Page 108 of Her Irish Savage

Seven months ago, then. Maybe eight.

I thought Uncle Aran’s stint in prison was a good thing for me. My father had to lean on me. He sent me to Philadelphia in his place. He trusted me to broker a peace between Braiden Kelly and his mafia counterpart.

But now I understand that Uncle Aran’s time behind barsmight be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. If the FBI acts on everything they know, they can take the Crew away. They can devastate the clan.

I thought I’d felt anger before. When Father Colin called me a liar. When Da refused to punish the boys who hurt me. When my father declined to name me his heir.

But those disappointments are nothing compared to the wildfire that sweeps through me now. I want to shred something into tiny pieces. I want to blow something up.

“We have to devastate that motherfucker,” I say.

“Exactly,” Patrick says, and his smile is amused. “And if you agree, here’s how we can do it,Scáthach.”

46

PATRICK

It takes a week and a half.

Fiona insists on reading every incriminating word herself. She sorts the documents, putting them in folders. She sets up spreadsheets. She figures out a timeline and cross-references it with places and names. She’s spent her entire life tapping away at computers and phones, and she’s better at it, faster than I’ll ever be.

Every new revelation sharpens something inside her. The entire time I drove back from Philly, I worried that the truth would break her, that she couldn’t handle the scope of Dowd’s betrayal.

But here, in our war room at the Beacon Street apartment, she proves she has a spine of steel. She’s like one of those skyscrapers in a city plagued with earthquakes—shocks sway her for a moment, and then she’s as solid as before.

And ten days later, when she’s read it all, when she’s thoughtabout it, when it’s become part of every cell in her body, she says, “I’ll do it.”

I’m standing by the counter in the kitchen, stretching to relieve an ache in the small of my back. “Do what?”

She looks at me like I’ve forgotten my ABCs. “I’ll kill Uncle Aran.”

The Bell goes off like a fire alarm. Fiona won’t be the one taking down Aran Dowd. I will. For the Crew. For Jenn and Athawn. For myself.

But I remember Fiona standing on the golf course green, Joyce’s gun in her hand and vengeance in her eyes. I need to keep her from executing her uncle without driving a stake into all we’ve built between us. So I tell the feckin’ Bell to stop its clanging, and I force myself to say, “Tell me more.”

“My da would do it if he were still alive—a captain taking out his traitor Clan Chief—and the Crew would have his back. I’llbecaptain, and I’ll have the Crew behind me, but to get there, I have to go through Uncle Aran. It’s too dangerous to wait. Who knows what he’ll tell the feds today or tomorrow or the next day? He needs to be cut down now. Before he can do any more harm.”

It’s a pretty argument, but she’s wrong. “Captains don’t make their own kills. They have soldiers. A Warlord. They don’t risk getting their own hands dirty.”

“That’s not true. Braiden took care of his brother.”

It’s the first time she’s let on that she knows what happened to Madden Kelly. I wince, because I don’t want her thinking about what that fucking gobshite did to her. I don’t want to remember how my own hands were tied, how I couldn’t get revenge.

But I say, “Kelly didn’t make that kill as captain. He was taking care of family.”

“I’mnot killing Uncle Aran as captain.I’mtaking care of family.”

“The shitehawk’s not your blood.” She starts to respond, butI don’t let her get the words out. “And the things he’s done—they didn’t hurt family. They hurt the Crew.”

Her sharp inhale is a little scream of frustration. “You’re dragging me around in circles.”

That’s my intention. I want her seeing there’s no way she’s going after Dowd.

Before I can lie, she grits out, “He has to go because he’s hurt the Crew. I’m the next Old Colony captain, but I’m not there yet. I can’t name a Warlord. I have to do my own dirty work.”

“That’s not true.” The Bell’s ringing so loudly I can barely hear my own voice. This may be an impulse, it may be deadly, but it feels like the most brilliant thing I’ve ever said or done. “You don’t have to do this on your own. Make me your Warlord. Now.”

She opens her mouth. Shuts it. Tries again. Finally, she settles on, “You can’t do that.” She swallows hard. “You can’t stay.”

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