Note: I do not own 'The Black Donnellys'. I do own my character. Enjoy!

"Excuse me, you're Kevin Donnelly, right?"

I turned and there stood a beautiful woman. Her red hair looked like fire in the sunlight. She adjusted her glasses and smiled at me. I quickly checked her out (she was wearing a sundress with no bra - it took my breath away for a second). I smiled back.

"Yeah, what do you want?"

"I'm Mattie Fitzpatrick. I remember you from school and thought that maybe you could help me."

"Help you with what?"

"I need yours and your brothers' expertise. Heard that with Huey gone, you go to the Donnelly brothers when you have a situation."

I turned to look at the only other person in the bar, Joey, and nodded my head. He opened a beer and passed it to me.

"Would you like something to drink?" I asked.

"Sure. Scotch, if you have it. Straight."

An Irish woman after my own heart. I tried to remember back to school but couldn't remember a Mattie.

"We went to school together?"

"Yeah. I didn't look like this then. I was shorter, flat as a board, and nerdy. After graduation, I grew tits and had a growth spurt. Then people started to notice me. I opened an establishment about six months ago and now since it's taking off, my landlord is trying to extort things from me."

"What kind of things?" Joey asked.

She looked over at him for a second before turning back to me. She downed the shot of scotch and Joey poured another.

"I own the strip club, Tits and Ass, a couple blocks away. You're probably wondering why I opened a strip club. I've worked the last two years in various clubs where the sleaze ball owners thought that they should receive certain perks from the dancers. At my club, my dancers are the ones in charge and don't have to deal with anyone harassing them except for the occasional patron."

"So what does this landlord want?"

"He wants those aforementioned perks. I'm already paying him $2000 a month in rent, which is way too much, and free entry. He's in the club almost on a nightly basis and spends quite a lot of money on the dancers and booze. He thinks that because he spends the majority of my rent at the club, I should fuck him so he's not losing out."

"When did this start happening?"

"He's always made advances on the dancers, especially me, but I had an agreement with Huey. He would take care of any unruly customers for me but when he died, that agreement died with him."

"Why not go to Dokey with this? He's the one who took over for Huey."

"That's the problem. Dokey's my landlord. He says my first 'payment' is due tonight."

I reached for her shot of scotch and drank it back. Dealing with a bastard landlord was one thing but dealing with Dokey was something completely different. I didn't know what to say to her. Luckily for me, Tommy walked in and stopped seeing Mattie sitting at the bar.

"Kevin, what's going on? We don't have time for this. We have that meeting with the inspector at the diner."

"Tommy, this is Mattie and she's having a problem with Dokey. She would like us to handle it."

"Oh, yeah, and what kind of problem?" he asked, checking her out.

"He said I have to sleep with him or he'll shut down my business. I might be a stripper but it doesn't mean I'm a whore too. I'll leave you so you can make your meeting. I'll be at my club if you need me. Dokey mentioned stopping by after a couple of drinks at his bar."

Mattie got off the stool and came over to me. She leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. She whispered thanks and did the same to Tommy as she left.

"Why isn't someone downstairs with Leeno? Kevin, lets go."

Joey went downstairs to the cellar while Tommy and I went to the diner to meet up with the inspector. He said it would take 6 weeks to process but mentioned how a BMW could speed it up, my brother and I went out and got him one. The whole time I was thinking of how we were going to help Mattie out.

Tommy went to Nicky Cottero and said how we had Leeno. Nicky wanted to talk to him so they made a deal. Tommy would give Leeno to him if Nicky found out who did the kicking and beating on our father.

As Tommy came back to the Firecracker, someone pushed Jimmy out of a moving car. He had been stripped, shaved, and motor oiled. Jimmy let it slip that Dokey was responsible for it. That got Tommy madder. I've seen Tommy mad before but never this pissed off. He wasn't even this mad when we went down to the restaurant and he killed Sal and Huey.

"Tommy, what's going on?" Joey asked as we walked away from our bar.

"I know who killed Dad and he's not going to get off light."

He wouldn't explain who that person was but when we showed up at Dokey's bar, I knew who. We flipped off the safeties on our guns and barged in. Tommy ran for Dokey and I took his second in command. Joey stood at the door with his gun trained on everyone else.

"You son of a bitch," Tommy yelled, hitting Dokey in the head with his gun.

I saw the bartender reach for something so I aimed near his head and shot the wall behind him.

"Don't move. This is between us and Dokey."

Tommy had Dokey down on the floor so I helped to drag him out of the bar. Tommy pushed him into the middle of the street and kept wailing on him. Joey was still near the door making sure no one came out. I went and started beating on Dokey too.

"You've acted like there's been nothing wrong all these years, even when I asked about that day. You, mother-fucker, didn't mention how Huey took you and you were the one to beat and kick our father to death."

Tommy stopped and took out his gun. I kept wailing on him for a bit longer.

"This punch is for Mattie, who you won't be taking advantage of any longer," I said, sending a hard right hook into Dokey's bloodied face.

Tommy just stood there looking down at Dokey. He did nothing.

"You're not worth the bullet. Your brother was when he offered up Jimmy to the Italians so I guess we're even."

Tommy tucked his gun into his jeans and walked away. I looked down at Dokey and kicked him in the face one last time.

"I say you're worth it. If you come after us or Mattie, I'll be back and I'll kill you myself."

I followed Tommy and motioned for Joey to follow. We were near the corner when we heard someone yell out my name. We all wiped around with our guns drawn. Dokey was standing in the street with a gun aimed at us. I don't know whose bullet hit him first since we all started shooting him at the same time. The newspaper later said that the coroner found five bullet wounds in his body.

After emptying my clip, I looked up and saw Mattie standing under a street lamp. She caught me looking and smiled before leaving.

While Tommy and Joey went back to the Firecracker to check on Jimmy, I went to Mattie's club. The bouncer must have known I was coming because he let me through without paying. I found her sitting at the bar in a sheer robe and a corset and hot pants underneath it.

"I wasn't sure when you would be able to get to talk to him so I thought I'd try to reason with him first. I'm glad I showed up when I did or he would have shot all of you."

"I'm grateful you were there too. I guess now you'll only have to deal with the out of hand customers."

She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the back, to her office. She pushed me into a chair and turned on a little stereo. She untied the robe and it fell off her shoulders. Mattie ran her hands up and down the sides of her body and lowered her body into a crouch. She opened her legs wide and then closed them up before standing.

"Mattie, you don't have to do this. I was happy to help you out."

"I've never had a guy turn down a free dance before. Kevin, you didn't notice me in high school but if you had, you would have known that I had the largest crush on you. But if now's not a good time, I'll always be here. I don't think this crush will ever be totally gone."

She turned off the stereo and leaned up against her desk. I stood and walked over to her. I looked into her green eyes before leaning in to kiss her. It was just a simple kiss but afterwards, I knew I was hooked.