Chapter 9
9
FIONA
M oran wakes before dawn, if the gray light leaking in from the air shaft is any guide. I feel the pressure of his morning wood against my ass, and I wait for him to nudge me awake for some relief.
But he only brushes a kiss against the sensitive skin beneath my ear before he pulls away. Once he’s out of bed, he shifts the sheet and duvet up to my chin.
I must fall asleep while he’s taking a shower, because the next thing I know, he’s setting a paper bag on the shelf that passes for a nightstand. He waits for me to sit up, and then he gives me a cup.
I take it with both hands, breathing in the steam. Sadly, while it smells like coffee, the brew is so weak it tastes like water. Sugar water—I’ll give Moran that—but water all the same.
“There’s an apple,” he says, nodding to the bag. “And an everything bagel. ”
That’s barely a start. I’m ravenous. But I ask, “What are you eating?”
“I’ll get something while I’m out.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need a suit for the wake tonight.”
He’s talking like this is all perfectly normal. Like he didn’t turn me inside out last night. Like he didn’t keep the nightmares away, giving me five, six, seven straight hours of sleep.
He’s also ignoring the fact that I’m stark naked beneath the bedclothes. He hasn’t tried to cop a feel once this morning. He doesn’t even let his eyes linger.
Daddy .
That’s the magic word. That will get him back in bed. I know it in my bones.
Before I can say it, though, before I can decide if I want to say it, he heads into the bathroom. He leaves the door open, so I can hear him rummaging around; he must have filled the room’s plastic ice bucket while he was out on his morning rounds.
“Here,” he says, coming back to the side of the bed. He shoves a scratchy white hand towel toward me. “Keep this on until it melts.”
The makeshift ice pack isn’t as nice as a bag of frozen peas. But it feels good against my cheek and the bridge of my nose.
“Do you need anything?” he asks, halfway to the door.
You .
I could say it. I could throw back the covers. I could give him a glimpse of everything he’s walking away from.
But I don’t really understand why he’s leaving. Why he didn’t take care of his morning hard-on by using my body. Why he’s being so kind and why he’s ignoring everything we did last night.
So I shake my head no.
He comes back to the bed, and for just a moment I think he’s changed his mind. Or maybe—is it crazy to think this?—he’s going to give me a sweet kiss goodbye .
But he picks up my phone from the shelf. He holds it in front of my face, and when that doesn’t open the screen, he gestures for me to put in my code. Once it’s unlocked, he types in his number. I hear his own phone, buzzing in his pocket.
“There,” he says. “Call me if you need anything. Get room service if you’re hungry. I put out the Do Not Disturb sign. I’ll be back by three.”
Don’t go .
It’s not too late. I can say it. I can ask him to stay. I can beg.
I’m Fiona Fucking Ingram. I’m going to be Captain of the Old Colony Crew. I don’t beg.
The door clicks closed.
I eat my bagel. I drink the rest of my lousy coffee. I sit with my ice pack covering my face. And I try not to think about how Patrick Moran shredded my life last night.
Moran comes out of the bathroom dressed like the mobster he is—black suit, black shirt, black tie. His hair is combed back, the gray more prominent in the hotel room’s dim light. He’s freshly shaved.
I can’t glimpse the ink on his arm—the lighthouse, the storm, the severed heartbeat. He doesn’t bother with his shoulder holster. No guard will let him into the dún with an obvious gun.
I wonder what other weapons he’s carrying.
And I wonder why that thought tickles something between my legs. I’m sore from Madden’s beating, but all that ice at Moran’s apartment worked wonders toward easing my pain. I could easily go for a round or two in bed.
Maybe the wires are crossed in my brain, and I’m mistaking annoyance for horniness. Moran said he’d be back at three, and he didn’t show up until five minutes after four. I spent the extra hour wondering if something terrible had happened, if the Crew had tracked him down, if he was paying for driving me to the dún last night.
I told him as much when he finally came back to the hotel room, carrying a new suit and a half-drunk energy drink. He shrugged and glanced at his phone, like the screen should have told him he was running late. He hit the shower while I was still mid-tirade.
I’m starving. It’s been hours since I ordered lunch—a large Caesar salad with extra anchovies and a grilled cheese sandwich with fries and a chocolate chip cookie the size of my head. After eating every last bite, I took a steaming shower. I applied a perfect mask of makeup to cover my bruises.
I’m wearing my favorite corset, the one made out of black leather, with scarlet lacing up the sides. Staring straight at Moran so he can’t misunderstand my meaning, I raise my chin. Shifting my weight, I let my hips issue a familiar invitation.
But Moran doesn’t take the bait.
“Go on,” he says. “Change into something decent, and we can be on our way.”
“I’m decent.” I push my shoulders back to better make my point.
“You’re not going to your da’s wake with your tits hanging out for every man in the Old Colony Crew to ogle.”
“Who made you the fashion police?” The corset doesn’t show my tits. It just helps men with no imagination.
“I’m not police,” he says. “I’m just the Fishtown eejit walking into the dún like I have a right to be there. And if you think you’re going to convince any member of the Crew that you’re their rightful boss, you’d best dress for the feckin’ job. Show some respect for the dead.”
It’s my da’s wake. I get to choose how I dress.
But it’s not worth fighting with Moran. Maybe there is some member of the Crew who’ll think less of me for looking like the woman I am.
I put on my cobalt-blue jacket, the one that buttons from my chin to my thighs. But I’m still wearing my leather pants. I have a reputation to maintain.
“Satisfied?” I ask, once I’m covered up.
“Hardly,” he says.
I grip the handle on my closest suitcase and sling my backpack over one shoulder. “Let’s go, then.”
“Where are you going with that?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “You want to spend another night here? We’ll sleep at the dún tonight. After the wake.”
After I’ve taken charge of the Crew. After I’ve stepped into my role as my father’s true heir.
With a good night’s sleep and hours to think, I’ve realized I don’t actually have to wait for the Grand Irish Union vote. If I sweep in today, bold and determined, the Crew can be mine by nightfall.
That’s the trick: Making those men understand I won’t give up. They’ll accept my leadership now, or they’ll accept it later. And I’ll be a far kinder Queen if they recognize my status now.
Moran says, “We missed checkout hours ago. Leave the bags.”
But that’s ridiculous. There’s no reason for Moran to drive back to fetch them after I’m settled in the dún .
Men need to get used to my leading. Might as well start now.
It’s awkward for me to get both bags out the door of the hotel room, but I manage. I’m pressing the button to call the elevator before Moran catches up. He’s swearing in Irish, not quite under his breath.
As we cross the lobby, I see that Nelson is back on duty at reception. His face twists as we move toward the door, like he’s caught a whiff of rancid beef. I consider waltzing over to the desk and thanking him for his biting comments last night. Tell him I got lucky. That I’m grateful.
Moran herds me out the door, and the moment passes.
He’s got the Land Rover waiting just outside. Good tips to valets will do that. He throws my suitcases and backpack into the rear compartment and adds his duffel. He doesn’t say a word as he navigates the city streets to Southie.
That silence is unfortunate. It gives me a chance to think about what I’m about to do: Claim the Crew as my own.
This is it. The moment I’ve waited for since I turned sixteen. Since I realized the only way for a woman to control the world around her is to take a stand against the men who want to destroy her. Since I learned to be twice as calculating as any man and ten times as ruthless.
My stomach twists beneath my cobalt armor. I start to bite my lip, but I remember not to get makeup on my teeth. Instead, I drum my fingers against the armrest, a staccato tapping that does nothing to slow my racing heart.
I can do this. It’s the only thing I’ve ever truly wanted. It’s what I deserve.
The street in front of the dún is clear, of course. It always is. Moran parks directly across from the door, like he has every right to be there.
“Ready, Scáthach? ” he asks.
“What does that—” But he doesn’t wait for me to finish my question before he comes around to open my door.
It’s time.
Well past time, based on Moran’s original plan for us to arrive by five. It’s nearly 6:30. Other guests will be here soon. That’s fine. It won’t take me long to establish that I’m in control.
As if they’ve already accepted me as their captain, the guards don’t lay a finger on me, though they give Moran a thorough patting down. He submits, jaw locked, eyes riveted to the front door. I don’t know who breathes easier once we’re allowed inside—him, me, or the soldiers who don’t have to fight him.
The fireplace is cold in the parlor, framing a massive casket on a draped stand. The coffin is made out of mahogany, so polished that it reflects the room. The top half is propped open to reveal its white silk lining. A velvet-lined kneeler waits for my prayers .
From here, I can just glimpse my father’s body. His eyes are closed. His hands are crossed on his chest, his fingers twisted around a rosary I never saw him hold in life. Someone has worked over his face with makeup, adding pink to his sallow flesh. His hair is combed with a perfection he would have hated.
They say the dead look like they’re sleeping. They’re wrong.
My father is gone. There’s nothing but a shell inside that casket. Nothing but a symbol, waiting for someone—for me —to acknowledge, so we can all move into the future.
“Fiona! Darlin’! We weren’t expectin’ ya till seven!”
Uncle Aran enters from the door that leads to the hallway, to Crew offices and the stairs that head to the second floor. I know the dún like I know the lines on my own hand. I’m surprised by how good it feels to be home.
I assume Uncle Aran is playing up his Irish brogue to impress the handful of Old Colony soldiers who follow him into the room. He usually saves the County Mayo shit for when he’s seriously drunk.
Give him credit, though. He’s dressed for the occasion—a fine black suit, complete with a well-cut waistcoat. He’s wearing his Old Colony tie, deep emerald green with gold emblems of the Liberty Tree scattered among matching shamrocks. His full beard is so white it looks powdered, which makes his red-veined nose seem even larger than it actually is.
He glances at Moran, who is standing behind me, silent as a stone wall. Something tightens in my uncle’s face, or maybe it’s his throat, or the hand he raises to draw me forward. He recovers, though, before I can be sure of what he’s thinking. “Come raise a glass,” Uncle Aran says. “T’ yer dear, departed da!”
Someone’s moved the furniture out of this front room, the matching armchairs that were decades old before I was born and the sagging couch with its tired floral print preserved beneath crinkling plastic. Instead, a table’s been set up against the far wall. It’s draped in black cloth and covered with crystal glasses, Da’s best Waterford tumblers. Whiskey bottles stand sentry at the back.
Uncle Aran is generous, pouring my father’s twelve-year-old Jameson. I wonder if that’s what the Crew are drinking, the men hovering by the hallway door. No one pours for Moran. I’m about to correct the oversight when Uncle Aran cries out: “To Kieran!”
He touches his glass to mine. The toast is echoed by the Crew. All of us drink.
And before I can bring Moran into the circle, a ghost steps out of the crowd. “Fiona,” he says.
Of course it’s not really a ghost. It’s Keenan Rivers. My father’s Warlord, chief of all his enforcers.
Rivers clears six feet easy, maybe six foot three. He’s thin as a whip—narrow shoulders, narrow waist—but he has all the coiled strength of a snake. His eyes are the sharp blue of a winter sky, and I can’t remember a time his stick-straight hair wasn’t ice white. He wears it long, pulled into a club at the nape of his neck.
He terrifies me. He always has. But I’m going to be his captain now, so I pretend my blood hasn’t frozen in my veins.
“Keenan,” I say.
He looks past me and sniffs, like I’ve tracked in dogshit on my shoe. “Cujo,” he says to Moran, raising his glass in greeting. “Come to check if anyone’s bleeding out in the basement?”
I have no idea what Rivers is talking about. But before Moran can finish bristling and shoot off some smart reply, Rivers says to me, “Send your dog to the kitchen.”
Now’s a perfect time to take a stand, to let the Old Colony Crew know there’s a new boss in the dún . I pull myself to my full height, grateful for the extra four inches of stiletto that bring me closer to Rivers’ eye level. “His name is Patrick Moran,” I say, pitching my voice to be heard all the way to the second floor. “And I’m not sending him anywhere. ”
“No Moran is welcome in this house.” Rivers says it like I’ve forgotten how to multiply, or maybe how to write in cursive.
Before I can answer, Moran steps up. He’s as tall as Rivers and broader across the shoulders, across the waist too. His dark eyes meet Rivers’ blue ones, obsidian chipping the sky. “I’m Warlord for the Fishtown Boys now,” Moran says. “My captain sends condolences on your loss.”
“Your captain ,” Rivers spits out the word like a piece of gristle. “Is the reason we’re gathered here today.”
“With all due respect,” Moran says, which means with none at all. “We’re here because your man smoked three packs a day.”
“ With all due respect ,” Rivers counters with the bite of a sudden cold snap. “You’ll give my King his proper title in his own dún . You used to know that, Cujo. Have you forgot how men behave?”
“Go to feckin’ hell.” Moran says it casually, like he’s commenting on the weather.
Rivers shoves me out of the way to get to him. Half a dozen of my father’s best enforcers join the fray.
“Gentlemen!” I say, because that’s what a captain does. She manages her men when they go too far, even when they think they’re acting in her best interest. “A toast! To Kieran Ingram!”
My diversion works—at least to the extent that Moran and Rivers back off to glare at each other. Before I can force them both to drink to Da, Uncle Aran raises his own glass.
“So the prodigal daughter returns,” Uncle Aran crows. “Your poor da’s last great wish was to see you married by Easter. Alas, you failed at that. But if he could know his little girl came back to pay her respects…”
He wipes a finger beneath his eye, and I’m close enough to see it come away dry.
“To little Fee,” my uncle shouts.
And every one of the fuckers but Moran repeats the toast: “To little Fee. ”
Just like that, my uncle has locked me in a box. I’m the naughty child. I’m the bad girl who didn’t follow her father’s orders. I’m the brat—little Fee—who barely made it home to spit on her father’s grave.
I’ve never gone by a nickname, not once in my entire life. And I’m not about to accept this one now.
But Uncle Aran turns his fucking back on me. He raises a bottle of my da’s whiskey, and he tops off the glass of every loyal man in the Crew. He clamps a hand on Rivers’ shoulder, leaning close to mutter something I can’t catch.
The soldiers savor their drinks. More than one of them eyes me, taking the measure of the bad girl come home.
Suddenly, I’m sweating inside my tailored jacket. My leather pants are clammy. Swallowing an unexpected wave of panic, I wonder if my makeup is holding up, if the shame of my bruises is on display for every member of the Crew to see.
Uncle Aran turns back, as if he’s only just remembered I’m still here. “You must be tired, Fee, after coming such a long way,” he says. “Why don’t you go to the kitchen? Ask Oona for some biscuits.”
Oona Maguire was my nanny, the woman who dressed me and bathed me and made me feel safe in this nest of vipers. Da plucked her from the kitchen to take care of me and on my tenth birthday he sent her back downstairs, without a word of warning.
So Uncle Aran’s landed another blow. It’s not enough to load me down with a new nickname. Now I’m impossibly weak, exhausted after a five-hour drive from Philly. I’m only fit for visiting with a woman in the kitchen, for snacking on cookies while the grown-ups mourn.
If I go to the kitchen, I’m a child. He wins.
If I stay in the room, I’m a defiant brat. He wins.
If I look to Moran for support, if I explain that Da sent me to Philadelphia, if I shout that my uncle’s men shot at me last night, if I demand my rightful place as heir to my father and captain of the Old Colony Crew—anyway I play this: He. Fucking. Wins.
So I choose the least dangerous of all my terrible options. I stalk to the coffin by the fireplace. I drop to my knees, and I bow my head. Crossing myself, I move my lips in the barely remembered words of the rosary.
My uncle can’t stop me from praying over my father’s body.
I can’t afford to look up. I can’t gauge his reaction. But from the corner of my eye, I see him turn toward the front door, toward some newly arrived guest, come to honor my father. I don’t take a full breath until I hear Uncle Aran’s hearty laugh across the room.
This has all gone horribly wrong. I am my father’s heir. This wake is supposed to be my first act as captain of the Old Colony Crew.
But Braiden Kelly warned me, weeks ago, in Philadelphia. How did he phrase it?
You’re holding no cards. No one even gave you a seat at the table.
It’s seven o’clock. The room is filling rapidly now. I hear lively exclamations as men greet men. Bottles clink against glasses.
The door opens for long enough that a chilly breeze snakes across the floor. The Crew’s tone changes; their voices get softer. Laughter dies away.
I’m not surprised when I hear Father Bertram’s bass rumble, scratchy as he greets mourners. He accepts a drink, comforting whoever pours for him: “God bless you, my son.”
My fingers knit tighter. I’m the reason Father Bertram ministers to the Old Colony now. I’m the one who got rid of Father Colin.
I dare to look over my white-knuckled hands. Uncle Aran is holding court beside the bar. I have to blink twice, because the man he’s talking to doesn’t belong inside the dún .
It’s Nero Sacco, Boston’s mafia don.
Sacco is paying his respects. Sacco is honoring my father. Sacco is making a very public statement that he accepts Aran Dowd as the next King of the Old Colony Crew.
The mafioso is taller than he looks in newspaper articles. Fatter, too. He’s still got a full head of gray hair, even though he’s older than my da was. His eyes are dark as they study the room, but his skin has an unhealthy yellow cast. Maybe he drinks too much. Or maybe he’s just uneasy on enemy ground.
Keenan Rivers sidles up to the don. The Old Colony Warlord’s lips twist into something that’s supposed to be a grin as he offers his hand. The men shake, which is something that might have killed my father, if he wasn’t already dead.
And what do I do? I remain kneeling by the coffin, hands clasped, neck bent, trying to figure out how I can possibly leave this room with any dignity intact.