Page 92 of Her Irish Savage

The sun is blinding as I drive back to the hotel. I should have grabbed sunglasses at Target. I can stop at a drugstore and pick some up.

Fiona bought sunglasses at a drugstore. Fiona gave away her glasses. Fiona?—

Fuck. I have to stop thinking about Fiona.

She was a mistake.

Everything that happened in Boston was a mistake.

Squinting into the morning light, I weave my way back to my hotel.

37

FIONA

Every night, I twist beneath my sheets, dreaming I’m pinned against a chapel’s stone floor, dreaming I’m shoving a gun in Father Colin’s face, dreaming he’s Kevin Joyce. At midnight or at one or at three in the morning, I give up and pour myself a juice glass full of booze.

I work my way through all the vodka in the apartment. Then the rum. Then the gin.

I pour the Jameson down the sink.

Each morning, I wake to a pounding headache. I stretch one hand toward my nightstand, because I’m smart when I drink. I leave myself a glass of water and a couple of Advil.

But after a week of my new routine, I forget. I don’t set out my morning cure. And when I wake, my stomach feels like the inside of a lava lamp.

As I steel myself to stumble into the bathroom, a nasty little voice whispers at the back of my throbbing brain.Patrick left you water and Advil when you got drunk on Scotch and ice cream.

Patrick’s gone. And he’s never coming back. That’s what I want. I only have room in my life for people who believe in me, for people who support my fight to take over the Crew.

That’s Q.

And, um, Oona, if she even knows what I’m trying to do.

And… and Rónnad.

Fuck.

I get my own water. And I swallow my own Advil. And an hour later, when I think my stomach can handle it, I go into the kitchen and make some toast, telling myself that only rookies puke.

Over the last seven days, I’ve paced every square inch of the apartment. I’ve turned the photo of Aunt S to the counter, because I don’t want her to see how I’ve let one idiot man take me down.

Goddammit, I’m not letting him win. I can’t stay in this apartment forever. I have to get back to work, to taking over the Old Colony Crew. I need to start acting like a Queen, if I’m ever going to claim that job.

The Grand Irish Union meets in a little more than a month. By tradition, Boston hosts that meeting. When my father became general, the vote was held at the Four Seasons.

What was good enough for Da is good enough for me.

I spend an entire morning on the phone with the most professional conference coordinator I could ever imagine. I reserve a conference room for the vote, complete with coffee service and a guarantee that no hotel staff will set foot anywhere near while we’re meeting. I rent suites for all the captains.

I’m so exhausted when I finish the job that I take a nap. I sleep all afternoon and into the evening.

And when I finally wake, I decide it’s time to celebrate the work I accomplished. I’m keeping the GIU on track. That’s the sort of responsible thing a captain does. Iwillend up in charge of the Old Colony Crew, even if it takes me a little longer than I originally planned.

Going to my closet, I choose a never-fail corset: Black leather, six buckles down the front, metal studs tracing my ribs like fingerprints. I pair it with a latex miniskirt cut so short I won’t be able to sit down.

That’s fine. The only sitting I plan to do will be on some man’s face.

I eat an apple, and when that doesn’t turn my stomach, I follow it with a glass of milk.

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