Page 76 of Her Irish Savage

Patrick waits until everyone else in the room has returned to their own captivating computers. Then he says, “Should we grab dinner on the way home? It’ll be a long night, going through all this.”

There’s a lot I love about those words.A long night, with Patrick by my side.Home, the apartment we’re sharing. Anddinner. I worked up an appetite before we ever got to the library.

“A burger?” I ask. “With extra fries?”

Patrick laughs, exactly the way I knew he would. As we reach the stairs, he says, “We should make that lobster. With caviar. And a damn good bottle of wine.”

I think about the files we’ll be going through. Artwork. Maps. Rare books. Jewelry. And that’s before we get to any of the German stuff.

I’m rich.

Very, very rich.

So rich that I’ll never need Rónnad’s money again.

28

PATRICK

Fiona is sitting at the small desk in the bedroom, working through the accounts she got from Q. On the drive back from dinner, she told me her plan to automate a lot of the bookkeeping. I understood about every third word she said.

She’ll work it out. She’s a hell of a lot better with computers than I am.

And I’m a hell of a lot better at being a mob enforcer than she’ll ever dream of being. Right now, I’m doing my best to smother the Bell, to keep it from sending me after Aran Dowd. The dry shite has to pay for daring to touch my little girl. For talking to the feds, too—but I need proof of that before I can take real action.

And thePhiladelphiafile Q handed over just might be that proof.

Pacing the living room, I realize I can use my time for something productive. I take out my phone and call my actualcaptain, because I’ve been in Boston for more than a month, and I owe him a little direct communication.

“Boss,” I say when Braiden Kelly picks up.

“When the hell are you coming home?” I know that tone. He’s tired and he’s wary and he’s feeling the burden of running a full-time criminal empire.

The first thing I need to do is prove my loyalty. “If O’Hare’s slacking off, I’ll be the first to show him the door.”

I can picture Kelly pinching his lower lip, the way he shows frustration. “O’Hare’s doing his job,” he finally says. “Yourjob.”

“My job is keeping you safe,” I remind him.

“Let me guess.” He’s in a foul mood, his voice sticky with sarcasm. “Fiona Ingram’s plotting to take me down. The only way you can stop her is to stay by her side.”

I glance toward the bedroom. “It’s not like that, Boss.”

“Then she’s got your bollocks in her pocket, and you’ve forgotten Philadelphia’s your home.”

Tapping my Fishtown ring with my thumb, I take a chance. “We both know her trousers are too tight for pockets.”

He laughs. It’s more a sharp bark than anything expressing actual humor, but it’s the crack I hoped to find in his sour mood.

I try to make things better by promising, “I’ve forgotten nothing, Boss.”

“But you still aren’t coming home.”

“Are you giving me an order?”

He could do it. He knows how to keep all the Fishtown Boys in line. And if he does, I’ll be up against a wall, facing a decision I hope to put off for quite a while longer.

But Kelly’s a good man, the best captain a soldier could ask for. So he doesn’t force me to make the choice. Instead, he sighs and says, “Tell Fiona I asked after her.”

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