Page 11 of Her Irish Savage

“’N then we leave?”

“And then we leave,” I lie.

She’s out before she can make another demand. She barely stirs as I swap her ice packs again. She doesn’t move when I smooth more arnica over the worst of her bruises.

I settle back in my chair and return to my phone. The men are reporting in, one by one. They’ve searched every inch of Thornfield, and Madden’s nowhere to be found.

The arsehole’s slipped away. But when I find him, he’ll pay for all he’s done.

Sometime before dawn, the texts start flying again—fire, bodies, danger. At first, I’m confused because the bombed garage was put out hours ago. But then I realize this is a second blaze, a bigger one, worse.

Within an hour, Thornfield’s gone—an entire mansion, burned to the feckin’ ground. Reports stay sketchy until my second-in-command weighs in. Rory O’Hare is doing his job, calming the enforcers.

Our boss went into that hellscape, trying to rescue two women in his care. Kelly came out alive. The women didn’t.

It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to know it was a close call. At Kelly’s command, O’Hare is moving operations to a downtown hotel. He’s called for the Fishtown Boys’ tame doctor. He’s set guards at the perimeter.

I should be there.

But despite it all—two fires, Madden missing, and the clan relocating to the feckin’ Rittenhouse—I’m stuck following orders. It cuts me to the quick, but my boss doesn’t actually need me by his side. O’Hare has everything under control.

The Bell rings, knocking out the brain squirrels. Thereisone thing I can do. Something no one else can.

Kieran Ingram’s men threatened my boss’s life earlier tonight, before Madden worked his shite. Now I’ve got Fiona Ingram, battered and bruised and clearly in my debt. If I stick with the girl, see her up to Boston, I can assess the threat up there. I can protect my captain that way.

But I’ve sworn never to set foot in Boston again.

Penance. I’m still paying penance for all the mistakes I made when I was younger than the girl on my couch. When I followed the ringing Bell and damned myself forever.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

I pound my head with the heel of my hand, trying to knock some sense past the bone. I want to break something. Tear something. Holler until my throat bleeds.

But I’m not a feckin’ animal. So I work out a plan. Test it in my mind. Find the weak points and lean in hard, correcting them. Test the fecker again.

When a few hours have passed and I know I have the best approach—at least until the ground shifts again beneath my feet—I take my phone into the bedroom, so I won’t wake Fiona.

It takes four rings before Braiden Kelly answers.

“Condolences, Boss,” I say. I figure that covers just about everything—the garage, the house, the bodies that didn’t make it out.

He sighs. “We’ll knock it down and start over.” He sounds exhausted. I’m not the only one who’s missed a night of sleep. “For now we’re at the Rittenhouse,” he says. “Presidential Suite. Liam’ll get you a key.”

My thumb crosses my palm to fidget with my ring. I should have eaten something before starting this call. Taken my meds. “About that, Boss.” I lower my voice, because there are some things Fiona doesn’t need to know. “Herself is… Madden did a lot of damage.”

There’s a longer silence than I expect. When Braiden finally speaks, his voice is frozen lava. “How bad is it?”

“She shouldn’t be alone right now,” I answer truthfully. And then I dig my own grave: “Not with her da gone and things gone arseways up in Boston.”

“You’re taking her up to Boston, then?”

Jesus, I don’t want to go. I left that place for a damn good reason twenty-five years ago, for the best two reasons a mancould ever have. I’ve vowed never to get within a hundred miles of the feckin’ Old Colony Crew. I don’t keep in touch with a single soul who knew me then.

But my boss needs to know what’s stirring up there, how seriously he should take the threat on his life. And the girl on my couch needs to mourn her da. Needs to meet her new captain, too, to realize her silly dreams of taking charge will never happen.

I don’t want to be the one to shatter her. But for the life of me, I can’t think of anyone better.

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