Chapter 46
46
PATRICK
I t takes a week and a half.
Fiona insists on reading every incriminating word herself. She sorts the documents, putting them in folders. She sets up spreadsheets. She figures out a timeline and cross-references it with places and names. She’s spent her entire life tapping away at computers and phones, and she’s better at it, faster than I’ll ever be.
Every new revelation sharpens something inside her. The entire time I drove back from Philly, I worried that the truth would break her, that she couldn’t handle the scope of Dowd’s betrayal.
But here, in our war room at the Beacon Street apartment, she proves she has a spine of steel. She’s like one of those skyscrapers in a city plagued with earthquakes—shocks sway her for a moment, and then she’s as solid as before.
And ten days later, when she’s read it all, when she’s thought about it, when it’s become part of every cell in her body, she says, “I’ll do it.”
I’m standing by the counter in the kitchen, stretching to relieve an ache in the small of my back. “Do what?”
She looks at me like I’ve forgotten my ABCs. “I’ll kill Uncle Aran.”
The Bell goes off like a fire alarm. Fiona won’t be the one taking down Aran Dowd. I will. For the Crew. For Jenn and Athawn. For myself.
But I remember Fiona standing on the golf course green, Joyce’s gun in her hand and vengeance in her eyes. I need to keep her from executing her uncle without driving a stake into all we’ve built between us. So I tell the feckin’ Bell to stop its clanging, and I force myself to say, “Tell me more.”
“My da would do it if he were still alive—a captain taking out his traitor Clan Chief—and the Crew would have his back. I’ll be captain, and I’ll have the Crew behind me, but to get there, I have to go through Uncle Aran. It’s too dangerous to wait. Who knows what he’ll tell the feds today or tomorrow or the next day? He needs to be cut down now. Before he can do any more harm.”
It’s a pretty argument, but she’s wrong. “Captains don’t make their own kills. They have soldiers. A Warlord. They don’t risk getting their own hands dirty.”
“That’s not true. Braiden took care of his brother.”
It’s the first time she’s let on that she knows what happened to Madden Kelly. I wince, because I don’t want her thinking about what that fucking gobshite did to her. I don’t want to remember how my own hands were tied, how I couldn’t get revenge.
But I say, “Kelly didn’t make that kill as captain. He was taking care of family.”
“ I’m not killing Uncle Aran as captain. I’m taking care of family.”
“The shitehawk’s not your blood.” She starts to respond, but I don’t let her get the words out. “And the things he’s done—they didn’t hurt family. They hurt the Crew.”
Her sharp inhale is a little scream of frustration. “You’re dragging me around in circles.”
That’s my intention. I want her seeing there’s no way she’s going after Dowd.
Before I can lie, she grits out, “He has to go because he’s hurt the Crew. I’m the next Old Colony captain, but I’m not there yet. I can’t name a Warlord. I have to do my own dirty work.”
“That’s not true.” The Bell’s ringing so loudly I can barely hear my own voice. This may be an impulse, it may be deadly, but it feels like the most brilliant thing I’ve ever said or done. “You don’t have to do this on your own. Make me your Warlord. Now.”
She opens her mouth. Shuts it. Tries again. Finally, she settles on, “You can’t do that.” She swallows hard. “You can’t stay.”
I hold her green gaze, knowing not to blink. “I can. I’ve been Warlord in Philly. I’ll do it here for you.”
“But Braiden—” she says.
“Was a good boss. Things change. I haven’t been his man for more than three months now.”
All the color has left her face. She tries to lick her lips but stops. Her tongue must be too dry. “Patrick…” she whispers.
“What do you want me to do? Take an oath on a Bible neither of us believes in?”
When she doesn’t answer, I kneel in front of her. The kitchen tile is hard on my knees but I take her left hand, hold it between both of mine. “I’m yours, Fiona Ingram. I’m your Warlord, if you’ll have me.”
She puts her right hand on my bowed head. Her fingers tangle in my hair. “I’ll have you, Patrick Moran. Sweet God, I’ll have you.”
I bite off a groan as I push to my feet. I want to kiss her, but this isn’t about her being my little girl. This has nothing to do with my being her Daddy. So I say, “Good. That’s settled. I’m getting Dowd.”
But Fiona shakes her head. “You can’t do it, either. Not before I’m Queen. Because to all those men in the dún , you’re still one of the Fishtown Boys. Some of them still believe Braiden killed my da. If you take out Da’s Clan Chief, they’ll come after you, and I’m not sure I have the power to stop them. Yet.”
“We’ll tell them what we know. Show them all this shite.” I wave vaguely toward the computer and all its records.
“And when someone puts a bullet through your skull before they’ve finished reading?”
I want her to be wrong. I want to say that I’m the one with bullets. I’ve got half a dozen weapons, and my own bare hands, and I’m taking down Aran Cocksucking Dowd.
But for now, she’s right. And I’m not sure I truly believe it, but she thinks she’ll be my Queen. So I might as well learn to give in when she issues a direct order.
“If you can’t do it,” I say. “And I can’t do it, then who is going to kill that motherfucking dry shite?”
“Keenan Rivers,” she says, like she’s just remembered the words to a song.
My belly turns sour. “Rivers?”
“He’s still the Old Colony Warlord, until a new captain is named. We’ll send the information to him—just the heart of it, the meat. We’ll show him what Uncle Aran’s done, and we’ll let him make the kill.”
I hate the solution. But it keeps Fiona from getting her pretty arse shot. And it keeps me alive for long enough to figure out how to get her on the Old Colony throne.
And Rivers knows how to make men suffer. I close off the picture in my mind, of Da tied to that chair in the dún’s basement.
“Rivers,” I say .
In the end, we pull together five documents:
One: A letter from Dowd to Barbieri, written on a sheet of plain white paper, presented with an envelope showing the return address of his prison cell, asking for an in-person get-together to “come to a meeting of the minds.”
Two: A transcript from that meeting, where Dowd calls Kieran Ingram a “bog-jumping dry shite without the bollocks to lead three men in the St. Patrick’s Day parade”, along with Dowd’s promise to deliver the Old Colony Crew “on time and all complete so long as all state and federal charges are dropped.”
Three: A phone log from a burner phone, showing a long list of calls to Barbieri, along with a pair of texts to Dowd’s lieutenants—proof who owned the cell.
Four: A black-and-white photograph with a timestamp in the lower right corner, proving it was taken three weeks ago—Barbieri sitting across from Dowd in a restaurant booth, as the fat bearded fuck counts a wad of cash.
Five: A transcript from another in-person meeting between Dowd and Barbieri, the one where Dowd gives up the entire structure of the Crew. There’s a quote half-way through, Dowd responding to an FBI question: “No, goddammit. Pay attention. Rivers is the Warlord. The chief enforcer. He’s signed off on every Old Colony hit in the past ten years.”
Fiona says, “Do we send it tonight? Or do we wait until after the Union meeting tomorrow?”
“No reason to wait,” I say.
I hand her a clean burner. She attaches the files. She has Rivers’ number; she checks it twice before she hits Send.
Both of us release a sigh once the documents are gone.
If I wasn’t such a feral bastard, I might feel a flash of pity about the execution we’ve set in motion. Dowd doesn’t stand a fucking chance.
I delay calling Braiden Kelly as long as I can. But he’s a good captain. A fine leader of men. He deserves a straight conversation before he walks into that Four Seasons conference room for the Grand Irish Union meeting.
He answers on the first ring. “Kelly.”
I bite back my instinctive reply— Boss. Instead, I say, “It’s me.”
He’s no fool. He lets my reply sit between us for a full thirty seconds before he says, “Patrick.”
“You’ll be at the Union vote tomorrow,” I say. I don’t make it a question, because it isn’t one.
“I’ll be there,” he says. “And Samantha too, as my second.”
I’ve heard rumors, read threads on the group text for all my enforcers. For all O’Hare’s enforcers, that is. They aren’t mine anymore.
“Herself is a good choice for the job.” Samantha Kelly is fierce as a dragon. She’s smart, too. She’s the match my former boss needs.
“I somehow doubt you’re calling to comment on my employment choices.” Kelly’s voice is as dry as Death Valley.
“I wanted you to know I’ll be at the meeting.” I’m careful with my words. He needs to know I’m not asking. I’m telling him how things will be. “As Fiona’s Warlord,” I say.
There’s another pause, this one longer than the first. Then, finally: “She’s lucky to have you by her side.”
“Thank you.” We both know I’m not thanking him for the praise. He’s setting me free without a fight.
“I was lucky to have you as my Warlord,” he says gruffly.
I’m not prepared for that. I say, “Tell O’Hare?—”
“O’Hare’s doing fine.”
“He can?—”
“He can run things as he has done, since April.”
There’s a sting in that, but it’s nothing more than I deserve. I clear my throat. “About that,” I say, because it bothers me that I didn’t tie off my own loose ends. I didn’t get Fiona the revenge she deserves. “About Madden,” I say.
“Fuck Madden,” Kelly says, like the name of his own brother is soap in his mouth.
“Fuck Madden,” I agree. I wait, in case there’s anything else he wants to tell me. I’ll never know how his bastard brother died. But I know Braiden Kelly understands how to make a man suffer.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he finally says.
That’s as clean an end as I can ask for. “Tomorrow,” I say.
When I end the call, I sign out of all the group texts for the Fishtown Boys. They know how to reach me if they need me.
They won’t.
I take off my golden ring, the one cut deep with a Celtic knot, and I shove it in my pocket. I’ll send it back to Kelly. He can give it to the next man to join the Boys.
Fiona’s waiting for me in the bedroom down the hall.