Page 89 of Her Irish Savage

“Careful, old man. Your jealousy’s showing. You didn’t like the way those poor, bored fucks paid attention to me.”

“I don’t give one shite about society yokes. But your uncle’s another story.”

“Fuck my uncle.”

“That’s what he wants, yeah. That’s what you’re scared of.That’swhy you wanted to kill this shitehawk—to prove you canpull the trigger when you face the man who sent him. But Dowd is smarter than this eejit. Richer and stronger too.”

“He’s Da’s age. He’s too fucking old to run the Crew.”

“And you’re too fucking young! You don’t have the experience. You make too many bad choices. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can figure out what you want to be when you grow up.”

My voice freezes. “I’m going to be captain of the Old Colony Crew.”

“The fuck you are.”

“When the Grand Irish Union votes in six weeks?—”

“Wake up!” He interrupts me, snapping in front of my nose. “Sure. You can wait till the Union votes to make your move. Wait till you sit on Santy’s lap, begging for a Christmas gift. Wait till hell freezes over, because you are never, ever going to lead the Old Colony Crew.”

It feels like he’s slapped me. Like he’s landed a punch in my ribs. All these weeks, I thought he understood. I thought he knew. I thought he believed in me.

I have to hit back. I have to land a blow as hard as the one he’s just struck. Harder.

“Iwilllead the Crew,” I tell him. “And you know why? Because I can concentrate on something for longer than thirty goddamn seconds. I can show up where I’m supposed to be on time, without setting a dozen alarms. I can keep track of a fucking key for an entire day. I can show a little goddamn impulse control and keep from blowing some motherfucker’s head to smithereens!”

His throat works. He starts to explain. Stops. Starts to fucking apologize. Stops again.

And I take my one last shot, the one I should have put into Kevin Joyce’s brain. “I can’t trust you, because you can’t trust yourself. You’re not a man. You’re an animal. You don’t belong here, Cujo. You never did.”

34

PATRICK

Cujo.

Kieran Ingram was the first man to call me that, and he used it as a sign of respect. I was a mad dog. I washismad dog. He could point me toward an enemy, and I would tear the poor fecker apart, limb from goddamn limb.

But the meaning changed when Da died. Cujo meant I was sick. I was damaged. I was everything corrupt about the Crew I’d sworn to.

Fiona can’t know all that. But she knows she wants to hurt me. She wants to pierce my heart.

Which is exactly what I tried to do to her. I knew what I was saying, telling her she was young, telling her she was naive. I placed a wedge, and I pounded it hard, knowing she’d never accept what I said.

There’s one long moment when we can both say we’re sorry. We can both take back our words.

But I’m a mad dog. A savage. I can’t fix this.

And she doesn’t want to.

The time-bomb is ticking, ticking, ticking. But it doesn’t explode. Instead, it eats a gulf between us, chewing away at everything we ever had, leaving a gaping canyon neither one of us can cross.

I stare at the mayhem around us. The water beyond the Cadillac’s nose is deep enough to swallow a frustrated golfer’s clubs, but it’s not a lake. It can’t hide bodies or a car.

It’s something of a miracle we haven’t been found already. If the golf course wasn’t on the edge of a busy college campus, someone would have already phoned in the noise. Any cop who drives past the splintered front gate will investigate the situation.

This is one of those times when my broken brain is an asset. It can replay every single frame of the movie we’ve just shot. I can watch every step Fiona and I took. I can see we never touched the Caddy. I know we’ve left no fingerprints behind.

We’re too far from the clubhouse to worry about a security camera. There’s probably one trained on the gate. They’ll run the Land Rover’s Pennsylvania plate. Maybe show up with a warrant at my place down in Philly. I need to swap platesnow.

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