Chapter 9
9
brAIDEN
B y the time I get home, my eyes feel like they’re being scraped with sandpaper every time I blink. My fingers are heavy sausages on the scrap of satin in my left hand. I set my right palm to the safe room entrance.
Samantha pushes herself upright from the couch, blinking her way back to wakefulness. Her dress is wrinkled like she’s nested in it, and her hair’s undone. She has a crease on her cheek that matches the stitching on the sofa.
The television is swung out from the wall, so I know she found the gun safe. She doesn’t have access to it yet. She won’t until I’ve added her to the short list of people allowed in this room—and she’s proven she knows what to do with the weapons inside.
“Good morning,” I say, passing over her handbag.
Her fingers clutch the white fabric like a lifeline. “What time is it?”
“Going on six. In the morning,” I clarify, because time plays games when you’re locked in a place like this.
“I want to go home,” she says.
“You are home.”
“ My home. Dover.”
“Not gonna happen.”
She gestures at her mussed skirt. “This was a mistake.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You treated me like I was a child!”
“I needed you safe.”
“Do you have any idea— Your men— Madden and Eoghan— They could have taken me anywhere!”
“They took you where I told them to go.”
“What right?—”
“I’m your husband.”
“I’m not your property.”
“No. You’re my wife. I promised to cherish you. That includes protecting you from madmen like Russo.”
The sound she makes is pure frustration, a shriek that doesn’t quite break free from her throat. “I want an annulment.”
“No.”
“I’ll tell Father Brennan. We didn’t consummate?—”
“Stop.” I’m too tired for this. Tired and angry and sad at the lives that didn’t need to be lost in the last twenty-four hours.
I’ve stood in front of a priest twice in my life, vowing to love and honor a wife. I didn’t get to take that woman to bed either time.
At least Samantha’s snow-white gown is only wrinkled. I blink away the image of blood-soaked satin, of ruined embroidery, of crimson lace in that other chapel, in front of that other altar, when I failed that other wife.
“But—” Samantha says.
I cut her off, like I wish I could cut off the past. “Three women died yesterday. And another four are in hospital.”
“Wh— what happened?” At least she’s stopped demanding the impossible.
“Russo.”
“What did he do?”
“Firebombed three of my clubs.”
She takes the news like a body blow. I had my men do a little digging after my feckin’ proposal. Her parents were killed by one of Russo’s bombs. So I’m not surprised when her fingers go to the edge of her hair above her right eyebrow. I saw the scars there when we kissed. She whispers, “Where?”
“Fishtown. Kensington. Pennsport.”
“What sort of clubs?”
She’s not naive. She knows what I do for a living. But I spell it out for her anyway. “Gambling on the ground floor. Girls upstairs.”
“How many…clients were hurt?”
It’s the right question. Russo will buy off law enforcement, shift the blame to Philadelphia Gas Works, do whatever is necessary to get the investigation tabled. He couldn’t do that if civilians died. Grieving widows have a way of staying on the front page far too long.
“None,” I say. “At three thirty in the afternoon, no one’s in the clubs. Just the girls, sleeping upstairs. Russo was sending a message straight to me. And he used our fucking wedding as his alibi.”
“Jesus,” she swears. And then: “This is my fault.”
I knew she’d go there. I’m just a little surprised she arrived so fast. “No,” I say. “This is Russo’s fault, because he’s a fucking cunt who’s willing to kill innocent girls instead of fighting like a man.”
She closes her eyes. “I want my life back. I want everything to be normal.”
I cross to the fridge and grab a bottle of water. The plastic top cracks like a bullet as I twist it free. The water feels like ice on my parched throat, freezing away the stench of fire.
“This is normal now,” I say when the bottle is empty.
“I’ll file a complaint in civil court this afternoon. Trespass, of course. Property damage. I’m pretty sure there’s a separate count for criminal mischief in Pennsylvania, for using fire or explosives intentionally, recklessly, or negligently.”
Her caramel eyes shine, and the frowning line between her brows smooths out. Her chin lifts and her shoulders square, showing off the bright white neckline of her wedding gown. I say, “You’re gorgeous when you’re scheming.”
“Thank you.” She blushes, and I wonder when she last had someone feed her compliments. I also wonder just how far that blush extends. But then she’s back to business. “I can check the wording on Westlaw. I just need a computer; I can log in from anywhere.”
“You’ll not waste your time.”
“Waste—”
“No one’s stopping Russo in court.”
“I’m a lawyer, Braiden. This is what I do.”
“So let’s say you file the complaint. Russo hires his own lawyer. The two of you go at each other in court for what? One year? Two? They’ll play dirty, fighting you every step of the way, and you have to hope the judge is more afraid of me than he is of Russo. One of us wins and the other appeals. That’s another year, maybe two. How many judges will I have to buy on the court of appeals? How much to make sure they stay bought—because Russo will be playing the exact same game.”
“That’s not the way?—”
“So three years later, maybe four, and I might get justice. Four years after I’ve buried my girls. Thank you, but I’ll play a different game.”
“What game?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do want to know. How will you get back at Russo?”
“He killed three girls. I’ll kill six.”
“You can’t do that!”
I rub a hand down my face. I’m too tired to have this conversation now. I should have left her here until I slept a couple of hours.
“They’re innocent women, Braiden. They don’t deserve to be caught up in your fucking gang war.”
“You’re right,” I say. And then, before my agreement goes to her head: “They don’t deserve it. Just like you didn’t deserve Russo showing up at your apartment a week ago. Like your cousin didn’t deserve to have a gun shoved up her snatch. Like your parents didn’t deserve to die in a fire of their own.”
“How far does it go, then, your eye for an eye?”
“Until the blind man who started it is fucking dead.”
She doesn’t have an answer for that. I see her test a few things, but every one of her fancy law school arguments brings her back to the same place. Antonio Russo is an animal. All her pretty logic won’t change that, all her careful laws. He’ll fight to own everything, everyone.
But I’ll get there first.
“Come on,” I say. “You’ll feel better after you eat.”
“Eat?” she asks, like she’s never heard the word before.
“Breakfast. Fairfax should have it on the table by now.”
“I don’t eat breakfast.”
“You do now.”
“I don’t?—”
“House rules,” I say. “Don’t bother arguing.” I turn toward the door. I’ll need to get her palm scanned, so she can access the safe room in an emergency. But for now, the electronics remain a threat. “Unless you’d rather stay here a while longer.”
The line is back between her eyebrows. “House rules,” she says. “You think you can get anything, just by saying that?”
“I know I can.”
“So do house rules override what we negotiated? You can house rule me into giving up my job at the freeport? House rule me out of my bedroom? Into your fucking bed?”
She’s working herself up, her voice ratcheting higher, like she’s forgotten everything she ever learned about winning arguments in court. A good man would assure her that our contract still stands, that she’s got all the protection she ever bargained for.
But I’m tired and I’m hungry and I haven’t been a good man for years. So I drop my gaze from her face to her chest, where her tits rise and fall as she fights to catch her breath. When I’m back to meet her eyes, she’s all sparking fury, like a cat forced under a tap for a bath.
“I told you before,” I say. “I’ve never forced a woman. But your current tone makes me think I should turn you over my knee.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Question my honor one more time, and there’ll be consequences. But for the record—that’s something you lawyers like to say isn’t it?”
She glares, not bothering to reply.
“ For the record, ” I continue. “I don’t need a rule to get you in my bed. You already married me, of your own free will. And before much longer, you’ll decide to let me fuck you. You’ll take my cock down your throat and let me come between your tits. I’ll fill your cunt and take you up your sweet little arse. You’ll beg me to hold you down, and plead with me to tie you up. I’ll make you come so hard you’ll think you’ve gone blind, and when you can breathe again, I’ll fuck you back to a place without words. You’ll be terrified I’ll hurt you and petrified I won’t, and every time you come again you’ll thank God for the day you became my wife. And none of that—not one goddamn second of it—will be because of a fucking rule . It’ll be because you’re girl enough to beg me for what you really want, and because I’m man enough to give you what you really need.”
The entire time I’m speaking, I watch her. Her eyes grow wide. Her breath hitches in her throat. She starts to swallow but she can’t. She wants to slap the filth from my lips, and then she wants to devour it.
She’s an American girl. She hates the word cunt, hates that I use it, hates when I say that’s what I’ll claim. But her entire body is shouting that her cunt’s already wet for me, that she’s longing, she’s aching.
I jam my right hand into my pocket to keep from shoving it up her wedding gown now. I want to smell her. Taste her. Forget about the fucking world outside this safe room by burrowing inside her.
But I’m a man of my word.
I’ll wait.
Besides, she has to eat her fucking breakfast.
“Your choice,” I say, already knowing what she’ll do. “Breakfast, or the rest of the day here in the safe room.”
She slips her feet into her shoes and picks up the purse I went all the way back to St. Columba’s to retrieve. “You love this, don’t you?” she asks, as I palm open the door.
“I love keeping things orderly. Protected. Safe.”
“And by things you mean?”
“You,” I say, gesturing for her to pass in front of me, into the hall. “Beautiful.”
So the blush goes at least as far as her shoulder blades. It won’t be long before I discover how much further.