Chapter 5
KATE
Cole and I stand in our bedroom. From the window, I can glimpse the garage and a new gunmetal-gray generator providing power to the security team now working around the clock.
“I don’t understand,” Cole says. “Why do we need to drive all the way to Baltimore, just to share another miserable meal with your parents?”
I clench my hands into fists, then spread my fingers wide, as if it’s possible to throw away the tension knitted into my shoulders. “It’s Sunday Roast,” I say helplessly. “Lamb. Veg. Colcannon.”
“I’ll have a new cookbook delivered within the hour,” Cole says. “Anna will be a colcannon expert by dinnertime.”
I think I’m supposed to smile, but I’ve never been good at doing the things I ought to do. “Mam asked me to come,” I say.
“The mother who is welcomed Pyotr Tarasov into her house?”
Cole is being surprisingly subtle. Mam welcomed Pyotr into her bed, at the same time she was plotting Breagha’s marriage to the bratva brigadier.
“I need to see Da,” I whisper.
There. That’s the truth. My father suffered a major stroke a month ago. Nikolai Tarasov exaggerated the other day—Da isn’t in diapers. But he isn’t well. As a loyal Lynch, I need to see him and I’m terrified to see him and I’d give almost anything for Cole to forbid me to go to Baltimore.
Instead, he takes out his mobile and taps a quick message.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“Jacobson,” he says. Anthony Jacobson is the Sawgrass agent managing Cole’s security team.
“Do we need to get him involved? We’re only going to see my parents. We aren’t even bringing Breagha or Granny.”
“To Baltimore. Within two miles of Nikolai Tarasov’s fort. In territory the mob and the bratva have been disputing for decades. This is exactly when Jacobson needs to be involved.”
He’s right, of course. But I think he regrets his action when Jacobson announces he’ll drive the presidential-grade SUV—bulletproof glass and specially reinforced panels—with my bodyguard, Cameron, armed with a rifle in the front seat.
Jacobson wants two escort cars as well, one in front and one behind, each with a similarly armed lookout.
It’s feckin’ ridiculous. It’s paranoid and it’s ostentatious and it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
But it’s easier to agree to the team than fight my way clear. Even when Jacobson insists on a half-hour delay while he consults with his men on the most secure route to the Canton Crew compound.
When we finally arrive, Jacobson negotiates with the footsoldiers guarding the gate. I recognize Davey O’Farrell; he’s had the job for years. There’s a new man with him, lean as a ferret, with a hungry look that makes me wonder how badly the Crew’s business has fallen off since Da fell ill.
I don’t have to read lips to understand the argument Jacobson has with Davey. Jacobson wants his men to secure the premises before Cole and I exit our vehicle. Davey’s not inclined to agree, as he communicates by flashing the Glock holstered at his waist. The ferret merely watches.
The argument goes on for a quarter-hour before I open my door. Cameron hits the ground before I do. “Get back in the car,” he orders.
I shove past him. “Davey. Open the gate.”
“For you, yeah. But not for these yokes. Your Mam said only you.”
Mam. Not Da. I need to get inside more than ever.
The old Kate would throw a tantrum now. She’d rant and rave and tell Davey and the ferret to fuck themselves.
But I’ve learned how to bargain. “Cole comes with me,” I say, before I gesture at Jacobson and Cameron. “And they wait in the parlor. The rest of our men stay outside the gate.”
Davey frowns as if he’s trying to solve quadratic equations in his head. The ferret’s eyes shift rapidly from Davey to me to the men arrayed behind me. Davey finally settles on an answer. “Your Mam says—”
“Mam’s a Lynch by marriage. I’m a Lynch by blood. If you call yourself loyal to the Canton Crew, then step aside, Davey O’Farrell.”
He steps aside.
Jacobson isn’t happy, but he falls in behind me, jutting his chin for Cameron to come along. Cole takes his place by my side, and we finally enter the fussy Victorian mansion I called home for the first twenty-five years of my life.
Jacobson doesn’t bother renewing his objection when I wave him toward the parlor. Instead, he and Cameron take up positions just inside the door, like matching suits of armor. Cole comes along as I stomp to the dining room.
“Da!” I exclaim.
My father sits at the head of the table, his chair pushed back like a throne.
He’s wearing a suit, brown with beige stripes, wool that’s too heavy for this July Sunday, so his face is slick with sweat.
His trousers are either poorly tailored or he’s lost some of his girth; the fabric bunches beneath his belt.
I wonder if maybe Tarasov was right after all, and Da is wearing a nappy.
“Ka—ay,” my father says. His lips look oiled as he wrestles with my name. I skid to a stop while his throat ratchets around another word. Cole cups a steadying hand under my elbow. Da’s gaze is unfocused as he raises one trembling arm and repeats my name. “Ka—a—ay…”
“Katie, a chroí,” my mother says from the foot of the table, shattering the horror that has me rooted to the spot. “We’re so pleased you could join us.”
I whirl to remind her that my name isn’t Katie, that my name hasn’t been Katie since Pyotr Tarasov worked his damage. But the angry words parch on my lips when I see Mam isn’t alone at her end of the room.
She’s dressed in a summer frock meant for a woman half her age—spaghetti straps and a plunging neckline, with floods of pink ruffles spilling across her lap. She’s colored her hair too bright, too red. Her hands grip the arms of her chair like talons.
Beside her sits a man I’ve never seen before. His flat face looks like he’s spent too much time pressing it against a window; his nose is too wide for his narrow cheeks. His mussed hair and his eyes are the exact same shade: The gray-brown of a rat.
Cole plants himself between me and the stranger. My mother sucks in her belly, sitting taller in her chair. “Katie,” she warns in a knife-edged voice. “Cole. Ilya Danilov is here as my guest.”
Danilov.
I assume he’s bratva. And that explains the ferret out front with Davey O’Farrell.
Mam took up with Pyotr Tarasov the instant Da was in hospital. Truth be told, she probably fucked the Russian before that. She keeps her bread well-buttered—the rest of the Lynch clan be damned. I wonder what she’s getting from Danilov.
Half my DNA comes from Orla Lynch. I’d dig it out with a trowel if I could.
My father makes a groaning sound, as if all the gears inside him have crashed to a halt. His throat works, and his right hand trembles as he points toward the Russian invader. “Go,” he says. “You. Go.”
A wicked smile twists Mam’s mouth, drawing out the jagged scar above her upper lip. “Don’t be rude, Barry, dear.” She turns her calculating gaze on me. “Katie,” she says, pointing to the chair by Da’s twisted left hand. “Sit.”
The old fire rises inside me, scorching through my revulsion. I’m Kate, not Katie. Mam can’t order me around like a dog. I’ve been fighting her for decades, ever since I recognized the stinking rotten hole that passes for her heart.
My father hisses, a sound that might be sit or might be shite or might be the meaningless seep of air from a dented tin can. He grimaces and works the left half of his mouth, and this time he comes up with a clear enough word: “Please.”
For the first time in my life, Da is asking me to do something, instead of ordering. He needs me.
I sit. Cole takes his place beside me.
Mam doesn’t waste much time gloating over her victory. “Cook?” she calls. “We’re ready now.”
The dining room’s uneasy silence is filled with the squeal of a cart’s unoiled wheels.
Cook has been serving the Lynch family Sunday Roast since I was a child.
She moves slower than she used to, and her eyeglasses are thicker.
Her knuckles are so swollen that I wonder how she keeps her grip on the cart.
But she wastes no time setting out the traditional meal—lamb and three types of potatoes, roasted parsnips and carrots, grilled mushrooms and stewed onions and the colcannon that has always been Da’s favorite.
Cook finds space on the table for all of it before she puts a special plate in front of Da. Someone in the kitchen has cut his food for him—meat and veg, all in tiny squares.
Da protests when Cook sets the meal before him. His mouth works and he leans forward in his chair to pound the table.
“Such a racket!” Mam says, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. I’ve known that gesture for as long as I can remember. Mam is about to announce a migraine.
Ignoring her, I say to Cook. “He wants colcannon. There isn’t any on his plate.”
“It makes him gassy,” she says as Da continues to bellow like a lost calf.
“If the captain of the Canton Crew wants colcannon,” I say, standing to reach the bowl. “He’ll get colcannon. And the rest of us can open a window if we must.”
I ladle the potatoes and cabbage onto Da’s plate. Mam hisses as if I’ve burned her. Da digs in with his spoon, spilling mash down his front.
Mam scowls, but apparently she decides not to fight me. All thoughts of her headache disappear as she launches into a speech she’s obviously rehearsed. “Katie. Ilya and I are thrilled to have you here today.”
She makes it sound as if the Russian is her co-host for this meal, as if the food came out of his own larder. I glance at Da to see what he thinks of being erased like that, but he’s snuffling like a pig, shoveling in more colcannon with his shaky spoon.
I push my plate toward the center of the table, determined not to take a single bite. Cole remains an island of calm beside me.
Mam glares, but she doesn’t allow my gesture to interrupt her practiced words. “It’s time for the Canton Crew and the Tarasov bratva to patch up our disagreements.”
Patch up. She makes it sound as if some bratva thief came to Sunday Mass at St. Brigid’s wearing white after Labor Day.
Like a rogue clansman took the bread plate to his right at brunch.
There isn’t a hint in either her tone or her words that our disagreements include kidnapping, rape, and a trail of murdered bodies.
My fingers fold around my knife, but before I can select a target—Mam or Danilov—Cole grips my thigh beneath the table. His grasp is steady and hard through my linen trousers, igniting my tattoo and all the scars from my cutting.
Unaware that my husband has purchased her a few more seconds of peace, Mam reaches for her wineglass. “Ilya and I need your help, a stór.”
“Not bloody likely,” I push through clenched teeth.
“I know your sister is living with you now, after the unfortunate…disappearance of her fiancé.”
Death. It wasn’t a disappearance. I killed Pyotr Tarasov. But no one has found his body, and they won’t because Sawgrass was in charge of the disposal.
Narrowing my eyes, I wonder what Mam is plotting for Breagha. “Go on,” I say very carefully.
“Your father and I worked hard to find you a suitable husband,” Mam lies.
I glance at Cole, whose face reveals as much as a frozen river. He bought me so Da would hire him, so Cole could add the Crew to his endless list of clients. The fact that our scorched souls belong together has nothing to do with Mam or Da.
My mother settles her fingertips on Danilov’s forearm, interrupting his studied attack on a slice of lamb. I realize the Russian hasn’t said a word yet. I wonder if he speaks English. “Now it is your sister’s turn,” Mam says to me. “Ilya has promised to make her very happy.”
Breagha. Pawned off on another Russian. Part of my conniving mother’s ongoing plot to hamstring the Canton Crew for her personal power and prestige and wealth.
Apparently encouraged by my enraged silence, Mam says, “The wedding will be on the first of August.”
Breagha is sweet and good and innocent. She’s found a man she loves—Nathan Cohen, a grad student she met while packing food for the homeless. Nate is as far away from the Tarasov bratva as any man can possibly be, and the only thing my sister wants in the world is to marry him.
Mam is bold enough to issue a direct order. “Katie,” she says. “You will have your sister at St. Basil’s by no later than ten in the morning that day.”
“Go to hell.”
“What sort of a thing is that to say to your mother?”
“Go to fucking hell.”
I watch Mam flip through her options—shock, rage, faked incomprehension. She settles on hurt, crumpling her face into a mask of sorrow. “Why are you determined to be such a difficult child?”
“Why are you determined to whore out your younger daughter to a cocksucking Russian prick?”
Danilov has enough English to understand that. Mam sinks her claws into her pet Russian’s arm to keep him from pushing back from the table. “Katie! Apologize this instant!”
For one blinding instant, I picture my fists closing on the edge of the starched white tablecloth. I can tug it, hard. I can send flowers and china and silver and crystal flying. I can salvage a fork to stab at my mother’s narrowed eyes, then have a go at Ilya Danilov with a knife.
Before I can move, though, Da farts, loud and long and wet. The reek is enough to make Danilov swear in Russian. Even Cole grimaces.
And I decide to change my response.
I stand. I plant my hands on the table. I lean toward my mother and I say, “No.”
That’s a complete sentence. That’s a total thought.
Cole taught me the power of that one word. He’s used it when I’m at my worst, when I’m fighting him, when I’m battling my own best interest. He doesn’t justify himself. He doesn’t explain. He just shuts me down.
“But—” Mam tries.
“No,” I say again, cutting her off.
“Katie—”
“No,” I say one more time. And I leave that stinking hellhole of a dining room, certain my husband will follow.