Page 16 of Her Irish Savage

She gives me a look like I’m a poor eejit child. “I won’tknock. I’ll walk right in.”

“Just like that.”

“I’m Queen now. Thedúnbelongs to me.” She lets me go another three blocks before she says, “Take a right at the next street.”

“I know how to get there.”

Surprise flashes across her face, but it only takes a heartbeat for her to tamp it down to boredom.

Fiona wasn’t even born when I left Boston. When Da… When Mam… When Jenn… When Athawn… When the Moran name turned to shite.

I take a left turn, and then a right.

Thedúnlooks exactly as it did on the day I left. It’s a dark gray clapboard building. Three stories above ground, and one below. It fills a city block. That’s bulletproof glass in the windows. Walls reinforced with steel. Doors three inches thick.

No cars park on this block, on either side of the street.Cameras are mounted on telephone poles. They used to dump a grainy feed onto computer screens in the basement, but the equipment must have been upgraded by now.

Two kids stand on the closest corner, hunched in denim jackets against the late April chill. Their twins are at the far end of the block. Relaxed. Casual. At least until I stop the Land Rover in the middle of the road.

Two grown men flank the door. I don’t know them. I suspect I don’t know most of the Crew these days. But Fiona’s sharp little inhale says she recognizes the pair.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, not taking my eyes off them. They’re making no secret of the handguns they carry. They’re right-handed, both of them. Their shoulder holsters hold something heavy.

I’d put backup in the house across the street. Long guns on the second floor.

When I leave the engine running, the guy on the left taps an earpiece. His eyes don’t shift, but I catch a flicker of curtain across the way. Like I said, extra manpower across the street.

Maybe a sniper on the roof. You can’t be too careful these days. Southie’s a lot rougher than the Philadelphia suburb my boss calls home. And every criminal in Boston must be dreaming of an unexpected payday, now that the Old Colony captain’s dead.

Fiona has gone perfectly still.

“What’s wrong?” I ask again.

“They’re not Da’s men.”

I didn’t think they would be. Fiona’s told herself a fable. She believes in fairy godmothers and magic castles and unicorns farting rainbows across the sky. But she’s about to wake up to the real world.

“You know who they work for?”

She nods, a single tight jerk of her head. “Uncle Aran.”

Aran Dowd. Old Ingram’s Clan Chief, his second-in-command. A man I know far too well. A man I hate.

Her fingers scramble for the latch on her door.

“Hold on,” I say. My voice is sharp enough that she obeys. “You need a plan. You aren’t just walking in there.”

She shakes her head. “That’s exactly what I need to do. I’m not afraid of those two. I’m not afraid of anyone.” I wait for her to tell me she’s a killer, like that’s news. She misses the opportunity, which gives me a hint of just how thrown she is.

“You should be,” I say.

“He’s my uncle. He’s waiting to welcome me home. He knows this is what my father wanted.”

If her father wanted to make her captain in his stead, he’d have kept her close to Boston, not sent her down to Philadelphia. Not tried to marry her off like a broodmare, to a thoroughly uninterested Braiden Kelly. Not ignored her, when she stayed on with feckin’ Madden Kelly.

Her breath is coming fast now. She’s closer than ever to spilling out of that suit.

“Let’s think this through,” I say. “We can come back tomorrow. You can sit down with your uncle like equals.”

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