19. Saoirse
Saoirse
Slit
Declan sits at the head of the table. As my Da’s representative, I sit at his right hand.
If I was here as Declan’s wife, I would have to stand behind him, my hand on his shoulder and staring adoringly at the side of his head. Ugh.
Looking on the bright side of life, there are substantial benefits to having my seat at the table.
“Eamon O’Shea had a closed casket.”
The meeting hasn’t started yet. Time for me to sow the seed of doubt in my husband’s mind.
Declan thumbs through the stack of papers in front of him. He licks his middle finger to turn the dry paper the same way he goes down on me in bed. Business-like, focused.
“No one attended his memorial service, Saoirse. Saying farewell to an O’Shea is social suicide. They’re scum, you realize.” He grabs one of those neon yellow marker pens and highlights something on the page.
Paper copies and marker pens? Fucking dinosaur. Not a tablet in sight.
“But that’s not the point, is it?”
He knows me well enough by now to stop reading and engage me fully. “What are you getting at?”
I play with the marker pen, sliding it up and down through my fingers. “The sexton told me someone slit one side of Eamon’s mouth open after he died. Or before he died, I forget which.”
Declan’s kind of interested. “Rian said it was a heart attack.”
I open my mouth to explain, but Rian hears his name and comes to sit down. “What’re you wittering about now, Saoirse?”
A flicker of irritation crosses Declan’s face. “Show some respect to Mrs. Maguire, Rian.” He raps his knuckle on the table to bring the meeting to order while waiting for Rian to offer me an apology.
I live for moments like this. I don’t bother hiding my smirk.
Rian stands and bows at me. “Sorry, Mrs. Maguire. I spoke out of turn.”
I give him the nod, but I’m still pissed. Everyone’s paying attention to what I want to say now.
Declan motions for me to continue.
Clearing my throat, I grip the marker pen like a lucky charm.
“The sexton—”
One of the captains interrupts politely. He had no desire to get chewed out by Declan for not showing me respect.
“What’s a sexton, please?”
Declan growls. “The fecking graveyard groundskeeper, Martyn. Jaysus. What are you like?”
A few of the men lighten the mood by cracking jokes and making comments.
Ignoring them, I carry on. “He told me an assailant must have been with Eamon O’Shea when he passed. Sure, he died of a heart attack, but someone slit one side of his mouth open.”
I turn to Declan, which is literally a pain in my neck because we’re seated side by side. “I wanted to know if it was one of our lads who did it?”
My husband is pissed. Well and truly raging. But he controls it well.
“It’s information I want. Today. Within the hour. What the feck!” His stern stare gravitates toward Rian. “It was you who told me the man died of a heart attack, yeah?”
Rian is rigid. “That’s what I heard.”
My husband is ruthless, uncaring about humiliating anyone. He lifts them up just so he can knock them down. “You heard? Where? On the fecking grapevine?”
The sniggers and gleeful glances around the table tell me that it’s not only me who dislikes the way Rian tries to grasp influence.
“No, Boss. I got a phone call. My cousin works at the funeral parlor. She said Eamon O’Shea was brought from the morgue and she read the death certificate to me. Cause of death? Heart attack.”
Honestly, I wouldn’t have dug any deeper at that point either. But Rian was probably so delighted to be the one to bring Declan the news that he didn’t think to call the morgue for confirmation.
But I’m not here to play politics. I want to stir the pot.
“There was a police report, Rian.” I widen my eyes to look more innocent. “That should’ve prompted you to reach out for more information.”
Rian’s clutching at straws. “The case was closed…”
I play my ace. “For his death, yes. But the case related to the mutilation of Eamon O’Shea’s corpse is still open. So… I want to know… which one of our people did it?”
Rian’s not willing to go down quietly. He speaks to my husband directly.
“Eamon would have plenty of enemies after running the Fourth Avenue books for so long. Any one of them could’ve done it.”
I get my comment in. “And disposed of the driver and the car too, I suppose. A helluva organized guy.”
Declan’s eyes narrow. “You had a good gab with the gravedigger then, did you?”
Again with the wide-eyed innocent look. “Yes. It’s quite the scandal.”
No, it isn’t, but I will be after I’ve finished here.
My husband hates being left out of the loop. It irks him. He looks at everyone sitting around the table, shakes his head.
“What the feck are you all still doing here? You heard Saoirse. Go find out who tried to give Eamon O’Shea a Glasgow grin.”
Martyn quips as he stands up and gets ready to depart. “Why? So you can give the lad a medal?”
Rian takes the opportunity presented to him as Declan answers Martyn.
“You’re a mouthy gash, Saoirse. There are better things for you to worry about than a little slit.”
My lips hardly move. “I’m not worried. But you should be.”
Seriously, the captains are like a pack of hyenas when they scent weakness and death. But I won’t forget Rian’s insult.
I’m ready to go, but Declan grips my wrist and stops me when I stand. His other hand slides up the inside of my thigh slowly.
“You did good, pet. I’m proud of you.”
His hand gropes under the crotch of my panties. He fingers my hole, strokes my clit, unzips himself, hauls it out. Greedy to feel me.
I think about the man standing under the pines at the cemetery. Massive and mysterious. Giving mad sexual energy.
How crazy am I?
A countdown begins in my core as my body aches for an orgasm. I sit on the edge of the desk and lean back. Straddling a leg on either side of his chair, I wrench my panties to one side.
He eats out my pussy, beats his cock while he does it.
I have no complaints. Declan allows me a certain degree of license when it comes to guiding his actions.
Only when I fall back gasping and satisfied does he release over my mound. He takes a step back and tidies himself away. “When are you ovulating again?”
He won’t waste his precious seed if I’m going to be fertile. He’s a king. He wants a little prince to keep the kingdom ticking over.
“Not for another few days.”
He nods, makes a note of it in his head, and leaves.
I lie on the table, thinking about my next move.
After showering, I look for Feargal. “I feel like a bowl of fruit salad for tea. Can you drive me to the grocer, please?”
Feargal keeps checking me out in the mirror. “The captains came barreling out of the meeting like a pack of monkeys at a banana factory explosion, Mrs. Maguire. Would you happen to know the reason why?”
I’m busy folding a Hermès scarf into a triangle and using it to cover my hair. Enormous Chanel sunglasses hide my eyes.
“There are conflicting reports about Eamon’s passing. Declan wants to get to the bottom of it.” Something makes me pivot the conversation. “Um… you didn’t happen to see a man come into the cemetery the other day, when we were there, did you?”
Feargal keeps his eyes on the road. “What did he look like?”
It’s a perfectly normal question on the face of it. I have nothing to hide.
“I’ll try paint a picture for you. Tall. V-taper body. Short dark hair under a Knicks cap. Black clothing.”
Feargal’s face stays impassive. “Nah. I would’ve remembered someone like that, Mrs. M. But it’s hard to tell a man without reading his ink.”
I see the place where I want to be and wait for the car to pass a couple of blocks before reacting. “Stop here. Please wait.”
No way Feargal will know where I’m heading. Georgiou Grocery is easy to identify from its green canopy and gold lettering.
I’m guessing the woman behind the counter is Helena’s mother. I fill two bags full of exotic fruit and wait to pay. “Helena isn’t working today?”
The woman nods. “You know my daughter?”
“Sort of. I heard about Helena who works here from one of the men who attends St. Stephen’s.”
The woman’s face stiffens. “We attend Kimisis Tis Theotokou. He must have been talking about a different Helena.”
I take the two bags and heft them. “No doubt. Thank you.”
That should give Rian something else to worry about for the next few weeks. Maybe he’ll think twice before calling me a gash.
What I just did won’t be enough to upset the apple cart, but it will make it difficult for the two little lovebirds to meet for the next couple of months.
I don’t need Declan to order the men to respect me.
I can do that on my own, because I know how to get results behind their backs. When are they going to learn that mistresses, wives, and girlfriends hold all the power… We’ve got it by the balls, after all.
Using gossip and bedroom confidentials to control the outcome is what I do best.
So then, why can’t I control the urge to find out who was watching me at the cemetery?