Chapter 14
14
brAIDEN
S amantha follows my rules to the letter.
She’s at breakfast Saturday morning, even though she’s clearly nursing a headache and a dodgy stomach. Fiona doesn’t make it at all, which is just as well, given Birte’s decision to recite her rosary at the table, increasing her volume with each repetition.
I’m not sure why Birte thinks she needs Mary’s intervention. Maybe it’s Father Regis’s influence. The priest has been round to talk with her three times already.
By the time Birte reaches her third decade on the beads, my own head is pounding. I push back from the table and lock myself in my office for the rest of the day.
I owe Samantha an apology. Not for Fiona kissing me—that was nothing I asked for and nothing I gave back.
But I do regret the limerick I tossed off. I honestly meant to save her from the boys’ scrutiny. I figured I’d recite a poem, and the game would be over. I forgot my bride wasn’t raised around a bunch of braying jackeens, as I was.
Sunday morning’s the same. Coffee for Samantha and tea for the rest of us. It’s Fairfax’s well-deserved day off so I man the stove, but Aiofe’s the only taker. I make her usual—one egg sunny side up and toast soldiers.
Samantha sticks with coffee and cold cereal. Fiona can’t still be hung over from Friday night, but from the green tinge to her face, she clearly celebrated her Limerick Queen status last night as well. I’m not sure which of my men was fool enough to join her. Now, she’s nursing a cup of coffee and eyeing my omelet as if it’s a tripwire ready to send her sprawling.
Aiofe eats the white of her egg in tiny bites, edging closer and closer to the yolk with the tines of her fork. When she’s left with only the center, she stabs it with her toast.
Yolk oozes over the plate like bright yellow blood. Fiona sprints for the jacks. Aiofe giggles and finishes her meal, unrepentant even when I tell her she’s a fiend.
Samantha waits wordlessly for me to finish eating, then heads back to the pool house.
By mid-afternoon, I’ve had enough. She’s had a chance to lick her wounds. Time to kiss and make up.
A new lock gleams on the pool house door.
I could grab a chair from the deck and crash through one of the windows. Kick in the door with a few well-placed blows. Stand outside and ring her phone until she gets sick of the noise or blocks me.
Instead, I sulk in my office for the rest of the day. I send a text to Fairfax, telling him if he ever installs another lock on Thornfield grounds without my express permission, he’s fired. He responds with an immediate thumbs-up—pure proof he’s read my ultimatum even though he’s off the clock. Pure proof he doesn’t give a shite about my threat.
Monday morning, Samantha texts that she’ll miss breakfast because she has to leave early, to prepare for an 11:00 meeting at the freeport. I know she has an 11:00. I’m the one who requested the meeting.
Liam drives her down in the Bentley, which lights my fuse, because I planned to take her in the Jaguar. I don’t like the thought of her on freeport property without me, even if Liam is one of my best men. Not when it’s only been a week since the Diamond Ring meeting with the rogue waiter, a week since I almost lost her forever.
We still don’t know who sent the gobshite I killed. I want to believe it was Russo, because then I’d have an excuse to go after the guinea arsehole, to take him out once and for all.
But Russo would have hit back by now, taking revenge for the jackeen I blew away. And if the waiter wasn’t sent by the Mafia don, I have no idea who wants Samantha dead.
Which means I’m half-mad with worry when I get to the conference room fifteen minutes before our scheduled time.
Liam’s standing by the closed door, face blank as a stone wall. “Boss,” he says, and just from the one word, I know he’s heard the whole story—the party, the dirty limericks, Fiona pressed against me like a bitch in heat.
“Get back home,” I snarl, even though none of this is his fault.
“Boss?” He’s staring at a point on the far wall. From the way his shoulders tense, I’m pretty sure he expects a sharp jab to the gut.
“I’ll see Herself safely home. Take the Bentley and go.”
“Boss,” he says.
I remember when Liam was one of my most articulate men. That’s why I assigned him to Samantha in the first place. I thought she’d appreciate a bloke who could talk about something beyond football and the price of Guinness. Now Liam’s vocabulary is reduced to a single word. And if I hear it one more time, I might tear his feckin’ head off.
When he opens the door to the conference room, Samantha looks up from the head of the table. She’s typing at her computer, which is projecting a map of Ireland onto the screen behind her. “Do you need me, Liam?” she asks.
“Boss is here,” he answers, as if I’m not standing right behind him, hearing every word. “Says he’ll take you home. I want to make sure that works with your plans.”
I should gut the gobshite right here, let him bleed out in the freeport hallway.
But Samantha sounds grateful. “Thank you for asking. I’ll be fine.”
“If anything changes,” he says. “You have my number. I don’t mind coming back. Any time of the day or night.”
“Thank you, Liam. I appreciate it.”
He tips an imaginary cap to her and closes the conference room door. His face turns back to stone as he says to me, “Boss.” He walks out without looking back.
I should kill him. Or throw him out of the Boys. Or thank him for giving Samantha what she needs and slip him a few thousand bucks for his good work today. One of those three. I just don’t know which.
I wait in the hallway, because this isn’t my territory. I have plenty of time to study the carpet on the floor, the paint on the walls, and a signed and numbered print of a can of tomato soup, floating in a jet-black frame.
At one minute to eleven, Alix Key shows up. She has a computer tucked into the crook of her arm and a professional smile on her face. She’s the freeport’s auctioneer, still handling sales even as she takes on more and more of the tax haven’s day-to-day operations.
“Braiden!” she says, as if I’m Diamond Freeport’s most important client. “Is the room locked?”
“Samantha’s just getting ready,” I say.
Alix looks surprised. Trap has surely told her what happened at the last Diamond Ring meeting. She knows what I did for Samantha. There’s no good reason for me to be admiring what passes for artwork instead of sitting with the woman I love .
But Alix is professional enough to ignore the disconnect. “I’m sure everything’s set up now.” She turns the knob and gestures for me to go in before her.
She’s right, of course. Everything’s ready. Samantha has a slide deck up and running, with my name, the date, and a snap she grabbed somewhere of a Celtic knot. I can’t keep my gaze from going to her hand, to the ring I gave her the day I proposed. It has a knot, too. It’s the symbol of the Fishtown Boys, of a family joined together for eternity.
I can’t hide my sigh of relief that she’s still wearing it—my signet, along with her wedding ring. There are words inside the gold band: Is liomsa tú. You are mine.
I need to remind her of that.
We’re joined by other freeport staff—a metallurgist who specializes in oxidation, a conservationist who works with manuscripts, and an intern from Sherman University who’s been tasked with a wide range of research.
The presentation starts off rough. I don’t know if Samantha’s flustered because I’m in the room, or if she hasn’t gone over the material enough, or if there’s something else going on. She’s distracted. She loses her place three times. She repeats an entire slide, without seeming to notice.
Alix interrupts before things get too out of hand. “Thanks, Sam. Maybe we could move on to an overview of the laws and regulations?”
Samantha blushes. She knows she’s making a dog’s breakfast of the meeting.
After closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she closes her computer. She studies her hands for a moment. And when she starts again, she’s talking to me, telling me all I need to know.
As Alix suggested, she starts with a summary of the new Irish law on antiquities, explaining that anyone who comes into possession of any archeological object is required to report it to the National Museum of Ireland within ninety-six hours. She presents the penalties—fines of more than 100,000 pounds and five years of prison.
She doesn’t wait for me to say I’m ignoring the law. Instead, she calls on the freeport experts to summarize the book I’m bringing in. Everyone uses careful language; they haven’t seen the actual item yet, and it may turn out to be a fake. But we’re all pretty sure the Book of Skreen is worth several million dollars.
At Samantha’s gesture, Alix reviews the auction procedure. We’ll set a reserve value before I consign the book to the freeport. “If the auction doesn’t get to that level,” Alix says. “The book goes back to you. But I don’t anticipate any problem meeting the reserve. Even without a perfect record of ownership, finds like this attract a lot of interest.”
I need a lot of interest. I’m millions in the hole for the year, with the truck of cocaine that ended up in Russo’s hands. And it’s just turned April.
Alix goes on. “As a matter of course, we advise our consignors, um, you , to be certain you want to put the goods up for auction. No consignor can bid on his own property.”
The restriction makes sense—fair play says an owner shouldn’t be allowed to bid up the price for his own possession. I gesture for her to go on.
“Auction houses schedule their blockbusters for May and November. You’re one of the freeport’s best clients, and you remain one of my absolute priorities. But I don’t think we can do justice to a treasure like the Book of Skreen, pulling something together in a mere six weeks. I advise you to wait until November.”
That sounds like a century or more. But I’ve come to the freeport because they’re experts on this type of thing. If Alix says we should wait six months, I have to trust her. Even if the delay will make my cash flow issues more…intense.
“November,” I finally agree, already calculating where I can cut corners with Kelly Construction .
There’s more—talk about catalogs, commissions, deadlines for printing and distribution. Samantha wraps up with a review of legal issues—the challenge of proving the book’s origin, taxation if it leaves the freeport, and dozens more details that leave my head spinning.
Samantha is calm. She’s professional. She’s brilliant at her job, and I could listen to her talk till sunset, even if I wasn’t thinking about fifteen different ways to make her come.
“Do you have any questions?” Alix finally asks.
“You’ll be the first to know, when I do,” I say. Then, looking pointedly at Samantha, I correct myself. “Or, more likely, the second.”
Alix laughs. Samantha doesn’t.
Alix collects her computer and I stand to shake her hand. “Thank you for trusting us with this,” she says. “I can’t wait to see the book in person.” It seems to take forever, but she finally leaves the room with the other freeport staff, who all wish me the very best of luck.
“Samantha,” I say, the instant the door is closed.
“Don’t.”
I cross to the head of the table. “I’m a feckin’ eejit,” I say.
It takes all her concentration to find the power button on her computer.
“I wanted to help you,” I say. “I thought I’d be funny. I thought you would laugh.”
“They think I’m your whore!”
“Any fecker who says that’ll answer straight to me. Fists or knives. And he’ll be out of the Boys for life, made man or not.” My old scar pulses. This is a promise I can keep.
But Samantha says, “You can’t do that.”
“I’m the Captain. I can do whatever I want.”
“Then send Fiona home.”
Christ. I’m the Captain of the Fishtown Boys. But Kieran Ingram is General of the GIU. I hedge: “She means nothing to me. ”
“Get rid of her.”
“I can’t,” I have to admit.
“Can’t?” Samantha challenges. “Or won’t?”
“Her da has my bollocks in his back pocket.”
“And what are you doing to change that?”
I don’t have an answer for her. I’m waiting for Fiona to get bored. I’m hoping Kieran’ll find another Clan to persecute. I’m thinking a man who smokes three packs a day and sounds like every breath’s his last can’t hang on forever.
“If she doesn’t leave of her own accord, I’ll send her packing after Easter.”
“Easter!”
“Less than a month, piscín .”
She leaves my excuse hanging there for what seems like forever. But finally, she whispers, “Promise?”
I reach for her hand. Pull it close to my heart. Cover it with my other fingers, like I’m trapping a frightened bird. “I promise.”
Come Easter, Fiona will have learned all she can about the Fishtown Boys. Come Easter, I’ll have a fair argument for sending her home. I hope. I pray.
Samantha finally nods. “Easter,” she says.
I can’t stop myself from from kissing her. Releasing her head, I tangle my fingers in her hair. She moans a little, into my mouth, and my cock turns to steel.
I want to lay her out on the table. I want to shove her narrow black skirt up to her hips. I want to yank down whatever panties she’s wearing—black or white or gray, I don’t give a holy fuck—and I want to bury my face between her thighs and suck her clit until she screams. And when she’s dissolved like wet candy floss, when her legs hang limp over the edge of the table, then I want to sink my cock deep inside that pool of sweetness and bring her back for another round or three.
My fingers are going for her hem when the conference room door opens.