Chapter 1 #2
She placed the whisky back onto the tray and set a pint of beer in front of the man, her thoughts not on serving her customers but on why her uncle had raced through the bar claiming he wasn’t there. He wasn’t the most reliable relative, but then neither was her brother, Finn. Emily suspected the two were spending too much time in the company of their Traveller cousins, being brainwashed by gypsy myth and rhetoric.
Emily had tried hard to convince her brother to continue working at the pub with her. “It’s your heritage as much as it’s mine. We can make it so much more, together.” In fact, she wanted him at the bar so that she could keep a closer eye on him. Unfortunately, Finn hadn’t wanted anything to do with the pub. He’d stuck around during the years they’d been back in Ireland, but as soon as he’d turned eighteen and graduated from school, he’d chosen a laborer’s life rather than go on to university. He’d left their flat, his work at the pub and found a job on the wharfs, working as a stevedore. Emily suspected he’d left because he had no more reason to stay after... She swallowed hard, the pain still too raw.
Emily rarely saw Finn anymore. Uncle Paddy had more face time with the boy than she did. At least her uncle reported back that Finn was doing well. He’d recently found a bonny lass to keep him company. Since her brother was legally an adult, Emily had no say in where he lived or who he hung out with. She couldn’t force him to continue to work at the pub.
And why would Finn want to? It was where her father had stayed when her mother had gathered her two children and moved back to Boston. Emily had been nine and Finn one year old. They’d grown up in the suburbs of Boston, spending most of their time with their maternal grandmother while their mother worked as a nurse to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.
Emily had earned a scholarship to a local university and saved enough money to spend a semester abroad at Trinity College. She’d been in the middle of her senior year when her mother had contracted a dangerous form of influenza. Before she’d realized she had it, she’d brought it home to her mother. Within days, they’d both been admitted to the hospital, leaving Finn, a fifteen-year-old boy, home, fending for himself and mixing with the wrong crowd of his peers.
Concerned for her mother and grandmother, Emily left the college in the middle of the semester and returned to the States to help with her brother, while her mother and grandmother fought for their lives at the hospital.
Ultimately, they’d lost that battle. Emily had been with her mother when she’d taken her last breath. They’d allowed Emily to don protective gear to be with her. Her grandmother had died days before.
Her mother had lain in her hospital bed, hooked up to monitors and an IV, her face as white as the sheets she lay against. Emily had taken her hand in her gloved one, wishing she could touch her mother’s skin one last time.
Her eyes glassy, her voice not much more than a whisper, her mother had gripped her fingers with surprising strength. “Emily,” she’d croaked.
“Yes, mother.” Emily leaned closer, tears filling her eyes.
“Tell your father I loved him,” her mother said.
“Why?” Emily asked. “You haven’t seen him in years.”
“Tell him,” she insisted.
“I don’t even know how to get in touch with him.” Emily’s brow dipped low. “And why should you still love a man who let you leave and never tried to be a part of your life or the lives of his two children?”
“He was...trying...to...protect us,” she said, her words fading with her strength.
Emily snorted. “By divorcing you? By basically washing his hands of all three of us?”
Her mother’s lips turned up briefly on the corners. “We never...divorced,” she said. “He’s still...my one...and only.” Her eyes closed.
Emily stared at her mother’s chest, willing it to rise and fall with life-giving breaths. Just when she thought her mother had slipped away, her eyes flickered open. “I love...you...Em. Look out...for Finn.”
Tears slid down Emily’s cheeks. “I will.”
“Promise...me...you won’t let him...” her mother whispered.
Emily leaned closer, mentally cursing the constraints of the protective suit. “Let him what, mother?”
“...be a...Trav...” Her fingers tightened on Emily’s gloved hand.
“A Traveller?”
Her mother’s head dipped so slightly that Emily barely recognized the nod. “Promise.”
“I promise, Mom.” Emily held her mother’s hand, tears soaking her cheeks. “I’ll look out for Finn, and I’ll tell Da that you never stopped loving him.” She would have promised her mother the moon in that moment. “I love you, Mom.”
Memories of her mother washed over Emily. She set the big platter of drinks on the nearest table. “Find your own drinks,” she murmured to the customers, then turned and ran toward the back of the building.
Uncle Paddy and Finn were the only living relatives she had left since her father had died in a fiery automobile crash a month earlier. She didn’t count any of her blood relatives who claimed allegiance to the Travellers. If Uncle Paddy was in trouble, she couldn’t stand by and let anyone hurt him.
As she passed the Yank seated at the bar, he reached out and touched her arm. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer; the sense that something bad was about to happen to her uncle pushed her faster. Emily skidded sideways as she rounded the corner into the darkened hallway her uncle had disappeared into moments before. She ran to the office and pushed open the door. “Uncle Paddy?” she called out.
The small office that probably hadn’t changed much in the past one hundred years was filled with file cabinets, ledgers, odd supplies, but empty of people.
She ran to the men’s restroom door, pushed it open and called out, “Uncle Paddy?”
A man standing at the urinal doing his business, leered over his shoulder at Emily. “Not Paddy, but I’ll be your uncle, if you want.”
Emily didn’t grace his disgusting suggestion with a response. Instead, she backed out of the doorway and ducked her head into the ladies’ restroom. It was empty, which left the rear exit.
She raced down the hall, shoved open the rear door and stepped out into the alley.
Two men in dark clothing and black ski masks held her uncle by the arms while another man punched him in the gut, the face and again in the gut.
Her uncle hung slumped between the two men, probably unconscious, if not dead.
She didn’t stop to think of her own safety as she ran full throttle at the man throwing the punches. “You bastards,” Emily cried out. “Leave him alone.”
Before the man could spin to face her, she launched herself at his back, wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist and held on as he bucked and twisted in an effort to throw her off.
The men holding her uncle let go, letting the old man drop like a sack of potatoes to the ground.
Then they were on her, dragging her off the other man’s back. As her arms were pried from around his neck, she grabbed his ski mask along with a handful of his hair.
When the men yanked her free, she came away with the mask.
Without the mask covering his face, the man spun toward a waiting car before she could see his face. “Get her in the trunk,” he said, his voice low and raspy.
The men holding onto her arms lifted her off her feet.
Emily fought like a wildcat, kicking, twisting and biting to no avail. The men holding her were much bigger and stronger than her five-foot-three frame.
They carried her toward the car parked several feet away in the alley. The trunk stood open, and the third man had climbed into the driver’s seat.
Emily couldn’t let them get her inside that vehicle. She fought with every bit of strength she could muster.
As they shoved her toward the open trunk, she planted her feet against the frame and pushed as hard as she could.
The men staggered backward, regained their balance and regrouped.
“I’ll get her arms. You get her legs,” one of the men muttered.
When the man on her right released his hold on her right arm, Emily twisted hard.
The other guy lost his grip on her left arm.
Emily fell to the ground, rolled to the side and bunched her legs beneath her, ready to leap to her feet.
A heavy body landed on her back, slamming her to the ground.
She cursed and tried to move, but the man on top of her was too heavy for her to get free, and his weight was crushing the air from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.
The other man stood beside them. “We gotta get her into the trunk.”
“She’ll make a run for it as soon as I let her up,” the man on top of her said.
Was this it? Would the man keep her from breathing long enough for her to pass out? That would make it too easy for them to throw her into the back of the car.
Her uncle lay in an unmoving heap nearby. Was he dead? Would she soon be? Were the masked men members of the Travellers, throwing their weight around to get the O’Briens in line?
She fought the dark fog, snuffing out what little light was given off from the lamp hanging over the back door of the pub. Then she remembered the promise she’d made to her mother.
I’ll look after Finn.
“Can’t let them...win,” she whispered, using up what little air she had left.