The Price of Protection
Chapter four
áINE
No matter what that lech, Kenneth, threatened, I should have packed my girls and mom up and run as soon as I learned what had really happened to Troy.
We're not safe in New York. We've never been safe here.
My rabbiting thoughts screech to a halt at Kieran's words because they don't make sense.
"Wedding?" I ask.
Sadie asks whose wedding and Fitz answers, sending me into a paralysis of shock.
Marriage? Me and Kieran?
The woman I haven't met jumps up from her chair, yells something and storms from the room, leaving poleaxed silence behind her.
Until I break it.
"What are you talking about?" I'm yelling again and it's all Kieran's fault. "I never yell," I tell the room at large.
"Uh…it's true. Mom doesn't lose her cool," my daughter affirms.
Only today? I have lost my cool more than once.
Because of the oversized mobster who says we're going to get married in two days!
"We can't get married!"
"How can we plan a wedding in two days?" Sadie asks, worrying about the wrong thing entirely. "It will take longer than that to find mom a dress. Stuff like that isn't as easy as guys think it is."
Why is my daughter talking like the wedding is a done deal?
"We're under a time crunch," Kieran tells my daughter, like they're discussing getting a school project done before it's due.
"Because of what happened today?" Sadie asks in a small voice. "Because of me?"
I turn to her, dislodging Kieran's grip on my shoulders. Finally. Why did I just stand there like a lamb and let him hold onto me?
Cupping my daughter's face, I promise her, "You didn't do anything wrong. None of this is your fault."
"Contract marriages happen in the mob all the time," Fitz tells my daughter.
And me, I guess.
Because? This whole marriage discussion is so outside my frame of reference, I'm Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
Without the pile of dried leaves to soften my landing.
"Troy and I got married because we loved each other. It wasn't a contract," I point out helplessly.
Kieran makes a sound that sends a shiver through me and pulls my gaze back to him like an undertow.
The urge is too powerful and as soon as I meet his eyes, I'm drowning under the waves of fury emanating off of him. Shoring up my defenses, I turn to face him fully and glare back. Kieran may not like it, but it's true. I loved my husband and he loved me.
Not more than he loved the privileges of wealth though. If he had, he would never have put himself and his family at risk like he did. He would have told me what he was doing so I could be prepared when he got caught.
So, I could run before the feds tried to get me to turn state's witness against the mob.
Only he didn't think he would be caught, did he?
One of Troy's failings was his belief that he was smarter than everyone else. Ten years older than me and way more sophisticated, he had me convinced of that narrative right up until Kenneth Shaughnessy came calling with his threats and demands.
A widow with a newborn and two little girls, confused and terrified by what I'd learned about my husband's connection to the mob, I made decisions I've regretted many times since.
The chief among them being: allowing myself to be intimidated into staying in New York.
Troy wasn't the only stupid one in our marriage.
"Fitz, why don't you and Sadie join me and the littles making Christmas cookies?" Kara asks. "They'll probably spend more time pounding the dough than cutting it into shapes. It would help a lot if I had some help in actually making edible cookies."
There's laughter in her voice as she says the last and that sensation of falling down the rabbit hole intensifies. Mob families make Christmas cookies? In June? Who are the littles?
"What do you say, Sadie? Do you want to help us make cookies?" Fitz asks my daughter. "I think my da needs to talk to your mom and Kieran anyway."
"I…no…" My brain is still stuttering on this new development. "We have to leave. Neeve and Joy will be home from school soon."
I latch onto that excuse with desperate fervor. No one here has to know that my mom will be picking them up and plans to watch my girls until bedtime because I was supposed to work through the dinner party tonight.
"Gran is watching them tonight," Sadie says with way too much candor and then sighs. "I wish they could come and make cookies with us. They'd love it and Gran could use a break."
Guilt flays me, like it always does when I think about how much my mom has taken on to help me since I had Sadie, but especially since Troy's death.
"I'll send a car for them," Kieran says without a by-your-leave to me.
And just like that, I'm ready to yell all over again. "My daughters aren't going anywhere with a total stranger," I say, nearly straining my vocal cords with the effort to keep my voice even.
"Sadie and me will go get them," Fitz offers instantly. "You don't mind waiting on the cookies, do you, mom? The twins are probably still napping anyway."
Kara smiles with approval at her son. "You're probably right. I'll just join your da and the others until you all get back."
Why do I get the feeling that this is the exact outcome Kara Shaughnessy planned?
"Is that okay, mom?" Sadie asks, like I have any say in the matter.
Everything is spinning out of control and I can't see a way to get off the merry-go-round my life has suddenly become. If the underboss wants to talk to me, that's what's going to happen.
Just like for the past six years, I have no real power over my life or that of my children.
Even the school they attend has been dictated by Kenneth Shaughnessy.
He made like he was being magnanimous in paying their tuition to private school. And at first, I believed that too. I was even grateful. Until I realized it was just another way for him to control me and my girls.
Even knowing it's a done deal, before I answer my daughter, I turn to Kieran and demand, "They'll all be safe, right? You promised."
"Yes." His eyes dare me not to believe him.
My eyes promise him mayhem and retribution if he's lying.
Someone clears their throat. I think it's the underboss.
I force a reassuring smile for Sadie and nod. "Yes, that's fine."
This time when I sit down, I take the spot Sadie had been in at one end of the couch. If I think it's going to put room between me and Kieran, I soon learn how wrong I am.
Because the behemoth sits right next to me, crowding me into the arm.
Kara's lips quirk. "Do you think maybe you could give áine a little more room there, Wraith?"
"She's fine," Kieran says without consulting me.
I pinch him in the side. Hard.
He doesn't acknowledge the pinch, but he takes my hand and laces our fingers together. I'd tug my hand away but the look the underboss is giving me is scaring me to death and somehow that big hand holding mine makes me a little less afraid.
The underboss measures me with his soulless green eyes. "Kenneth told you your husband was a rat?"
"And that you killed him for it? Yes." Like he doesn't know that already. "And all the torture you put him through before you did it." I can't help the scowl I give him.
I don't care what my husband did, learning the pain and suffering he went through before dying destroyed me.
"Life in the mob is harsh." There's no apology or even a hint of guilt in Mick Shaughnessy's tone. "Our laws are inviolate and breaking them comes with heavy penalties."
He's so emotionless. Unlike Kenneth, when he told me about it, Mick Fitzgerald doesn't exhibit any pleasure at having meted out those penalties.
Even without the accent, no one looking at him would doubt his Irish heritage. With his dark red hair, green eyes and pale skin. He'd be good looking if he wasn't so scary.
Kieran is his exact opposite. Kieran's silky, dark hair is nearly black and his eyes are espresso brown. His skin has a dusky olive tone that matches his Slavic surname better than his Irish first name.
And he's big. Okay, since I'm a scant five-two, anyone over five-six seems big, but Kieran is definitely over six feet tall. And his tight black henley does nothing to hide his muscles on top of muscles.
"Did you know Troy was mobbed up before Kenneth told you what he did?" Kara asks me gently with a look for her husband I can't interpret.
I shake my head and then nod. "I didn't know when he died, but two federal agents came to me six month's later claiming my husband had been a criminal, not just a businessman.
They wanted me to tell them what I knew about the mob, which was nothing.
When I told them that, they thought I could spy for them. "
"What did you say?" the underboss asks.
"What do you think I said?" Okay, channeling my preteen's inner snark queen is probably not my best move right now. I rein her in and say, "I told them I didn't know what they were talking about and if what they said was true, doing what they considered my civic duty would get me killed."
My parents didn't have any mob affiliations but my family is Irish-American with a long history in New York. I grew up knowing about the rough justice of the mob and hearing whispers about the power of the Shaughnessy Mob in particular.
You might turn state's witness on a street gang, but on the Shaughnessy Mob? No chance.
Only a fool would betray them.
Like my dead husband.
Kieran's thumb brushes back and forth over mine and I realize how tense I've gotten and how labored my breathing has become.
"But you know all this. Why are you asking about it?" I ask with more anger than sense. I hate how they are rubbing my face in what happened to my husband. "Do you think I'm going to lie, or something?"
"Why do you say I know all about it?" Mick asks.