Chapter 26
26
brAIDEN
I call Madden before we’ve driven past City Hall. “I’ve got you on speaker,” I say. “Samantha’s here.” And before he can reply: “Put all our men on alert. Russo will be moving against us.”
I hear a woman’s voice in the background on his end. He swears and says, “Hold on.” I assume he’s moving some place where he can talk without being overheard. “What’s going on?” he finally asks.
“Russo’s Lamborghini just ran into my baseball bat.”
Madden laughs. “That sounds more like my type of sport than yours, deartháir. ” Brother . Madden and I have always been closest when I’m stirring up shite.
“He won’t take it kindly,” I say.
“Should we bring in a couple of his associates? Maybe host them downstairs at the Hare to have a bit of leverage on hand?”
He’s talking about the bar’s soundproof room. The one with the drain in the middle of the floor. But if we take hostages, this thing with Russo will go nuclear.
“Not yet,” I say. “Meet me at Thornfield, and we’ll figure out our best approach.”
“I’m on my way.”
“And call Doc Kelleher,” I say. “Have him meet us at the house.”
“What did that fucker do to you?”
“I’m fine. It’s Samantha he went after.”
Madden offers up a fine speculation on Russo’s parentage and the diseased little boys he diddles, bouncing from English to Irish and back again. I figure half of it goes over Samantha’s head, but there’s still enough to send her eyebrows into alarmed peaks.
“I’ll see you in twenty,” I say when he winds down.
“Make it an hour,” he says. “I’m not home.”
There’s no law on earth that says my brother has to stay within the Fishtown limits. But I’m annoyed the fecker has wandered, tonight of all nights. “An hour,” I say, grudgingly. “But get Kelleher there now.”
The good doctor is waiting outside the gate by the time Samantha and I pull up—his second visit to Thornfield in twenty-four hours. I wave him through security, and he follows us up the drive.
The three of us make enough noise going to the surgery that Aiofe opens the nursery door. She clutches at the little gold cross around her neck when she sees Kelleher. She doesn’t like doctors.
“It’s craic, lass,” I say. “We’re only checking Samantha’s arm. She hurt it tonight, and I want to make sure it’s nothing serious.”
Aiofe transfers her worried attention to Samantha. The child steps into the hall in her nightgown, clutching her stuffed rabbit as a comfort.
“I’m fine,” Samantha assures her putting her good hand against Aiofe’s cheek. “Go back to bed. It’s late, and you have school with Mr. Bell tomorrow.”
Aiofe frowns, but she shuffles back to her room. I double-check that her door is closed. No need for her to overhear anything about Antonio Fucking Russo.
In the end, Kelleher puts Samantha through the exact same tests I did. He asks if she heard a pop—she didn’t—and he concludes she has a mild sprain. He tells her to rest her arm and ice it. He shows me how to wrap it in a bandage, and he tells her to sleep sitting up for a few nights.
If we were in an actual hospital, now’s the time the doctor would order me out of the room. He’d hound Samantha for details about how she wrenched her arm, on the assumption that I was the one who banged her up. He’d give her information about getting to a safe place.
Kelleher doesn’t bother. He knows this is my house. My rules. That was the bargain he made when he first accepted my half million a year as a retainer for his services.
As I shake his hand in the foyer, Madden shows up. We retire straight to the study; I don’t want to risk waking Aiofe again. The child has enough nightmare memories; no reason to give her more tonight.
Madden sinks into one of the heavy upholstered chairs. He’s got a smear of bright red lipstick on the collar of his shirt, but I decide not to give him a hard time. I loosen my tie as I go to the credenza and pour us both stiff whiskeys.
Now that we’re safely behind Thornfield’s walls and I know Samantha isn’t seriously injured, my adrenaline is finally tapering down.
“You’re hurt?” Madden asks, taking his glass.
I follow his gaze to the bloodstain on my cuff. I must have been nicked by shrapnel when I set to on Russo’s car. I flex my fingers, realizing they ache from how tightly I gripped the bat. My arms are sore too, and my shoulders.
But it was worth it, to leave behind that blood-red heap of junk in the Convention Center garage.
“Nothing serious.”
Madden takes me at my word. “ Slainte ,” he says, saluting me with his drink. I match him with my own. As the first sip of Jameson hits the back of my throat, I swallow a fatigue that has little to do with lack of sleep.
“All right,” I say, pacing out eight measured steps to the far wall. I remember when I had time to read the books on the shelves in here. When I wasn’t constantly plotting a bloody open war. “My biggest concern is the shipment coming in on Sunday. We’ve got a quarter of a billion worth of cocaine hitting the dock. If Russo gets wind of it…”
“How would he do that?”
“Our entire distribution chain knows we’re expecting a big delivery. The goods themselves will be logged into the freeport as assorted towels and linens. But if Russo picks up anyone in revenge for the car—from the drivers off the docks to the Fishtown corner boys—he’ll soon know something’s up.”
I’d like to think every man in my organization is as solid as a brass kettle. But Russo won’t be playing fair. Good men break under torture. And bad ones sell out for a lot less than Russo will have on the table.
“So what are you thinking?” Madden asks.
“What if we take everyone off the streets until Sunday?”
“Put them all up at the Ritz?”
I give him the dirty look he deserves, but I’m not ready to abandon my idea. “Somewhere out of town should be fine. Buy out a Holiday Inn, somewhere south of the city.”
“For two nights? That’ll cost a fortune.”
“We’ve got two hundred and fifty mill on the line.”
Madden narrows his eyes. It’s the same expression I used to see on Da’s face, and I know he’s seen it on mine. “Won’t we just be setting up a more attractive target? All our boys in one place?”
“Even Russo won’t take out an entire hotel.” Saying the words, I know they aren’t true. I offer an amendment. “Not on forty-eight hours notice.”
“It’ll cut into other work,” Madden warns. “Taking that many men from their jobs.”
“Two hundred and fifty million dollars,” I remind him.
I watch him work through the challenges—identifying a hotel, threatening or paying off the manager to empty out the place, gathering up our men, keeping them all under wraps…
“It won’t be easy,” he finally says.
“I wouldn’t have your arse here at midnight, if I thought it would be easy.”
“I’d better get to work then,” he finally says.
“Sorry you won’t be heading back to your lady love. Anyone I know?”
He smirks. “One of the contortionists from that circus that came to town last month. She and her twin sister put on an act that’d put steel in the Pope’s own rod. And her gash is tighter than old Nick’s arsehole.”
Madden wouldn’t know what to do with a contortionist if she wrapped herself around his prick. But I let him get away with the lie. “You kiss her with that mouth of yours?”
“I kiss her gash. Her arsehole too, when she’s sitting on my face.”
I shake my head and clap a hand on his shoulder. The motion jars my entire arm. I’ll be feeling that Lambo for a few days.
“Thanks for coming out here,” I say. “You’re a good man and a better brother.”
He puts his hand on top of mine. “We’ll keep things safe from that guinea fucker.”
I wait until his lights disappear down the drive before I close and lock the front door. I know the stairs in this house so well, I don’t bother turning on a light. I pause for a moment in front of Aiofe’s door, but I don’t hear a sound.
I’m finally stripping my tie from my collar when I get to my own bedroom. I’m not a saint. For just a moment, I think about what I could do with that length of silk—how I could wrap it around one of Samantha’s wrists, or better yet, an ankle…
But Samantha is one of the walking wounded tonight.
And she isn’t in my bed.
I turn on my heel and straight-arm the door to her guest room.
She’s sitting up in bed, a book open on her lap. In deference to the bandage wrapped around her shoulder, she’s stolen one of my shirts. Three buttons are fastened, which lets me see her panties are plain white silk.
Her hair is loose, all combed out now. She’s got circles under her eyes, dark hollows that tell me she’s in a lot more pain than she let on before. She startles when the door hits the wall, but she recovers quickly enough.
“Hush,” she says. “You don’t want to wake Aiofe.”
She’s right. I don’t. But more than I want my ward to sleep, I want to know why my wife is reading in here. “You’re supposed to be in my bed.”
“Braiden,” she says, and my name sounds like a sigh on her lips. “I can’t. Not tonight.”
“What exactly do you think I’m going to do to you?”
“Whatever the fuck you want,” she snaps, and I realize she’s even more tired than I thought. “Isn’t that what my collar means?”
“That’s what it means when you choose to put it on. That’s what it means when we’ve agreed to play a scene.”
She looks uncertain, like she’s just realized she doesn’t know how to translate a complicated legal text.
“You’re my wife,” I say. “In sickness and in health.” I cross the room and lift her left hand, the one on her good side. I kiss the finger that wears my wedding band.
“I thought you wouldn’t want me,” she whispers.
“I want you, piscín . I want you bad enough that an hour-long cold shower sounds like a fine option. But somewhere along the way, I’ve learned how to control my baser urges when I must.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep. I don’t want to keep you awake with my reading.”
“I can drop off in the middle of a football match, with stadium lights on high.”
“I have to sit up. The covers won’t be even.”
“Now you’re just making up excuses,” I say. “Are you walking? Or am I carrying you to wear you belong?”
She walks. But she lets me hold her book. And I’m allowed to kiss her goodnight, before we both turn off our nightstand lights.