Chapter 26
26
brAIDEN
“ S amantha, this is urgent. Phone me immediately.” I refuse to change my intonation. I already expressed my anger this morning, and that’s why we’re in this mess.
But if she thinks I’ll give up first, she clearly hasn’t been paying attention the past four months.
Plus, she hasn’t blocked me.
A call comes in before I can return my phone to my pocket. “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.” Possibly the last sound in the world I want to hear right now.
“Boss,” I answer, because Ingram might get off the phone faster if I don’t purposely antagonize him.
“If ya don’t curb yer bitch, boyo, she’ll get a bullet in her head.”
My stomach tightens. He ordered me to make Fiona my bitch, and I refused. Birte and Aiofe and Grace are all secure at Thornfield; none of them can be the bitch who’s feeding Ingram’s rage .
“If you set one finger on Samantha, I’ll see you buried in a shallow grave, old man.”
How the fuck did she get all the way to Boston in the time she’s been gone? She must have averaged seventy on the Interstate, and still been lucky with traffic. I don’t bother wondering how she found Ingram; she’s smart and she’s strong, and apparently she’s highly motivated.
“Yer bitch came into my home, talkin’ about goin’ t’ th’ FBI.”
“Call her that again, and I’ll be the one in your home.”
“Yer not listenin’, boyo. F. B. I . She said it like she was writin’ up her grocery list.”
Oh, Samantha… What have you done now?
I can take a hard line, telling Ingram he’s brought this on himself, sending Fiona down here in the first place, upping the ante with his Easter deadline. I can remind him Samantha’s a lawyer, that she doesn’t make idle threats, and if she mentioned the feds, she must have had good reason. I can tell him he’s old and sick and he must have misunderstood.
But the truth is, Ingram’s taken out men for less than Samantha’s done. Everyone knows the old man had Finn Monahan executed—rat in mouth, the whole nine yards—just for wearing a gag t-shirt he bought on a street corner in Washington, DC. FBI , it said in big block letters. And smaller, around a fake badge: Female Body Inspector.
Kieran Ingram won’t tolerate any mention of the feds in his territory. And I can’t imagine what possessed Samantha to drive three hundred miles to taunt him.
At least I know why she hasn’t responded to my voicemail messages.
“What’re ya gonna do about her, boyo?”
“She’s not going to any feds.”
“I hear yer voice. ’N’ I understand yer words. But ya don’t have any way o’ knowin’ what yer one’s about to do. ”
Yer one . That’s better than bitch . He’s not ready to pull the trigger yet. Not ready to force my hand.
“She’s on her way home now,” I say. I don’t know if I’m lying. I have no idea where Samantha is. And I’d be incriminating myself, to even imply she’s been out of touch.
His voice ratchets higher. “Ya take her in hand, boyo.”
“I will.” That grim promise is easy to make.
His tone rises a few more notes. “Ya make her understand what she can and cannot say.”
“She’ll understand.”
“If I—” He’s worked himself into a proper fit. He breaks into one of his coughing jags.
This time is worse than the others. His cough is deeper. Wetter. It goes on for long enough that I wonder if I should end the call and reach out to 911. Or, at least to Fiona, so she can get him the medical care he clearly needs.
“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph,” he finally groans. And then he’s right back in the thick of our argument. “Yer one,” he says, and something’s shifted. He’s angrier. More determined. “She’s not just talkin’ t’ th’ feds. She’s sellin’ ya out t’ th’ dagos.”
I roll my eyes. Fiona must have passed on Madden’s paranoid fantasies.
“She isn’t,” I tell Ingram. “Antonio Russo killed her parents. Her cousin, too. She’d die before she’d tell Russo the first thing about how I run the Fishtown Boys.”
“She’d die,” Ingram repeats. “Then ya understand what has t’ happen.”
A chill knifes through my gut, but I argue with the old man. “You’re not listening. Samantha hates Russo.”
“But she told him about yer shipment at th’ docks.”
“She didn’t?—”
“And she let him into yer pub.”
Jesus. Fiona’s trotted out all the old lies. “Samantha had nothing to do with Russo burning down the Hare and Harp. ”
“She told that wop where t’ find yer man. Donovan O’Keefe.”
Just the name is enough to make me picture the live video feed on my phone. Donny lashed to a chair, broken and beaten. Donny soaked with petrol, an Irish flag jammed down his throat. Donny writhing in flames, screaming for longer than I thought any man could.
Cold sweat coats my palms. When I remember how to swallow, all I taste is battery acid.
“Samantha didn’t hand over Donny.”
“Stop listenin’ t’ yer prick, boyo. Start seein’ th’ facts.”
I close my eyes, searching for the magic words that will make Ingram understand. I start: “I don’t know who’s been telling you stories.”
But it has to be Fiona. She had to tell him something about why I sent her packing. She had to justify my choosing Samantha over her.
“This isn’t about stories, boyo. This is about trust. And if I can’t trust one o’ my own captains?—”
“You can trust me,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I thought I could trust ya wi’ Fiona,” he shouts. “We had a plan!”
I wonder if one of his men is in the room with him. Maybe he’s embarrassed by that coughing fit, by what it took out of him. He has to prove he’s still strong enough to be general. That’s why he’s being so stubborn.
I purposely pitch my voice low, still hoping to calm him. Hoping he’ll let me end this feckin’ call so I can leave Samantha another voicemail and get her home where she belongs. “There wasn’t a plan,” I remind him. “I never said I’d marry Fiona. You said that.”
“Well, I’m sayin’ this, too, boyo. Ya take care o’ yer one, once and fer all. Ya make sure she never talks t’ th’ feds. Can I trust ya with that ? Or is it time fer someone else t’ run Philly?”
It’s a fucking loyalty test. I kill Samantha, and I’m allowed to keep the clan. I refuse, and someone else takes over the Fishtown Boys.
And Ingram takes out Samantha and me, both. That’s the bit he hasn’t said out loud.
“You don’t want to do that,” I say with false calm. “Not with all the attention on her now, the press about her car crash.”
“About th’ weans she killed? She’s poison, boyo. Get rid of her.”
“If something happens to her now, important people will ask a lot of questions. Questions that will attract too much attention.”
Attention from the FBI.
I think about saying that last bit out loud. But that might overplay my hand. I can’t sign my own death warrant while I’m fighting against Samantha’s.
Ingram says, “Don’t think I’m fergettin’ my Fiona. With yer side bit gone, ya can do what ya should’ve done th’ first time yer general gave ya orders.”
“Samantha’s not my si?—”
He cuts me off. “Do. It.”
He ends the call before I can.
Fingers shaking, I place yet another call to Samantha. I don’t care that it’s not the quarter hour. I don’t care about keeping my voice perfectly even. I don’t care about making her more angry, or frightened, or sad.
“Samantha,” I say when she doesn’t pick up. “Game’s over, piscín . This just turned life or death. Get your arse home now.”