Chapter 8
8
brAIDEN
S ix weeks ago, I kept an office in downtown Philadelphia, at the back of a pub. My grandad was the first man to pour Guinness at the Hare and Harp, long before the mahogany bar was scarred by decades of drunks. My da was the man who built out the basement, adding soundproofing and a drain so the Fishtown Boys had a place to do their wetwork.
And I’m the man who lost the place, saw it burned to the ground, victim of a skirmish with Russo. I took a baseball bat to his prize Lamborghini. He torched the Hare.
I came out the worse in that exchange. Especially because I’m still working out the cost for the fire commissioner to forget that basement room. In the end, I’ll pass the debt on to Russo, I’ve vowed that. But for now, he’s made my life a feckin’ hell.
And I’m taking all my meetings at Thornfield.
My home office is any working man’s dream—a leather chair behind the desk big enough to handle my large frame, two chairs for visitors in a dark green plaid, with a matching couch long enough to stretch out on when I need a kip. My favorite books line the walls, and a pair of windows look out over the drive so I get fair warning of anyone allowed past my guarded gate.
So that means I can watch Father Regis make his way down the drive after a morning of visiting with Birte and Aiofe. I’m not sure things went as Samantha hoped. Birte spoke in rhyme when she bothered to say anything at all, and Aiofe didn’t say a word. But the good father prayed over both of them and said he’ll be back soon.
At least I’ve kept my promise.
I’m still at the window when Madden arrives, climbing out of his acid-green McLaren, a car so flashy it makes my eyes bleed. My brother stretches like he’s made a cross-country trip, then he plants his hands on his hips and looks around the courtyard like he owns the feckin’ place.
I consider walking down the hall to see if Samantha’s eyeing the eejit from her own office. I’m man enough to know I don’t care if she’s watching the show. I just want to see her.
I want to see her smile, same as she did when she came to breakfast this morning. I want to see her shift on her chair, trying to find a comfortable position, given the arse I striped last night. I want to see her blush as she remembers how I used her, how she let herself be used.
I want to see her.
Which is reason enough for me to stay in my own bloody office. I have an empire to run. I pace away from the windows, flexing my knees to ease some of the pressure my zipper has placed on my cock.
Coming upstairs, Madden takes the steps two at a time, sounding like a T-Rex crashing through a jungle. He whistles as he’s walking down the hall, which gives me plenty of time to cross to the door. “What’s the cr—?” he starts to say, striding into the room .
Craic . He’s about to say craic. But the word dies in his throat as I catch him in a headlock, partway over the threshold.
He’s slow going for my wrist, so he doesn’t stand a chance. I use my weight to press his temple against the doorframe, adding pressure until he goes limp in surrender. I ignore the twinge as my barely scabbed wound breaks open beneath its bandage.
“What the fuck?” he complains.
I’m out of line. Samantha said she had everything under control. But I growl, “Touch my wife again, and I’ll break your fucking neck.”
I’m cutting off my brother’s idiotic obsession right here, right now. He came at me with a bundle of lies the night we met Russo at the Rittenhouse. Foolishly, I listened to him then, and I lost five weeks with Samantha.
I know Madden’s only carping because he feels cornered by the Mafia don. He hates that Russo’s won the last few rounds. But I won’t let him put the blame on the woman I love, not when I finally have her home. Well, in the pool house. At Thornfield, anyway.
Still pressed against the door, my idiot brother proves he has more bollocks than brains by asking, “Which wife?”
Before I can rip those shriveled stones off him and make him eat them bite by bite, there’s a voice from the hallway. “Oh, joy. The circus came to town, and I’m in time to see the clowns.”
I give Madden one last shove before I push off him. Fiona’s standing in the hallway, dressed like she just stepped off one of those fashion runways in Paris. The crimson of her trousers looks like she dipped them in blood. Her jacket closes with a single button across her flat stomach, pretty much engraving an invitation to check out her tits. Her bra isn’t up to the challenge even though—or maybe because—the lacy cups are dyed to match the trousers. She’s finished the outfit with four-inch stilettos.
This is the first I’ve seen of Fiona Ingram this morning. She was under no obligation to come to breakfast—I have neither the jurisdiction nor desire to insist on house rules for her. But she clearly detoured by the dining room before coming to this meeting. From the smell of it, her expensive insulated mug is filled with coffee instead of the tea a good Irish girl should drink.
I growl at the pair of them and stalk over to my desk. Madden throws himself into one of the plaid chairs. Fiona takes over the couch. Fair play to her, choosing a seat that forces Madden to twist half-way round to keep an eye on her.
“Cards on the table,” I say, leaning back so they know I’m not intimidated by either of them. “Last month, we met with Russo’s bunch at the Rittenhouse.” I point at Fiona, knowing the gesture’s rude and not giving a shite. “You had marching orders from your da. You cut a deal with Russo’s boss before we ever sat down to the bargaining table.”
She doesn’t try to argue—just salutes me with her coffee before taking a sip. I fight a swell of irritation. I want her to lie, just so I can give out to her, put her in her place once and for all.
But I go on, because that’s the only option she’s left me. “For almost six weeks, I’ve worked under the peace treaty—no business west of Tenth Street, nothing from the port, no new corner boys. I’ve lost a third of my protection money, two whorehouses, and a gambling club, not to mention after-hours pours at all the bars. We’re running in the red.”
Fiona merely studies her nails. “A good Captain has a backup plan,” she says.
“My backup plan was boosting a shipment of cocaine from the Philadelphia port the night of the summit. The Germans were bringing it in, rebuilding after their own upsets last year.”
I witnessed part of that upset personally, a dry shite butchered for his poor choices in life. His business partners met their own bad ends shortly before Christmas, leaving a vacuum on the docks. And as the good Jesuit brothers taught me at St. Ann’s, nature abhors a vacuum .
I should have had a quarter billion dollars of coke free and clear last month.
“Russo hijacked the truck,” I say, just in case Fiona’s forgotten that little detail. “I’m still digging to find out how he knew about the shipment, how he traced the Fishtown Boys.”
“I’ve already told him how,” Madden says to Fiona. He has to look over his shoulder to talk to her, which makes him look scared. Scared as well as stupid, because he chirps the same song he’s tried before. “Sam’s feeding information to that goombah.”
For one blinding moment, I consider shutting his eejit mouth forever. Or at least knocking his teeth down his throat. Breaking a few bones. Carving a reminder on his feckin’ chest so he drops his line about Samantha forever.
After all, why should I keep a hospital-grade surgery in the house, if I’m not prepared to use it? Why should I keep Doc Kelleher on retainer if I don’t create an emergency or two on the regular?
But I’ve got legitimate business to get through this morning. So I lower my voice to barely a whisper and deliver a different threat: “Say it again, and you’re out of the Boys.”
Madden opens his mouth. Shuts it. Sits back in his chair with the exasperated tongue-click of a teenage girl. I watch him consider half a dozen responses—lies about Samantha, all—but he chooses a wiser course of action.
He says: “I know how you can make up the shortfall.”
He’s my feckin’ Clan Chief. I need to take my second-in-command seriously. “I’m listening,” I say. Fiona glances between us, like she’s watching a tennis match on the telly.
“Explosives,” he says.
I’m not sure I heard him right. “Explosives?”
“Bombs,” he says, like I might have stumbled over the three-syllable word.
“What the hell do the Fishtown Boys know about bombs? ”
“The Boys don’t,” Madden admits. “But I do. I’ve learned a lot from the boys in Dublin.”
Madden’s always been fascinated by the old country. There’re plenty of old-timers there, happy to talk about the Troubles over a lash or ten. Madden planted three pipe bombs for me back in February, one of the first skirmishes in our war with Russo.
Now I eye him with curiosity. “So, you’re the Mad Irish Bomber now?”
He shrugs. “I’ve been reading some things. Experimenting.”
“And how, exactly, will we make money with explosives?” I give all three syllables equal stress before I say, “Assuming you don’t blow your fucking hands off.”
“My hands are in perfect working order.” That sounds like a boast, like he’s keeping a harem of needy women satisfied.
Fiona scoffs.
“The money?” I remind him.
“We can hire out our services—anyone going after a bank, an armored car, any sort of safe. Or we can work as middlemen, start with raw materials and send out finished bombs. I’ve only been working with dynamite so far, but I have a line on military-grade goods. C4. That type of thing.”
I’m surprised. Madden’s never shown this much initiative before. But I imagine the thought of blowing up shite puts some iron in his prick. I’m just not sure it’s a good idea to set my brother loose with that type of power.
Fiona seems to notice my hesitation. She offers a pointed smile over another sip of her coffee. “Or not,” she says, as if I’ve already given Madden an official shut-down notice. “What’s your plan, Captain?” she says to me. “You’ve got limited territory. Reduced earnings. A stolen shipping container. What are you going to do?”
I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want her learning the first thing about my operations.
But she’s here, and she’s staying, at least for now. And if I don’t give her something to pass on to her da, I’ll only face more grief down the road.
So I open the door on my latest operation, one that sounds so outlandish Boston’ll never buy in, nor anyone else in the Grand Irish Union. “To start with,” I say. “Counterfeit goods. Butter.”
“Butter?” She’s careful not to laugh out loud. Madden sulks as I refuse to engage on his grand scheme.
“Home cooks’ll pay twice as much for something labeled Irish as they will for domestic.”
“Is there any difference?”
“Irish butter is more yellow. And it has a higher fat content. But with a little food coloring added in, who’s to know? The Mafia do the same with olive oil—buy cheap stuff and label it extra virgin.”
“There’s money in it?” she asks.
“Twenty billion a year, for the oil. No one knows how much for butter. Yet.”
She nods like an accountant flashing fingers over an adding machine. She’s taking me seriously. “You’ll need a strong supply chain. And dedicated distribution.”
“Working on it,” I say. She isn’t telling me anything I don’t know. I’d have the system in place already if I wasn’t so busy recovering from the blow she dealt me at the Rittenhouse.
“What else’ve you got?” she asks.
I’ve been saving this one. Even Madden doesn’t know. And it’s safe to share in front of Fiona, because no one else in the Union can ever make a similar deal.
“Imports,” I say.
My brother’s still out of sorts, so it’s Fiona who feeds me a skeptical opening. “Imports?”
“I’ve got a contact back home.” Eighteen years I’ve lived in Philadelphia, and home is still an ocean away. “In County Sligo. Near Skreen.”
Madden starts humming Danny Boy . I ignore him .
Fiona continues with the heavy lifting. “What sort of contact?”
“The sort that sweeps floors in a cold country church. The sort that opened a storage closet a few weeks back, when ancient Father Donall died, may he rest in peace.” I cross myself, just so I can see them ape me. Fiona complies, annoyance plain on her face. Madden doesn’t bother.
“The good father was holding out on his parishioners,” I say. “Never gave a hint about what he was hiding.”
Fiona’s tired of playing my game. “Enough,” she says. “What are you bringing in?”
I turn around my monitor, so both of them can see. The pictures are poor quality. My man on the inside has a phone that’s ten years old.
It’s a book. Judging by the five-pound note in the frame, it’s as long as my forearm and two hands wide. The cover looks like wood, embossed with tarnished silver and latched with gold. It has iron hinges, two of them, and the pages lie almost flat when it’s open.
I’m no expert on bibles, and I can’t read Latin with a gun to my head. But every good Irishman has heard of the Book of Kells, and a little Internet research pointed me toward the Lindisfarne Gospels too.
The Book of Skreen was made thirteen hundred years ago. The colors look as fresh as yesterday’s paint. The designs are so complex my eyes cross tracing them.
“It must be fake,” Fiona says.
I shrug. “Father Donall didn’t think so. He kept it hidden away. There was a curse on the book, one that said the man who opens it will burn in Hell forever.”
“Please,” Fiona says, pursing her very modern, very cosmopolitan lips.
“We’ll see what it’s worth when it gets here.”
“Which will be?” She’s all business now. As if she has a better meeting to get to .
“I’ve sent Patrick Moran to fetch it.”
That gets Madden’s attention. I wouldn’t send my Warlord, my chief enforcer, if I didn’t think the book was real.
“He’s bringing it here?” Madden asks. I can already see him plotting to get it away from me.
I shake my head. “It’s going straight to the freeport.”
“The freeport?” Fiona asks.
“Diamond Freeport. In Delaware. A domestic tax haven where I keep a gallery for things I want kept secret.”
“I know what a freeport is. I didn’t know which one you use.”
“Sam works there,” Madden says. He sounds like a kindergarten brat tattling on the girl who made him eat paste.
“Samantha’s General Counsel there,” I clarify. “She knows what’s what. She’ll get the book appraised. Help with an auction when we’re ready to move it.”
“She’ll help all right,” Madden says.
I shoot him a look designed to shrivel the worm that passes for his prick. Fiona actually cracks a smile as he shifts in discomfort.
“It sounds like Samantha and I have a lot to talk about,” Fiona says.
I don’t like the tone of her voice. I like her words even less. But I can’t think of a single reason to forbid her to talk to the woman in the office down the hall.
“Do what you must,” I say, like I don’t care.
“You should know by now, Captain. I always do.”
Fiona’s lips curl as she takes another sip of coffee. It’s the smile of a lioness. I’m just not sure if I’m a lion or a gazelle.