Chapter 3
3
SAMANTHA
I hate the Rittenhouse.
It’s the most luxurious hotel in Philadelphia. They keep a file on Braiden. They know to make his bed European style, without a top sheet. They stock Jameson in his mini bar. And they deliver five newspapers every morning: The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times , The Washington Post, and The Irish Times.
The suites are finely appointed. The room service meals are some of the best I’ve ever eaten. The staff is expertly trained, and I’ve never made a request they couldn’t meet.
But the Rittenhouse is where Braiden and Russo met to hammer out their territorial dispute, back in February. It’s where Fiona Ingram first played her hand, trying to squash Braiden beneath the Grand Irish Union’s heel. It’s where Madden publicly accused me of being Russo’s whore.
And it’s where Antonio Russo revealed my darkest secret to the world. He told Braiden, the Delaware bar, and every reporter he could reach about That Night. About the biggest mistake I ever made. About the single wrong I can never atone for: Driving drunk on a winding mountain road, resulting in the deaths of three innocent people.
So it’s no wonder I despise being trapped in this golden cage.
When I sit down for coffee in the living room of the Presidential Suite, I shouldn’t be surprised to discover I’m front-page news in my hometown newspaper. After all, Braiden and Russo are evergreen subjects for articles. Locals follow stories about organized crime as avidly as they track the Eagles and the 76ers, the Phillies and the Flyers.
Paparazzi have been trailing me since Russo announced how two of my cousins and an unnamed vagrant died in a mountainside ditch. I’ve become the subject of this season’s Mousetrap podcast, a true-crime series that details every mistake I’ve ever made. Just last week, the Enquirer ran a huge exposé about me, telling the world about my connections to the Mafia and the Mob, about my fight to keep my license to practice law.
And the Philadelphia paper is back for more this morning. Apparently, the Enquirer sent a reporter out to Thornfield. While the view through the gate was obscured, there was enough steaming wreckage from the fire to make the estate look like a combat zone.
“Struggling Lawyer Loses All in Suspicious House Fire,” blares the headline.
The article is a masterpiece in innuendo, recycling last week’s hatchet job. Every single statement is factually true. I can’t begin to make a claim for libel or defamation. Among other facts, the article states:
My father was a lieutenant for Don Antonio Russo.
I witnessed my parents’ death in a car explosion when I was ten, and I was taken in by an aunt and uncle with close ties to the Mafia.
After killing three people while driving drunk, I fled to New York, where I assumed a new name.
I am currently under investigation for those three deaths, and the Delaware bar is holding an ethics proceeding to determine the status of my license to practice law.
I work for a tax haven that caters to sometimes-shady billionaires.
I married Braiden Kelly, Captain of Philadelphia’s Irish mob.
A woman and her full-time caretaker perished in a fire at Braiden’s mob compound on Monday night.
I did not immediately answer reporters’ questions about this story.
I try to sip the dark roast coffee delivered by room service when they brought the morning newspapers. Ordinarily, caffeine is a jolt to my system, anchoring me for a long day of work. This morning, though, the coffee sludges through my veins like frozen motor oil, slowing every synapse in my brain.
Braiden is savoring his tea, brewed as dark as his own reputation. The liquid in his cup glints like midnight in the sunglasses he’s wearing as a reluctant concession to Dr. Kelleher, as long as we’re in the privacy of our suite. “What?” he asks, when I set aside the paper.
“Nothing.”
“I’ll call in Fairfax and have him read to me.”
Braiden Kelly does not make idle threats. So I tell him: “It’s an article about me. In The Enquirer . Tying me to the fire.”
“Who else has the story?”
I don’t want to know. But I don’t have that luxury, not anymore. Not with my career hanging in the balance.
So I page through the other papers, reporting to Braiden as I go. The Washington Post treats me like an entertainment piece; the article in its Style section notes my preference for Balenciaga suits and Louboutin shoes. The Journal and The Times pick up the business angle, mentioning my employer, Diamond Freeport. They note Braiden’s Kelly Construction, detailing some of the major contracts he’s had in the past few years.
“ The Irish Times is silent,” I tell Braiden. “For now. Satisfied?”
His eyebrows rise above the frames of his sunglasses. He’s still recovering from physical injuries and emotional exhaustion. But that doesn’t erase the fact that he’s my Dom, and he expects me to treat him with respect.
Before he can make that point, my phone rings. It’s yet another new cell—my third in as many months—sent overnight from the freeport. Life with Braiden is rough on my electronics.
When I see the caller’s name, I answer quickly. “Sonja,” I say, trying not to feel like a little girl called before the principal at school.
Sonja Heller is the attorney representing me in my Delaware ethics hearing, the one that will decide whether I get to keep practicing law. She looks like Taylor Swift and she sounds like Judge Judy. She’s as tough as tungsten, and junkyard dogs flee in terror when she walks past their chain-link fences.
“What the actual fuck,” Sonja says, in a voice loud enough for Braiden to hear, even though she’s not on speaker.
I remember that I’m a lawyer too. “I didn’t ask for that sort of coverage.”
“Lie low, I told you. Keep your name out of the press. Don’t feed the goddamn publicity machine.”
“Do you think I wanted my home burned to the ground?”
Only two days ago, I was hiding out in a string of Dover hotels, avoiding that so-called home because I couldn’t face the things Braiden and I had said to each other. But I don’t have to explain my change of heart to Sonja.
She wouldn’t understand. She doesn’t have a heart of her own. Proof in point: She says, “I think you should have called me, the instant you got someplace safe.”
“I had a few other things on my mind. Do I need to repeat? My home burned to the ground. People I love were injured.”
“Which only makes me wonder how you feel about the people who died.”
“That isn’t what I?—”
“I shouldn’t have to remind you that the Delaware bar is deciding whether you committed a crime of moral turpitude on that mountaintop, eleven years ago. They want to know if your drunken killing of three people makes you unfit to practice law. The last thing they need to read on the front page of the Philadelphia paper is your connection to two more corpses.”
Three.
Madden was in that house.
And he was tortured before he died.
But I tell Sonja, “If you have a way to keep reporters from publishing their stories, I’m all ears. But if you’re only calling to give me a hard time about circumstances that were absolutely, completely, one hundred percent beyond my control, then I’ll hang up, and we can both go back to getting work done for the day.”
She softens a little. “I’m your lawyer. You should have called me.”
I concede the point. “I was going to. After I got to the freeport today.”
“We need to make an official statement. I’ll clear an hour this morning. Can you be here by eleven?”
“Eleven,” I agree.
“How is Braiden?” she asks, extending the olive branch just a little farther.
“He’ll be fine.” I wait just a beat, then add, “Thank you for asking.”
“I’ll see you at eleven.”
When I hang up, Braiden says in a conversational tone, “Over my dead body.”
“What?”
“There is no way in bloody hell that you’re driving down to Dover today.”
“You heard her. We need to make an official response.”
“You’ve got a phone. A computer, too. Call down to the front desk and reserve a meeting room. You can talk as long as you’d like anywhere at the Rittenhouse, so long as four of my men remain on guard while you do it.”
He’s deadly serious. And his restrictions etch into my skin like acid.
“Braiden,” I say. And then for the first time, because I want him to listen: “Love,” I call him. “I work in Dover, Delaware. Sonja Heller is my attorney in Dover, Delaware.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m two years old.”
“Then don’t act like you are!” I regret my tone the instant I see his jaw set. After taking a deep breath, I try again. “Madden is gone. He can’t hurt me. Ingram is dead. He can’t test your loyalty anymore, and he can’t order anyone else to tip your hand.”
“There’s Russo,” Braiden says.
“Who was relying on Madden to know what the Fishtown Boys are doing. This has to be the safest time to go, as far as Russo is concerned. His crew must be in total disarray.”
I’ve lived my entire life surrounded by criminals. I know I’m right.
Braiden pinches his lower lip. I wish I could see his eyes behind those glasses. From the tight lines on his forehead, I can tell he’s still in a lot of pain.
“Please,” I say. “When we get to the end of all this, I need to know I did everything I could to save my license.”
I hear what I don’t say—that I’m nearly convinced I’ll lose at the hearing. That I can’t see a path clear to continuing the job I love.
And even if I somehow win the ethics case, there’s also a criminal investigation going on. Detective Tarrant on the Philadelphia police force is digging into That Night so prosecutors can decide whether they’ll charge me with murder.
Braiden finally sighs in resignation. “Liam will drive you.”
“Of course,” I say.
“You’ll go to Sonja’s office and return directly here.”
I’d rather go on to my office at the freeport and spend the rest of the day working productively there. But I decide not to push it. “Okay.”
“Give me your phone.”
“Why?”
He just holds out his hand. And because he’s already given in so much, I type in my password and hand over my device.
He holds it so close to his face he barely has room to touch his fingers to the screen. I try to read what he’s doing in the reflection of his black-pool sunglasses, but I can’t follow the display. He hands the phone back with the app still open; he’s making zero effort to disguise what he’s done.
“You’re tracking me?” I ask in disbelief, refusing to take the damn thing.
“I’m making sure you’re safe.”
I think about refusing. I’ve never given anyone access to the stalker apps other people take for granted. My years of living under an assumed name made me far too cautious.
But I suspect Braiden already has a way of tracking Liam. The only real surprise is that he didn’t insist on monitoring me months ago.
“Fine,” I finally say.
I hold out my hand for my phone, but his vision hasn’t improved enough to see that far. I have to take it from his fingers. And that small action, more than anything else, makes me forgive his invasion of my privacy.
He’s hurting.
He’s worried.
He’s the most over-protective S.O.B. I’ve ever met in my life.
“I’ll be back by 2:30,” I say. “Which you’ll know by staring at your own damn phone.”
His feral grin almost makes me glad I’ve given him a victory.