve you. We’ve got history. Chemistry. We’ve got something f*cked up and twisted, but it’s ours. It’s us. It’s always been us.”

“You really should’ve thought about that before you let Brock get you pregnant.” My tone was harsh, but the edge was gone. I wasn’t high on f*cking Brock’s wife anymore. Everything about the situation felt tasteless. Worthless. Guess I’d moved on.