Page 88 of Her Irish Savage

His fingers close around my wrist, squeezing the pressure point above my thumb. My howl turns to a wail, and the revolver drops onto the grass.

“You fuckingasshole!” I scream.

He folds his arms around me. He’s trying to smother me against his chest. His hand spreads across the back of my head, and I hear the things he’s whispering, soft, like I’m a wounded animal, like I’m a baby he can rock to sleep.

“You’re safe, little girl. You’re fine, little girl. No one’s going to hurt you.”

“I’m not your little girl!”

“I’m sorry I used you like a shield. I didn’t have time to tell you my plan. I’m so, so sorry, little girl.”

“I’ll never be your little girl again!”

He sucks in a sharp breath like I’ve kneed him in the balls, but he doesn’t let me go. Instead he tightens his arms around me and says, “Daddy has you.”

I shove against his chest, pushing off like I’m trying to topple him into the water hazard below. He lets me go, but he doesn’t back away.

“You’re not my fucking Daddy,” I growl, planting my fists on my hips.

“Scáthach—” he says.

“Don’t call me that!” My scream is so loud, they must hear it at the top of Old North Church.

He could break my neck if I gave him half a chance. He could punch me hard enough to lacerate my liver. Hell, he still has that fucking Howitzer of a gun—he must have tucked it into his waistband, beneath his rumpled tuxedo jacket—and a shot from that thing at this close range would turn my body into mist.

But he takes a full step back, saying, “Let’s get out of here.”

“I don’t want to get out of here!”

“The cops will?—”

“Fuck the goddamn cops.”

I watch him swallow down an argument. I see him shift gears. “I only wanted to help you, Fiona. To keep you safe.”

“Fuck you. I can fight my own fucking bat?—”

“Youcanfight. But you don’t have to.”

“Of course I have to fight! Every Queen has to fight!”

“Captains issue kill orders every day.”

“Not if they’re a fucking woman!”

My shout is loud enough to echo off the moon. It knocks away every patronizing argument Patrick Moran could ever make.

Now that I finally have his attention, I tell himmytruth. “I don’t get to captain the Crew like anyone who’s gone before me. I have to be stronger than my father ever was.”

“Your father’s dead?—”

I interrupt him. “You think I don’t know that?”

“—and buried. But you’re still giving him free rent inside your head. You’re stuck trying to be his perfect daughter. You want him to pat you on the head and tell you he loves you. Well, I’ve got news for you. That is never going to happen.”

“Go to hell.”

“He would have been ashamed by that show you put on tonight, back at the museum. Sure—flaunt your tits at a few gobsmacked mobsters. But don’t think you can go after civilians the exact same way. Limericks. Jameson. Toasts to the old country. No one wants that type of show.”

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