Chapter 39
39
FIONA
M y life turns into Groundhog Day , everything the same, over and over and over.
Every morning, I groan awake after hours of nightmares. I’m determined to get my life under control. I stare at the fridge, but nothing looks good for breakfast. I go for a walk, but I lose interest before I’ve made it to the first corner.
Every afternoon, I vow I’ll do something to make myself stronger when I’m captain of the Old Colony Crew. I study banking and accounting, but the numbers just bleed in my head, and I know I’ll never be better than Q. I read about great organized crime empires—the mafia’s early days in New York, the bratva’s rise in Brighton Beach, the shaky foundations of South American cartels—but times have changed and they’re no longer a good model for the Crew. I fill notebook after notebook with ideas for new schemes—ransomware and cryptocurrency and online gambling—but it’s all too big, all too complex, and I can’t begin to act on any of it until I’m Queen .
Every night, I realize I’ve squandered another twenty-four hours. I open a can of soup if there’s one in the cupboard. I eat a carton of yogurt. I choke down an entire apple.
I take my birth control pill. Because I’m going to find another man. I’m going to take someone to bed. I’m going to get over Patrick Moran. I have to.
With Aunt S gone, there’s only one person in the world I want to talk to. One person who’s seen me at my worst and managed to still love me. One person who can tell me everything will be okay.
Oona.
There’s no way in hell I can drop by the dún just to talk with her, not with Uncle Aran’s living there. He’ll have me dragged off to a priest at gunpoint, the instant I set foot inside the house. I’ll be married before I can blink.
But there’s another way I can get to Oona. One place we’ll both be safe.
It’s absurd to think I can pull this off. It’ll take money—a lot of it. I need to pay a bribe, one large enough to stop even a hint of gossip from reaching Uncle Aran.
But thanks to Rónnad, I have fifty thousand dollars locked in a safe at the back of my closet. I count the money. And then I steel myself to place a phone call, putting my plan into motion.