Chapter 22
22
brAIDEN
T he air is soft outside St. Columba’s as we gather after Easter Sunday Mass. Samantha and Aiofe are round the corner in the churchyard, filling an Easter basket with eggs hidden by the good ladies of the Altar Guild. Birte’s at home with Grace Poole, because I don’t trust either of them in public.
Fiona’s holding court on the pavement, leaning against Madden’s neon green McLaren and baiting my crew. The dress she’s wearing is as far from an Easter frock as possible—all black leather, with belts and buckles that look like a detailed illustration of the devil’s work. Her lips are bright red and shiny, and her laugh makes promises I know she’ll never keep.
Madden stands on the edge of the crowd. I haven’t seen him since I broke his jaw and from the set of his teeth, he’s still wired shut. His necktie is pulled too tight around his throat. It looks like he’s lost weight after three weeks of drinking dinner through a straw.
None of that keeps him from undressing Fiona with his eyes. I close the distance between us, angrier than I have any right to be. When I cuff his head, I use the side of my hand so the blow is harder than it looks. “Don’t mess with her.”
“Or what?” The words are slurred because of the metal in his mouth, but he’s clearly not backing down.
I don’t have an answer for him. Same as I don’t have an answer for Kieran Ingram, who’s sure to nail me with today’s deadline. There was never a question of my sending Birte back to Ireland, not with her as mad and broken as ever. And I won’t drive Samantha away. I’ll always be two marriages over the limit to meet Ingram’s demand.
But I say to Madden, “Fiona Ingram’s not for the likes of you.” I try to emphasize my point with another swipe, but he blocks my hand with his forearm.
“Who’s to say I haven’t had her already?”
Sure. Like he’s had his so-called contortionist and a thousand other girls.
I try not to stare at Fiona’s black leather corset, even when she starts wriggling like she’s just discovered a new way to drive my boys mad. It takes me a moment to realize she’s digging a phone from between her tits.
The sun sparkles on the metal case as she answers a call. Turning toward me, her eyes lock on mine over the crowd. She nods. Says something. Closes the distance between us on her sky-high heels, phone extended.
Time to pay the piper.
“Happy Easter,” I say into the phone, once she hands it over. I pause just long enough to make my point, and then I add, “Boss.”
Kieran Ingram coughs like he’s already halfway through his second pack of the day. I use the break to point a finger at Madden, then to gesture at the knot of Fishtown Boys trading lies around his eyesore of a car. My brother scowls, but he follows my silent order, herding them away to give me some semblance of privacy for the call .
When Ingram finally comes up for air, he says, “Tell me yer havin’ th’ priest read th’ banns.”
“You’re living in the past, Boss. There’s not a priest in America who does that anymore.”
“Then ya have some other excuse fer not gettin’ a ring on my daughter’s hand by this morning?”
“You know my excuse. I’m already married.”
“To a girl ya don’t want and to a lyin’ slag.”
“Mind your fucking mouth,” I say, before I consider the cost.
Ingram’s answer is lost in yet another coughing fit. The man has to be short one lung by now. Maybe half another.
Fiona can’t know exactly what her da is saying, but she has some general idea. Her teeth stand out against the scarlet lip she’s caught.
I take a deep breath while Ingram fights for a shallow one. I count to five. I exhale even slower. And when the coughing finally lets up, I say, “Enough. Fiona will be home by midnight.”
Her eyes narrow in defiance. Ingram’s speechless for long enough that I’d think the call had dropped, if not for his raspy breathing. Finally, he says, “Yer passin’ on th’ best business deal o’ th’ century, boyo.”
“I am,” I say. I don’t need to argue about boyo . I’m taking the upper hand. Finally.
“Yer leavin’ behind some terrible hurt feelin’s.”
“That was never my intention.”
“A little spondoolicks’ll go a long way toward makin’ things right.”
Money. He’s holding me up for cold, hard cash. And he’s doing it using a word only an Irishman would know. We’re brothers, he’s saying. We’re all in this together.
Has it been about money all along? He doesn’t like the drop in my tithe, so he’ll whore out his daughter. Make me pay up another way. It makes cold, vicious sense.
“What’s your price, old man?”
From the shock on Fiona’s face, she’s never heard anyone speak to her da with that tone. Or maybe she’s just come to realize that Ingram’s been using her for bait all along.
“Ten mill’s a good start,” he says. “Along with an extra five points on all ya earn fer th’ next ten years.”
It feels good to laugh, long and loud, like one of Ingram’s coughing fits. “Not on your feckin’ life,” I finally say.
“Pay me now ’n’ ya get off cheap. Yer goombah lawyer slag’ll tie ya up in divorce court fer more?—”
“See, that’s where you’ve made a mistake,” I interrupt. “An expensive one. I told you to mind your fucking mouth. But you just keep bringing the woman I love into this conversation. And that’s going to cost you . A lot.”
“Yer not th’ one t’ decide?—”
“Fiona’ll go home with a hundred thousand, and you’ll both be grateful for that.”
“Don’t ya interrupt me, boyo!”
“Call me boyo one more time, you miserable cunt, and I’ll come with Fiona, just to knock your teeth down your throat.”
“I’m yer fuckin’ General!”
“Then stop whoring out your daughter and act like it.”
I end the call as Ingram’s spluttering boils over into another coughing fit. “Your da needs you back in Boston,” I say to Fiona, handing back her phone.
She shakes her head, but she takes the device. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” she says.
“For the first time since you got here, I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“He’ll ruin you.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
The phone in her hand starts to ring. She glances at the screen, then holds it out to me. “Tell him you’re sorry. You made a mistake.”
“I’m not. And I didn’t.”
“Tell him you need some time to think.”
“I don’t. ”
“Tell him?—”
“I’m not telling him a thing, Fiona. Now answer the call and let him know you need his plane. Because I swear to God, if he doesn’t send it, I’ll put you on commercial.”
But she doesn’t answer the call. She waits until the ringing stops, and then she thumbs a button, cutting off whatever follow-up Ingram might try.
“I’m not leaving Philadelphia,” she says.
“You’re a grown woman. Do whatever you want. But I’m calling Fairfax right now and telling him to have your bags outside Thornfield’s gate by sunset.”
Fiona glares as I take my phone out of my breast pocket. “Don’t bother,” she says. “I’ll be out of there.”
I wait, not trusting her. But she turns to the men by the church steps. “Madden!” she calls, walking toward him, all hips and tits and a smile that says she eats men for breakfast. “Can I trouble you for a ride?”
My brother jumps like someone clipped live wires to his bollocks. His grin is broad as he takes his keys out of his pocket. The metal bits shine as he tosses them into the air and catches them. Fiona doesn’t look back as he hands her into the McLaren.
Samantha and Aiofe come around the corner from the churchyard just as the acid-green car roars away from St. Columba’s. Aiofe startles at the noise, nearly dropping the wicker basket in her hands. Samantha steadies her, bending down to say something I can’t catch above the racket.
A fresh breeze catches Samantha’s dress, the one I had Fairfax carry out to the pool house yesterday. It’s a riot of flowers, all pinks and purples, and I spent too much of Father Regis’ mass wondering what she’s wearing underneath. Even now, I’m tempted to lure her back inside the church, to drag her into one of the confessionals for a few minutes of indecent privacy.
“Everything okay?” she asks as they reach me.
Without thinking, I close one hand over her hip. I lean down and brush a kiss against her lips, catching a whiff of something that smells like sunshine. Just the feel of her, the warmth of her, unlocks something in my shoulders, and I draw my first full breath since Fiona handed me her feckin’ phone.
“It is now,” I say.
Samantha’s a lawyer. She’s used to clients lying. To telling lies herself. She doesn’t believe me for a second. But I direct a pointed glance toward Aiofe, and she lets it go.
“What’s the craic, little one?” I ask, cementing the diversion.
Aiofe holds up her basket, which is filled with brightly colored plastic eggs, the kind that open to hold boiled sweets.
“For me?” I ask, making a show of choosing the biggest one.
She squeals a protest and pulls the basket away. But then she thinks twice and digs into her stash. She pokes around for a moment, and I’m not surprised when she comes up with a bright green egg.
“Thank you,” I say, as if she’s offered me the legendary Sword of Nuada. “I’ll give it to Fairfax and ask him to cook it for breakfast tomorrow.”
Laughing, she shakes her head. I let her take the egg from me, and she shows me how it opens, how it’s filled with treats.
“Now that makes more sense,” I say, which makes her laugh again.
“Time to head home?” Samantha asks.
We can’t go back to Thornfield. Not until Fiona is packed and gone. “A day this lovely, I thought we’d take some air. What do you think about a trip to the zoo?”
I can tell Samantha’s suspicious, but she won’t push, not after I settle a warning hand on the ribbon in Aiofe’s hair. So she shrugs, and Aiofe claps her hands, and I lead the way to the Bentley like I haven’t a care in the world.
Like I haven’t just launched a war against the General of the Grand Irish Union.