Chapter 39
39
brAIDEN
T he sound is a fighter jet skimming low over a factory floor. It’s a forest of transformers blowing all at once. It’s a hurricane locked inside a shipping container, and only the bulletproof glass behind me prevents the windows from shattering into a million jagged knives.
My ears feel like they’re packed with cotton as I yank back the curtains. It takes me a moment to parse the scene outside.
The garage is filled with orange-yellow fire. The framework for each bay stands out, black against the blaze, like Hell has opened up with six toothless mouths.
Part of my mind floods with rage. Samantha’s announcement makes everything fall into place. Madden took the milk run for his guinea boss. Madden turned on Fiona because she’d never accept his betraying Irishmen for the Mafia.
Madden’s working for Russo. And now he’s attacked Thornfield. He’s bombed my garage. I know it in my bones.
My brother got a taste for explosions when we were kids— cherry bombs at first, then M80s, then honest-to-God pipe bombs, set off in the fields behind the house, wreaking havoc on the lawn. He added to his knowledge each trip he took to Dublin, talking to the old-timers who fought through the Troubles. He set bombs when we went after Russo, in the tit-for-tat after I married Samantha. He even proposed explosives as a growth business for the Fishtown Boys.
And now he’s bombed my home.
Another part of my mind, stays coldly mechanical. That’s the part that registers my Aston Martin is wreathed in fire. The Jaguar too. The Jeep won’t be safe for much longer, but the Bentley might make it, at the far end of the garage. If?—
The petrol tank on the Aston Martin blows.
As I watch, Fairfax runs from the front door of the house, coming up short beside Samantha’s Mercedes on the drive. Silhouetted by the flames, he reaches into his pocket and produces a phone. I assume he’s calling emergency, getting firefighters on their way.
Turning back to the war room, I find a dozen gaping men. They’re staring out the window like they’re watching a film, like they’re deciding if these special effects are worth a little gold statue.
But it’s not the men who have my attention.
“Samantha,” I say, my voice low, like we’re the only ones in the room.
One hand is spread across her chest, as if her heart is beating so hard it hurts. The other fingers the web of tight white scars at her temple.
Russo firebombed her parents’ car when she was only ten years old, and the shattered glass marked her forever. But my windows are made out of bulletproof glass. They didn’t break. And I won’t ever let her be hurt like that again.
“Samantha.” I repeat her name, more urgent now, because she doesn’t believe I’ll keep her safe. But her gaze is lost in the past. Her lips move, and I don’t know if she’s shaping a prayer or sharing some nightmare from long ago.
“Samantha!” I say one last time, dropping into the power of my Captain’s voice.
She blinks and finds my face. She seems surprised that she’s a grown woman. That she’s at Thornfield. That she’s mine.
“Get Aiofe from the nursery,” I tell her. “Go to the safe room.” And when she starts to protest, I say, “Now!”
She leaves like a sprinter from the blocks.
That’s enough to startle my men from their trances. I’m gratified that half of them already have weapons in hand. “Madden,” I snap. He’s a feckin’ firebug. He’s watching his handiwork from somewhere close by. “He’s here at Thornfield,” I tell my men. “I want him in this office within the hour. Alive.”
Patrick’s gone, but he’s trained his troops well. Not one of them stops to question Samantha’s half-delivered message. Instead, they accept their assignments from Rory—one each to the gatehouse, the greenhouse, the pool house. A pair get the grounds, and all the smaller outbuildings. Another two are sent to the cottages. Rory follows them out, saying he wants reports texted to his phone, every five minute.
Once they’ve left, I say to Seamus, “Let’s check the house.”
We start with the door to the third floor. I open the lock with the key in my pocket. Seamus takes his post by the right of the jamb. I count down with silent fingers—three, two, one. I use the door as a shield after I yank it open. Seamus springs into place, his arms locked in a tactical firing stance.
“Jaysus, Mary and Joseph!” Grace Poole shrieks as I peer around the door. She’s gripping her own key, as if there’s any situation in the world where she’d be better off unlocking the door and facing whoever’s been rattling the knob.
There’s a flurry of question-and-answer, half in English, half in Irish, as Grace screeches and clutches her heart and calls on half the saints in Christendom. Madden isn’t upstairs, though. She and Birte haven’t seen him .
“Stay here,” I tell her. “Don’t answer the door for anyone.”
Seamus and I make short work of the rest of the second floor—Samantha’s office, the guest rooms and their jacks, my bedroom suite. The ground floor is empty as well, both wings. Each cleared room sharpens my concentration, honing my thoughts like a razor strapped against leather.
Madden stole the milk run. Madden beat Fiona. Madden blew up my garage.
Madden’s making his bid to run the Fishtown Boys. I have one chance to stop him before he takes Thornfield, Philadelphia, and all of Clan Kelly.