Chapter 2
2
brAIDEN
S taring out the glass doors, I roll my shoulders and wait for Samantha to finish her phone conversation. It’s pure snow out there now, the wind blowing hard enough I can’t see through to the road. It took me two hours to get to this feckin’ meeting. It’ll be four or more, heading home.
At least I brought the Jeep. The Aston Martin is shite on snow.
Whoever Samantha’s talking to— Eliza , I heard her say—they’re giving her an earful. I didn’t think anyone could cut Samantha off when she wants to make a point. She certainly put down those gobshites upstairs.
Notice of tax delinquency, my Irish ass. Someone wants to corner me, Al Capone style. Make a major score against the Irish Mob and my Philadelphia-based Fishtown Boys.
Bureaucrats like the morons upstairs don’t have a feckin’ clue when they’ve been beat.
My gallery at Diamond Freeport has paid for itself a dozen times over. I’ve got a tax-free warehouse that’s willing to work with me on…creative descriptions for domestic and international bills of lading. Plus, there’s access to a lady lawyer to back me up when things go arsewise—a perfect arrangement.
Samantha Mott is creative with a contract and fierce at the negotiation table. I haven’t needed her in a courtroom yet, but her services are part of what I pay for at the freeport.
And I’m enough of a bogger to think of other “services” she could provide… On her knees… That thick black hair wrapped around my fist… Her full lips open to?—
“Ma’am? Ma’am!” The security officer’s voice breaks as I whirl around from the storm.
Samantha’s on her knees, but not the way my twisted mind imagined just seconds ago. Her hands are splayed in front of her and she’s gagging like she’s hammered. Her face is whiter than the government-issue floor tiles.
I catch her against my side, half-dragging, half-carrying her through the glass doors. The heat of her body sears through my winter-weight suit. I barely have time to snag her hair from her face—again, not the image I was going for a moment ago—when she doubles over in the snow and pukes up a steaming cone of the swill that passed for coffee upstairs.
I shift my shoes out of the way and get a better grip on her hair. She plants her own hands on her knees, trapping her phone between fingers that look like ice lolly sticks and trousers that must have cost a month’s wages for the government idiots she outsmarted upstairs. I square my shoulders, trying to give her a windbreak as she bokes again.
The kid in the security uniform shoulders the door open against the storm. “Is she okay?” he asks, like I’m wearing a white coat, with a stethoscope around my feckin’ neck. “Should I call 911?”
Samantha moans at the three numbers. I don’t know what an upright member of the bar like her has against emergency assistance, but I’m always happy to avoid an arsehole with a badge. “She’s fine,” I tell the kid. “Can you get us a bottle of water?”
The door slams closed behind him, forced shut by the wind. Samantha leans over to retch again, but this time nothing comes up. Her whole body heaves, violent enough that I have to step forward to maintain my block against the wind. Her grip tightens on her phone.
“Here you go, Mister,” the kid says, fighting to open the door again. I want to order him to bring it to me, but I’m pretty sure he won’t be able to get back into the building under his own power.
Instead, I wait for Samantha to gulp some air, to nod. “I’m okay,” she says. Needs must, but I hate leaving her exposed to the storm, even for a moment.
“You’re sure—” the kid asks as I take the water from him.
“We’re fine,” I say.
“But—”
“We’re fine ,” I repeat, and this time I let my Captain voice off its leash. He jumps back inside so fast he looks like he’s being devoured by some movie monster.
Samantha’s standing straight by the time I turn around. I’m glad she’s found the strength, but I’m enough of a pig to miss the chance to wrap her hair around my fist again.
I try to atone by cracking the bottle and handing it over. Once I’m sure she won’t drop it, I reach for my handkerchief. I wait for her to rinse her mouth and spit into the snow, and then I hand her the square of fresh white linen.
“I didn’t think anyone carried those anymore,” she says, nodding toward the cloth.
Her voice is shaky. Hushed. Not at all the same woman who managed the meeting upstairs, just five minutes ago.
“They’re more useful than you’d think,” I say. For passing to a cailín in obvious distress , I think but don’t say. Just like I don’t say they’re good for picking things up without leaving fingerprints. Instead, I ask, “How are you doing?”
She shakes her head. But she says, “I’m done puking.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“Go where?” She glances at her low-slung Mercedes, which is doing a fine imitation of a snow-covered grave barrow.
“I’m taking you home,” I say.
“Not to Philadelphia.” The words rush out too fast. Her chin comes up, and her fist closes over her belly, but she was right the first time. She doesn’t puke again.
“Not my home,” I say. “Yours.”
“I’m perfectly capable?—”
It’s icy out here, and wet. In just the past two minutes, the wind has gusted higher, like someone’s cranking a house-size fan behind us. Neither of us wears a coat, and she’s got her feet crammed into four-inch stilettos that would make my cock take notice if it wasn’t afraid of freezing to my zipper.
“No one’s questioning your capability, counselor. But Trap Prince would have my arse if someone drove you off the road when you only came out in this to represent me.”
“Trap Prince is my boss, not my?—”
I cut off further argument by sweeping her—literally—off her feet. She’s easier to grab than I expect; she doesn’t have a lot of meat on her bones. I brace for her to elbow my ribs. Maybe she’ll scream so the kid inside can save her.
The fact that she doesn’t fight tells me I’m making the right move. Whatever she learned on that phone call, she’s still shattered. I deposit her in the Jeep and crank the heater before I take a swipe at clearing the windows. Once I’m back inside, the vehicle smells of wet wool.
She’s able to give me directions. And she passes over her keycard to get me into the garage. Her condo’s on the seventh floor, overlooking the Sherman University campus—lots of chrome and glass, hard lines finished in black and white. She crosses to the thermostat and bumps the heat up a notch or two.
“About what happened back there,” she says, turning toward me. Her face is flat. Carefully scraped of expression. Whatever she’s about to say, it’s a lie.
“Go change,” I say.
“I don’t?—”
“Now.” I don’t raise my voice.
Her eyebrows peak, and I watch her start to structure an argument. But despite my best efforts at shielding her outside the Tax Division, her fancy tailored suit looks like it’s been dunked in a swimming pool. Her hair is a mess too, and those shoes…
She’s only gone for a moment before she returns with a thick towel that she pushes into my hands. “For your hair,” she says.
I wait until she’s heading back toward what I assume is the bedroom before I peel off my jacket. I rub my hair until it’s standing on end. I toe off my shoes and leave them by the door.
And then I head into the kitchen to make us something to eat.
She’s short on fruit and veg—anything that’ll spoil. But there’s a carton of eggs and a brick of aged cheddar, a pack of fancy Italian salami in the meat drawer, and a loaf of bread in the freezer.
Omelets and toast all around then.
She takes a long time back there, longer than a woman needs to change out of wet clothes. I strain to hear if she’s calling someone, but I don’t actually press my ear against her door. I’m a nosy bastard, but I’ve got some pride.
When she finally comes out, she’s wearing sweats—simple black cotton. She’s traded her fuck-me shoes for gray fleece-lined socks. Her hair is twisted into a knot, pinned against the nape of her neck.
“I’m not hungry,” she says.
I butter the toast as she pulls a bottle of Barolo out of a rack on the counter. She works the corkscrew as efficiently as she does everything else, and she pours two glasses with a generous hand.
I use the spatula to cut the omelet in two and slide both halves onto plates. I push hers toward the nearest bar stool at the high kitchen counter.
“I’m not hungry,” she repeats without sounding annoyed.
“Eat anyway.”
She pushes the plate away from her.
I plant my hands on the counter and let my Captain voice make my point. “Eat.”
Her eyes give her away. Her pupils dilate, crowding the whiskey brown with the only sign her system just took a hit of adrenaline. Otherwise, she holds herself completely in control.
She’s the type of woman my granny warned me about.
I wait.
She gives in first.
She picks up her fork and saws off a miniature bite. When she raises it to her lips, her face is still blank with defiance. I watch her melt as the flavor of egg and cheese and meat hits her tongue.
I don’t bother gloating. I just pile buttered toast on her plate.
I chew my own food slowly. If she wants to give me her lie about the phone call, now’s her chance.
She stares into her wine glass. Twirls the stem a quarter-turn between her fingers. Takes a healthy sip.
And she says, “The Department of Taxation should leave you alone for a while.”
I can afford to let her win. So I agree: “You handed them their arses.”
“Fucking idiots,” she says, and if there’s a touch of relief that I’ve let her off the hook, she covers it fast. “Hell of a way to start the new year.”
After that, we trade rubbish about the holidays, about how we both enjoyed some down time. She asks if I follow American football, and I allow how a man can’t live in Philadelphia without knowing the Eagles are good craic.
We manage to fill fifteen minutes, punctuating blather with food and wine. When our plates are empty, she carries hers to the sink. I start to roll up my sleeves, but she says she cleans because I cooked.
I step back and watch her work. We both pretend the flow of water makes it impossible to talk.
She waits until she’s drying her hands on a dish towel to say, “You aren’t getting back to Philadelphia in this weather.”
I look across to the living room window. The sun set maybe an hour ago, but the blowing snow reflects enough light to make the whole world gray. “Not tonight,” I say.
“You can sleep in my room. I put clean sheets on the bed. I’ll take the couch.”
As if I need clean sheets. I’m amused she made the decision without asking me. “The couch is fine for the likes of me,” I say.
“I insist.”
I could insist. I could tell her exactly what we’re going to do, shut in by a snowstorm, isolated from the world. And when she says she’ll do nothing of the sort, I could call her on her lie, remind her we both know what happened in that elevator, the way she looked just before her fucking phone rang.
But her phone did ring.
And she’s still hollowed out from whatever it is she heard.
So I let her win again. I tell her I’ll sleep in the bedroom. And I accept when she says she’s exhausted, that she’s calling it a night. I take a refill on my wine and retreat down the hall.
It’s hours before I fall asleep. I use my phone to send a couple dozen messages, instructions for my men, who already know how to keep my empire running when I’m not breathing down their necks. I send a couple of messages to my staff at Kelly Construction, for good measure.
I leaf through the books on her nightstand, a mix of gritty thrillers and mysteries that look like they’d give most people nightmares. I take a quick survey of her closet, her dresser, her nightstand. A man should know what’s in the room where he sleeps.
There’s a gun safe in the back of the closet, a small one, for some sort of handgun. She’s got a dozen designer suits to match the one she ruined in the snow today, jeans on hangers, and casual tops to match. All of it is black or white or gray, like I’ve stepped into an old-time movie.
She folds her panties around her bras, keeping matching sets together. Black and white there too, without a scrap of lace.
She’s got a handful of mass cards shoved beneath her jewelry, and a pewter medal devoted to Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. There’s a chain of foil-wrapped johnnies at the back of the nightstand drawer, along with a bottle of lube and a canister of pepper spray.
When I turn out the light, I wonder if she’s staring at the ceiling in the living room. I think about opening the bedroom door, giving her a chance to change her mind, but she didn’t sound like she had any doubts when she sent me back here.
Her bed smells clean, like wind over ice. I bury my face in the pillow and listen to the howling storm and wait for morning, pretending to be a better man than I am.