4. Finn
Finn
Fire and Ruin
No one’s on the kill list today, so I’ve got my phone with me.
“Yep?”
The voice at the end of the line doesn’t buzz, but barks. “Finn! Get your arse to the dockside warehouse now. What are you like? It’s a reply I want to hear when I say your name.”
My grin is back, even though the old man’s not around to see it.
“Sure. See you in a bit.”
I head to the O’Shea warehouse on the waterfront. The one part of town where property developers and landowners are too afraid to even dream of gentrifying.
Like the old man says, “Over my dead body.”
Sure, and everyone else’s too.
Connor O’Shea runs the operation like a well-oiled machine. It’s safe to say that he runs me too—winds me up like one of those fecking automated toys and points me in the direction of anyone who gets in his way.
I guess that makes me a well-oiled machine too. Of the killing kind.
Putting the frighteners on the enemy can take many forms. Maiming, mugging, threats. All in my playbook and set loose whenever the old man bears a grudge.
As head of the longshoremen’s union, old Connor makes sure the kickbacks keep coming. Construction projects, dock maintenance, port access and cargo processing; if the dues aren’t paid or there’s no Irish origins in a name somewhere along the line, then it doesn’t get done.
We look after our own.
Eamon runs the bar trade on Fourth Avenue, but it’s only because he’s family. If the fella could drink whiskey in heaven, he would’ve gone ahead of us to sit at the right hand of God a long time ago.
My phone buzzes again. I bang on the warehouse wicket door. “Hold your fecking horses. I don’t have wings.”
The soldier who lets me inside gives me the nod. “It’s a forked tail and pitchfork you’re more likely to end up with, Finn, not wings.”
“I’ll not disagree with you there, Johnny.” It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dark. But I know my direction already.
A wooden chair in the middle of the concrete warehouse floor, under the dim glow of a single lightbulb.
When I reach it, Connor emerges out of the shadows. “You took your time.”
“My dance card was full, remember?”
The old man pauses, scratches his head, thinking. “The cashier with the light fingers?”
“Sure.” We both know what I’m going to say next, but it has to be said either way. “Eamon should’ve been the one to notice, not the fecking smartarse accountant.”
My old man won’t hear a bad word said against his brother. “He was watering down the whiskey and pocketing the cash. That’s not an easy trick to catch.”
All the pubs run on cash. Flashing a bank card in an O’Shea bar is likely to get someone’s head kicked in. We keep the front of house clean and the books balanced.
That way leaves the customers happy to run up their debts on the betting books in the back room, the books the accountants never get to see.
The man in the chair quivers and tries to make us stop talking over his head. “Ah, for the love of God, Mr. O’Shea, don’t be talking business in front of me, I’m begging you.”
I ignore him. “What’s this one’s story?”
The old man doesn’t bat a lash. “This sorry arse? He promised the union a kickback that never came.”
The man in the chair pleads. “It’s coming! I promise! I’ll get it—”
I shut him up with a clip upside the back of his head. That pulled a bit around the shoulder and armpit of my leather jacket. Means my shoulder muscles are broadening.
Rolling my shoulders and swinging my arms, I loosen up. “It’s a new jacket I’ll be needing if this carries on.”
I shrug out of the jacket and lope to the wall to hang it off a hook. I roll up the sleeves of my shirt on the way back to the chair. “How do you want to handle this?”
The question is posed out of respect. I already know where this is heading.
“He’s not leaving until I have the money.”
The fella in the chair is eager to please. “I’ll get the money! I promise—”
The rest of his promise gets expelled from his lungs as hot air as my punch lands just below his solar plexus. I glance up at the old man. “What’s the figure?”
He mentions five figures. That gets a whistle out of me. “Sure. Will you accept pink slips and coins?”
“Face value only. None of this market value bullshit.”
I bend so the man in the chair can see my face in the light and not hidden by darkness. I make sure to keep my hands in my pockets so he isn’t too spooked. “You hear that, fella? Let’s get that calculator in your head churning out some numbers, yeah?”
He closes his eyes so he can’t see my face. It makes the next blow land with both pain and shock. The blood sprays from the hard bone under his eye like a geyser.
The old man whistles. “Leave him alive to sign the damn ownership papers, Finn, why don’t you?”
I jerk my head toward the door. “I’ll get Johnny to text you when I’m done here.”
My father sniffs, shrugs, and leaves me to it. Wind-up toy activated. Weapon primed.
I’m out after this gets done. The man who owns the commercial laundromat opposite Damian’s bakery told me that Saoirse is picking up half a dozen pies for the meet and greet after Mass tomorrow.
Her meet and greet will be arriving earlier than expected. Damian moved his assistant out so I—we—can use the apartment above the bakery kitchen.
Those perfect red lips will whisper prayers for me and me alone. The pale skin beneath her shapeless dresses will reveal itself to me. And that long, dark, tangled mass of hair will grow its tentacles into my heart and put down roots there.
“Ah’ll thign o’er the Errari! Beeze… beeze thtop”
I push my face under the light, turn my head to show I’m listening. “What was that again?”
Everything he says sounds like vowels without teeth and lips to sharpen the words. The man in the chair hangs his head. It looks like he’s weeping blood.
“Ah ill thign o’er the Errari…”
I whip out my phone. “Year and make?”
He tells me; I look up the private sale prices.
“That checks out.” I pat his cheek. “There. That wasn’t so hard now, was it? Get your teeth fixed and your jaw wired, and you’ll be back to feeling like your old self by and by.”
I move to the metal sink in the restroom, calling Johnny over my shoulder. “He’s going to cough up the Ferrari. See that it’s done.”
The water in the sink turns rust brown when I put my hands under the faucet. Looking down, I see blood spattered on my shirt.
Johnny asks me where I’m heading off to as I shrug back into my jacket. It’s definitely getting too tight across the biceps, shoulders, and chest.
“I’m out. Phone off. No contact.”
He opens his mouth to warn me how Connor O’Shea doesn’t like it when I do that, but I’m already gone.
***
I’m waiting for her when Saoirse comes into the shop; I hold out my hand and she takes it.
We walk through the kitchen, past the hot ovens cycling blaas and the big machines kneading dough. The industrial racket fades behind us as we climb the stairs, but the scent of baked goods follows us up.
The door’s open. She pauses on the threshold to check out the front room.
“It’s the front room we’ll be using, Saoirse.”
Not the bedroom. Bedrooms are for those who want to strengthen a connection. I want to forge ours in steel and fire first.
She steps inside. One step, but I can tell that it’s the first of many.
“And whose blood d’you have on your shirt this time?” She points to the rusty spatters under my jacket. “It’s still wet, you realize. Should I be pleased that you managed to squeeze me into your busy schedule, blood-stained boy?”
I check my fingernails. Blood has seeped under the thin crescents. “That last one got under my skin, sure.”
“You shouldn’t let your work get to you. It’s bad for your heart.”
God in heaven, she’s so sweet.
Wrapping my arms around her, I pull her to my chest. “Ah, you’re sound, darlin’. I meant it for real. The blood got under my skin. Doing it didn’t get to me.”
She pulls away. “D’you wish it did?”
The girl must accept facts. “D’you ever wish the sun wouldn’t rise in the morning?”
Her eyes move to the blood on my shirt. She threads her fingers through mine and stares at the blood under my fingernails. She doesn’t recoil, but looks at my face. “I’m very fond of the sun as it so happens… I just don’t want to get burned by it.”
It has a way with words, this woman.
Touching her would pull at my heartstrings if I had any. We’re so close that she must feel my breath panting for her.
I’ll not burn you, Saoirse. And that instinct telling you to run? Ignore it.
I can’t resist pulling off the white band that holds back her hair. It falls in two hanks on either side of her face. When I tuck one side behind her ear, she swallows.
“There’s no controlling it, I’m telling you, Finn.”
She’s got that right. “Your hair?”
She nods. “Sure. But Mam said it was her pride and joy, so it’s stuck with it, I am.”
I move to the kitchen, give her some space, put on the kettle.
But I never take my eyes off her for more than a moment. “D’you like it?” That pretty thicket of matte black that first drew my eyes to you.
Saoirse moves to the window to inspect her reflection in the glass. “I don’t know anything different.”
I hand her the mug. Two sugars, skimmed milk, the way I know she likes it. She doesn’t like full cream; says it tastes too greasy.
She sips it and says “Ah” with her eyes closed. “Barry’s teabags are the best. Thank you.”
“No worries.”
She brings my hand up and holds it against her velvet cheek. When she steps back, I push forward. The air catches in her throat when my hand moves from her cheek, down to her jaw, and descends to her lily-white neck.
The kiss I want to give gets pulled back a fraction. I’m not touching her, not yet.
The near-kiss stretches out. I want her to feel it in her heart, not her mouth.
Neither of us close the distance and land the kiss. She, because I’ll be the first, and me, because she’ll be my last.
I swear the air crackles. The atmosphere is charged. The girl galvanizes me, pinning me to the spot with her special brand of magic.
She stops pulling away, but that’s only because her back’s against the wall. I like living on the edge and she must learn to like living there with me.
My calloused thumb drags her lower lip down. Its plump cushion is pillow soft. The girl smells of soap and apple-scented shampoo.
The tip of her tongue darts out to lick away the nervous dryness, but not to taste it.
I force my blood-tainted thumb into her mouth. She turns her head and shuts her eyes as the remnants of coppery fluid infects her innocence.
“Ugh.”
My grin can be cruel sometimes… most times.
Saoirse’s eyes fly open and lock onto me. She pushes me away with her slender arms.
“You’re revolting, you know that?”
I catch her before she can reach the door. I reel her back in. Sure, I’m laughing.
Spinning her against the wall, I lean over her, savoring this moment. Because she must remember it.
“Your revulsion lends spice to this grand occasion. It’ll stay with you long after the taste of tea is gone.”
She shakes her head and denies me. “No. You’re wrong. I pray you’re wrong.”
I watch her give up and accept it. The goosebumps rise on her delicious skin. She’s aroused by the notion. The idea of blood and sex and wicked attraction all mixed together.
This is my time to strike. Pinching her cheeks, I make her lips pout.
“You’re not going anywhere, little girl, not unless I say so. Understand?”
It’s a test. Is she brave enough to say yes?
She nods. A quick up-down of her head, like I’m a dangerous dog she daren’t take her eyes off.
Good enough.
“Say something, storí, something to break my spell.”
Her expression changes and her composure cracks. Only one other person ever called Saoirse a treasure and that was her Mam. The information is worth every penny I paid Liam for it.
I use the word now, not as a term of endearment, but as a weapon.
Storí. She’s a treasure, and I’m the dragon guarding it.
“I don’t want to break the spell, Finn… I like it.”
I kiss her rosy fingertips which only makes the goosebumps on her skin rise harder and faster.
Now, she knows. She has to tolerate the enforcer part of my life if she wants to reach its softer side. It’s not always going to be Barry’s tea and biscuits being with an O’Shea man.
Stepping aside, I jerk my head. “Best be going home then.”
She walks to the door, head held high.
“Saoirse.”
She gasps and spins around. I hold the white hair band out to her. She accepts it, blushing.
I’ve already trained her and she knows it.
“You’re a storí, darlin’. Sure I’ll be seeing you around.”
The door clicks shut behind her.
But when I walk closer, I see that she’s left the door cracked open.