Page 30 of Her Irish Savage

“Rabid dog. I know.” If he’s surprised that I’ve read Stephen King, he doesn’t show it. So I push: “Why did Rivers call you Cujo?”

“The whole clan did. When I was a soldier.”

I can just make out the white scars on his knuckles beneath the passing streetlights. “You were an enforcer for the Old Colony Crew?”

He grunts, in a way that confirms my question even as it shuts down conversation. Still not taking his eyes from the road, he gestures toward me with his elbow. “Phone?” he asks. “Hotel?”

I ignore him. “What happens after the funeral?”

“We need a place to stay tonight.”

“After the funeral?” I push.

“Youfigure out some scheme to raise ten million dollars.Igo back to Philadelphia. I’m Warlord for the Fishtown Boys. My captain needs me.”

I need you too.

The words are right there, heating up my lips. My fingers are already moving toward the buttons on my jacket. My right knee bends, bringing my foot to rest on the seat.

I know how to do this, how to make a man give me what I want. God knows I’ve had plenty of practice in the last eight years.

I need Patrick Moran to put his arm around me at night. Ineed him to give me blinding orgasms. I need him to hold me tight enough that the nightmares stay away.

But I’ll clean the dark-tinted windshield of this Land Rover with my tongue before I’ll say any of that out loud.

So I take out my phone. I pretend to look for a hotel. I tap an address, because Uncle Aran made up my mind for me the second he called me “little Fee.”

I know where I’m living while I get back the Crew.

My phone’s mechanical voice tells Moran to proceed to the route. I wait until he’s made the first turn before I say, “You can go back to Philadelphia now. I don’t need you babysitting me until the funeral.”

“I want to make sure your father’s in his grave. Tough old fecker like him… He might change his mind about this dying shite.”

I snort. Da changed his mind about plenty of things. But even he can’t cheat death.

We’re well after rush hour, but the streets are still crowded. Fortunately, we don’t have far to go. We pass a couple of public alleys. Turn left on Beacon Street. My phone announces: “Arrived.”

Moran taps the brakes and sighs in disgust. “Forget about GPS. Just tell me the hotel, and I’ll get us there.”

“There’s no hotel.” I gesture toward the red brick building with its gleaming black door. “We’re staying here.”

“I’m in no mood for games.”

I point down the street, where an SUV is pulling out of a space. “You can park there.”

He clearly wants to argue with me. But instead, he negotiates the parking space flawlessly, even though there’s less than a foot of extra space. When he takes my suitcases out of the back, I grab his duffel.

A metal mailbox is mounted on the brick wall to the left of the door. I enter the four-digit code for Unit 4. The box isstuffed with mail, which I hand off to a mystified-looking Moran.

A magnetized box clings to the top of the mail compartment. I pry it loose and enter another code, six digits this time. Two shiny brass keys wait inside.

I use one to open the building’s front door, which swings back on silent hinges. “Ready?” I say to Moran. “It’s a walk-up.”

He grunts a non-answer. I reach for the larger suitcase, because I don’t want to be responsible for his heart attack, but he bats my hand away. Shrugging, I take the smaller one and lead the way.

I’m more out of breath at the top than he is. That must be because he’s wearing more sensible shoes.

The second key opens the condo door. I let him enter first. I see the way he automatically twitches his jacket out of the way so he’ll have easy access to his gun. But he doesn’t have his pistol in its holster. He packed it, because he was going to thedún.

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