Chapter 25
25
SAMANTHA
T his morning, I told Braiden that Fiona wasn’t the problem.
I was wrong.
Fiona arrived the first day Birte was out of the attic. That made it difficult to calculate how much household chaos could fairly be attributed to Braiden’s first wife and what belonged on Fiona’s own doorstep.
But those leather outfits… That constant smirk… The never-ending sexual energy she brought to everything from breakfast to business meetings… From the first moment Fiona crossed Thornfield’s gate, she did her utmost to undermine me.
There once was a whore, wore a collar…
This isn’t a mob thing. It’s a woman thing. Fiona wants my man, and she’ll stop at nothing—even immature, threatening limericks—to get him.
I refuse to let her win.
When I’m an hour outside of Boston, I pull into a rest stop. With the car engine running, I take out my phone and call up Lexis-Nexis, a legal research app I use every day at the office.
Lexis can tell me a lot about individuals. I can find out if someone owns a car, boat, or plane. I can track down their driver’s license number and their passport number. I can locate outstanding judgments and liens, along with any bankruptcies they might have filed. And I can find a home address.
All I need to do is lie.
The system asks if I have a legitimate need to know the information I seek. There’s a long list of justifications, but none applies to my current situation. I don’t hesitate before I tap the button that says I’m a law enforcement officer.
I’m accepting a wide range of penalties if I’m caught, but five minutes later, I have a home address for Fiona and Kieran Ingram.
Plugging the information into a map, I discover it’s a massive three-story home taking up half a city block in South Boston. That makes sense. Southie has been an Irish-Catholic neighborhood for ages. Just the type of place an Irish Mob boss would frequent.
I tap the screen on my phone and follow turn-by-turn directions to the Ingram family home.
Growing up in Philadelphia, I lived in the shadow of Antonio Russo’s sprawling downtown compound. I’ve spent the past four months at Braiden’s suburban mansion. I understand mobsters’ strongholds. But the Ingram family home is something completely different.
The street looks like any other road in Southie—narrow, well-worn, with clapboard houses sagging on their foundations as if they’re too exhausted to stand straight any longer. On most blocks, cars are parked nose to tail, so close together they look like they’ve been lifted into place with a crane.
But one block is different. There are no cars on the street. A couple of kids slouch on the corner, shoulders slumped, hands in their pockets. They look young enough for junior high. I wonder if school has already let out for the day, or if they’re playing hooky.
Two grown men stand on either side of the Ingrams’ front door. Massachusetts must be an open-carry state—these guys make no attempt to hide their shoulder holsters or the textured grips of their handguns. They’re wired, too, with visible plastic earpieces hinting at easily summoned reinforcements.
The thugs stare at me as I drive past the dark gray house. I keep my eyes on the road, but I get a vague impression of slicked-back hair a couple of decades out of date and determined jaws just begging someone, anyone, to say the wrong thing.
Two more dropouts hunch against the lamppost at the far corner. One of them whistles—at me or at the Mercedes, I can’t be sure. His buddy cuffs him hard across the back of his head.
It takes me two blocks to find legal parking, and then I’m grateful for the Mercedes’ smooth power steering. I nail the space with less than an inch to spare. It feels wrong to leave the car here, unattended, but I don’t have a choice.
My fingers have just closed on the grip of my briefcase when my phone rings. Glancing at the screen, I’m not surprised to see Braiden’s name. He’s already called two dozen times, precisely on each quarter hour, the entire time I drove north.
Clearly, he’s over his tantrum from breakfast, and he’s back to his trademark control. I’ve glanced at all the transcribed voicemails he’s left. They’re identical: Samantha, this is urgent. Phone me immediately.
If Braiden wants to apologize, he can do that by message too. And if he doesn’t, I’m not ready to talk to him.
I clutch my briefcase and get out of my car.
The juvenile delinquents on the street corner stand straight as I approach. The one who wolf-whistled reaches into his jeans pocket and produces a phone. Barely glancing down, he taps the screen. I feel as if I’ve rung a doorbell.
The kids have no right to stop me from using a public sidewalk, but the weight of their combined stares feels like a javelin between my shoulder blades. Trying not to twitch, I make my way to the serious enforcers at the main door.
“I’m here to see Fiona Ingram,” I say.
“There’s no one here by that name,” Tweedledum says, almost before I get out the last syllable.
I shift my briefcase, not afraid to make this look like an official visit. “We both know that’s not true.”
“ If a Fiona Ingram lived here, she’d accept service through her attorney.” Tweedledee chimes in. His Boston accent is thick; her name sounds like Fioner.
“I’m not serving process.”
“We have to ask you to move along now.” Tweedledum takes a step forward, intentionally crowding into my comfort zone.
I square my shoulders. “No, you don’t. You have to let me in to see Fiona.”
Sunlight glints off the butt of Tweedledee’s pistol. “If you know enough to ask about the Ingrams here, then you know enough to understand why it’s a very bad idea to outstay your welcome.”
The man has a point. One I intend to ignore, but a point, all the same.
Pretending my heart isn’t pounding, I cross to the far side of the street. I plant my feet in front of the run-down house there and cup my hands around my mouth. “Fiona!” I shout. “Fiona Ingram!”
Tweedledum lunges across the street to pin my biceps in a grip so tight I know I’ll be bruised for a week. A curtain twitches at a window on the Ingrams’ third floor, but falls back before I glimpse a face. A door opens behind me, but it slams closed so quickly I wonder if it was caught by a localized hurricane. At the far end of the street, a man and woman approach, only to be held back by the kids at the corner.
“Let that be the last stupid mistake you make today, Samantha Mott,” Tweedledum growls .
Someone has fed him information through his earpiece. They must have noted my Mercedes, out of place in this neighborhood. They ran my license plate through a database like LexisNexis.
Tweedledum clearly thinks his using my name will terrify me. But from Day One, Kieran Ingram has taken the position that my marriage to Braiden doesn’t exist. I’m not a proper wife because Father Brennan wasn’t a proper priest.
That makes me a civilian. And the Mob can’t hurt an outsider. They can’t harm one woman bringing a private complaint to another woman’s doorstep. Not if Kieran Ingram intends to live by his own code.
Tweedledee presses his fingertips to his ear, clearly receiving instructions from someone inside the Ingram castle. Ignoring him, I shout to the third-floor window: “Fiona! Call off your dogs!”
Tweedledum snarls and tightens his grip on my arm. Involuntary tears spark in the corners of my eyes, but I raise my chin and call out again. “Fiona! How’s this for a limerick? There once was a woman from Southie!”
I don’t have a second line in mind, but I’m spared the need to scramble for one because the Ingrams’ door opens. A kid, even younger than the boys on the corner, steps onto the stoop.
Tweedledee glances over his shoulder and barks, “What?”
The kid pipes, “Let her in.”
Tweedledum drags me across the street. He keeps his grip tight as Tweedledee frisks me. The scowling goon makes sure I’m not hiding anything in my bra. He spends a lot more time than necessary checking for a weapon in the waistband of my pants, and he uses the excuse of potential ankle holsters to shove his face into my crotch.
I refuse to let him see a reaction. And when he finally decides I’m not an armed threat, I stand straight, stepping into the clapboard house like I have every right to be here.
I don’t know what I expected—maybe an armory guard room with a dozen soldiers, or a secret passage to a basement lair, or a blinding white reception area like some exclusive doctor’s office.
But what I find is a parlor that looks like it was decorated in the middle of the last century. There’s a plastic-covered couch with a huge floral print. It faces a pair of matching armchairs with sagging seats. A coffee table is covered with water stains from years of drinking glasses placed without coasters. The entire room reeks of stale cigarette smoke.
No. Not the room. It’s the man standing in front of me who reeks.
He’s shorter than I am by half a foot. His face is an unhealthy yellow-gray, and his eyes are set deep in fans of wrinkles. His chin is cobbled, as if something broke up the underlying bone a century or two ago. His wool suit hangs loosely from his shoulders, making me think he’s recently lost a lot of weight.
“Yer makin’ a mistake, lass.” His accent is thicker than anything I’ve ever heard from Braiden’s lips.
“Kieran Ingram.” I don’t pretend it’s a question.
“Tell yer man t’ fight his own battles.”
“Braiden didn’t send me. He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Then yer a lot more foolish than th’ stories I hear.”
I don’t ask what stories. I don’t want to know. “I want to see Fiona.”
“If she wanted t’ see ya, she’d be here instead o’ me.”
“With all due respect, I don’t care what Fiona wants.”
I’m not surprised my reply makes him angry. But I am surprised when his sharp intake of breath sets off a coughing fit. He digs his fist into his thigh, fighting for breath. His sallow face flushes, then turns red, then purple.
When he finally regains control, he drags a handkerchief from his pocket. I catch a glimpse of bright red after he spits, but he hides it quickly.
Before he can say a word, I pull the limerick out of my briefcase. There’s no way Ingram can read the words from across the room, but his eyes narrow when he sees the smear of lipstick at the end.
“Tell Fiona this is the last time she threatens me.”
He asks, “Do I look like a feckin’ message boy?”
“Tell her,” I say. “And if anything happens to me, if I so much as stumble and stub my toe, my lawyer has orders to send the original straight to the FBI.” I’m lying about the last bit, but I’ll call Teddy the moment I’m back at Thornfield. Sonja too, for good measure.
“Yer man’s too smart t’ run t’ the feds.”
“I already told you. Braiden didn’t send me. This isn’t Fishtown business. Not the Union’s, either. This is just between Fiona and me. Tell her.”
I drop the goddamn poem back into my briefcase and turn on my heel, leaving the room while Ingram’s still spluttering threats. Out on the sidewalk, Tweedledum and Tweedledee startle to attention, but I ignore them. I pass the corner boys without looking left or right.
I’m so grateful to reach the Mercedes unmolested that I have to swallow the urge to sob. But I maneuver out of my parking space with a minimum of turning the wheel. I head back to the freeway. To Thornfield. To home.
I’ve done what I came here to do. I’ve told Fiona I won’t tolerate her threats.
So now it’s time to deal with Braiden Kelly.