Page 77 of Her Irish Savage

I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “I’ll do that.” And then, before he goes back to whatever business I interrupted, I say, “One more thing, Boss.”

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to quit while you’re ahead?”

His voice has shifted back to acid, but I bull ahead like I don’t have a care in the world. Fiona doesn’t know it yet, but she needs some information Kelly has. “That place you go to, down in Delaware…”

“Diamond Freeport?”

I nod, even though he can’t see me. “It’s what? A tax haven?”

“It’s a port. I send assets there for safekeeping. If I sell those assets to someone else who keeps them there, the transfer isn’t taxed.”

“It’s secure then?”

“Secure enough for a dozen billionaires to trust it.” And then, with a cool tone: “So Fiona’s paying you enough you need to play some tax games?”

“I’m asking for Herself.”

“Where the hell is Fiona—” He cuts himself off. “So she got her hands on her father’s estate.” He doesn’t make it a question.

“And she’ll get the Crew too.”

Fiona is determined. I’m willing to bet she’s already taken over every account Q gave her today. She’ll use it all to take down Dowd.

Which brings me to the last thing Kelly needs to know. “Boss,” I say. “Fiona got some information today. A report that mentions Philly.”

Kelly’s voice sharpens with interest. “What sort of report?”

“A balance sheet. With names. And notes.”

“Go on.” That’s his captain voice, the one that makes every one of us men jump to comply. Fiona exercised hers with Q earlier today, but she’s far from being a master.

Challenged by Kelly, I find myself reciting like a first-year runner. “Aran Dowd started wiring money to Germany six years back. Payments for shipping into Philadelphia. There’s a steady increase in dollar amount, doubling quarter over quarter. But two months ago, everything stopped.”

Kelly scoffs. “That could be anything. Electronics. High-end automobiles. Raw chemicals for labs.”

“The early payments went to Klaus Herzog.”

Silence.

A few years back, a video went viral—a group of Diamond Freeport billionaires sitting around a table, feasting on seafood and hundred-dollar-a-shot booze. One of those billionaires—Klaus Herzog—died in a spectacularly bloody way. And Kelly was caught on camera, watching the entire thing.

“And the later ones?” my boss finally asks.

“To his brothers. The records I saw didn’t even try to hide their names. Didn’t hide the nature of the goods either. It’s Crash.”

I take a little credit for Kelly’s fluent Irish curses. He learned our mother tongue in a classroom. I taught him how real men speak.

Crash is a drug created in a German lab. It’s designed to target kids’ developing brains, and a single dose is addictive.

With Kieran Ingram as head of the Grand Irish Union, there’ve been few things the mob won’t touch. Whores? No problem. Running guns? We’ve got that covered. Extortion, blackmail, an occasional political hit? Bring it on.

But Ingram put out the word on Crash. Sell it, and kiss the mob goodbye. You’re out. You’re dead.

A few years back, Kelly fell into a sweetheart deal—kilos of the stuff, taken from the Herzogs in a warehouse raid and worth millions on the street. He ordered me to charter a boat and dump the shite at sea.

But it looks like Aran Dowd didn’t get the same memo.

“How much is he selling?” Kelly asks.

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