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“Yeah, Roisin’s,” I confirmed.
Another guy grimaced. “I hear they charge, like, three hundred dollars a steak there.”
One person gave a halfhearted laugh at the joke, as almost everyone else at this event could afford a meal in that price range.
“Something like that,” I murmured, my smile plastered on my lips like putty. I didn’t eat steak, but food at the restaurant was free for employees and family. The head chef made me custom vegetarian dishes on the fly, teasing me about my diet as he did.
“The O’Connell guy that was on the news owns it, right?” a girl asked. “Did you know him?”
A heavy stone dropped into my stomach. The warmth drained from my cheeks, replaced by a coldness so bone-deep I shivered. I did not want to have this discussion with what amounted to basic strangers, peers or not.
“Wait, that hot guy that was murdered in Brooklyn?”
I couldn’t decipher who had spoken. My throat dried and my vision tunneled as panic gripped me. I tried to remember my therapist’s advice. Identify three things you can hear in your reality. But my ears only latched onto their conversation, forcing me to visualize the trauma I’d buried over the past months—years, even. Loose pills, a billiard ball, the gaping wound on Connor’s neck.
“Not just any hot guy. The O’Connells own, like, a third of Manhattan.”
“I heard it was a serial killer.”
“I don’t know… The news says the FBI doesn’t have any leads.”
“Yeah, they say they don’t. I think it’s some feminist with an agenda, you know? Out to kill rich white guys.”
“Emma?”
“A feminist with an agenda? Do you hear yourself? God, I hope you’re next, Chad.”
“Emma?”
“It was just a theory. No need to get emotional.”
“Emma, are you all right?”
“Stop!” I screamed.
Silence descended on the group. Everyone stared as I abandoned my belongings, tripping over my own feet in haste to get away. I was dizzy, and not just from the alcohol. An anxiety attack was rapidly approaching like fire licking the edges of a forest. I hadn’t had one in so long, but the terror was familiar—as if it’d never gone away, but lay dormant.
I widened the space between myself and Jamie’s friends. Lost among sweat-dampened skin and overpriced swimwear, I began to feel better with the knowledge that I was anonymous again. That was what had drawn me to Manhattan in the first place—the anonymity. At home, everyone knew their neighbor’s dirty secrets. Here, I didn’t even know the name of the man in the unit across from mine. In New York, no one cared about anyone other than themselves.
Everyone was selfish and it was an easy rule to live by. I didn’t need any more connections than I already had. I had my family, I had Jack, I had Eoghan and Shannon. I didn’t need anything else.
I didn’t know where my skirt went, but I was suddenly wading through the pool in just my bikini. The water felt like warm butter against my skin, bringing welcome relief from the evening heat.
I’m buzzed. Ten months with the Irish and I still can’t handle my liquor.
What the hell had I been thinking, coming here? The panic was a result of trying to live two lives, be two people. Trying to immerse myself in the mob scene while grasping at this outdated model of myself—a version that studied every hour of the day and only cared about getting good grades and passing finals with stellar marks.
I wasn’t her anymore.
I’d changed and there was no point denying it. I was a money launderer. I’d held my high school sweetheart’s cold, dead face in my hands. I had been present while a man shot himself, blowing his brain matter onto my skin. I’d witnessed a man hanging upside down from a rafter, a sea of blood beneath him. I’d struck a deal with the don of the New York Mafia. I’d performed in a high-end strip club. I had done things with Jack that would make my grandmother, God rest her soul, blush in her grave.
At this very moment, I realized just how much I no longer cared about my mainstream education. It paled in comparison to Jack and the world I was now so deeply ingrained in. Ancient history and the discovery of it were insignificant in the light of everything going on in my present. A war was looming and no one on this rooftop was aware of it apart from me. It wasn’t a war that would make history books, no. But lives were being lost. People were being hurt. Forever changed by it.
At least four men were dead.
And it was infuriating to stand among people who didn’t give a shit about any of it. Who would never know how it felt to be separated from someone they loved. Because that was it. Jack hadn’t been drafted overseas—he wasn’t missing from my life physically—but he was just as distanced from me as if he had been. He was a commander in chief of an underground army, fighting a battle where law and order had no say. Where morality was a spectrum—and it changed depending on whose eyes we were looking through. It was impossible to know how depraved our enemies were. Especially when they moved like smoke—like the Babau, who struck, then disappeared into the shadows.
As if on cue, a hand moved through the water and snaked around my waist, squeezing my side. I jolted at the playful tickle, spinning to find Jamie had joined me in the darkening pool.
