“I’ll use Wolf’s credit card.”
“I’ll see that you don’t get it back from that woman after she charges the dress.”
“Do I actually have to remind you that I have my own money, Mam?” Until sixty seconds ago, I never even considered getting a tattoo. Now, I’ll kill for the opportunity.
“Don’t call me that. I rue the day you were ever born, you ungrateful little?—”
“You can’t stop me,Mam. I’ m getting the biggest tattoo you’ve ever seen,Mam. It will cover my entire chest.Mam.” I gesture with my hands, filling the air between us. “Green dollar bills down my arms. A huge red snake across my chest. Big black letters spelling it all out—Twenty Million Dollar Bride.It will be amazing, Mam.Just you wait,Mam. Everyone will love it,Mam!”
I don’t realize I’m screaming until my mother whispers her reply through locked jaws. Her scar has gone pure white, like scales on a fish’s belly. “You stupid little bitch,” she sneers. “You know full well your father had to pay Cole Wolf to take you off our hands. Nobody wants you. Nobody will ever want you. We just had to get you out of the way so Breagha can get the man she deserves.”
It’s only the truth. I’ve known it for years. But hearing it out loud, right here, in public, stings like my scalpel slicing through all the old scars on my legs.
“Mommy,” Breagha says. She’s standing in the doorway, holding three bags that overflow with silver tissue paper. “Kate.”
I don’t say anything. I just shove her aside and stomp through the shop, barely stopping to snatch Wolf’s credit card from a distressed Mrs. Gallagher.
I don’t say a word while we wait at the airport. I don’t say a word while we take our first-class seats on the commercial flight. I don’t say a word as I find a pen in the seat pocket in front of me and use it to draw on little white napkins, square after square after square. Dollar bills. Twisted snakes. Spiky black letters.
But Mam wins in the end. She must have texted Da from the plane, must have told him everything that happened.
Because Lochlann O’Brian is waiting when we exit the secured part of the terminal. He frog-marches me to a waiting limo, leaning in close enough that I can smell sauerkraut on his breath and feel the butt of his pistol beneath his arm. He forces me into the back seat and climbs in right beside me.
We wait for Mam to join us, her lip curled like someone’s been telling filthy jokes. Breagha enters last of all, her face deadly pale. “Let’s go!” O’Brian calls out to the driver, and we start our silent trip back to the family compound.
When we get to Canton, O’Brian strong-arms me down to the cellar. He frisks me, shoving me hard against the wall, so I have to stare at a shiny new padlock anchored to the door. His hands are rough, and he spends more time than he has to poking between my legs.
When he spins me around, I raise a knee to catch him in the bollocks, but he’s ready for me, crushing my windpipe with one heavy forearm. His free hand checks for contraband in my bra. As I wheeze for breath, he digs my phone out of my front pocket. It doesn’t shatter when he drops it, but the case splinters under the heel of his steel-toed boots.
“You fucking shitehawk!” I howl, but he’s already shoving me into my new room. The door slams shut. He laughs like a jackal as I throw myself against the solid sheet of wood, but he’s already snapped the lock into place.
23
COLE
It’s customary, of course, for a groom not to see his bride before the ceremony. But it’s unusual to go four straight days before the joyous event without a single word of communication.
I know Kate went to New York. Charges came through from some boutique on Fifth Avenue called Gallagher Samson.
Caterers have been hired. Florists, too. There’s an organist for the church, and a soloist too, along with a seven-piece band for a party back at the Lynch compound after the ceremony. Valets have been hired to park cars. I’ve paid movers to transport Kate’s meager belongings to my home in Georgetown; they should be in transit now.
My credit card bill tells me I bought dresses for the maid of honor and the mother of the bride—the latter, some vintage Dior that cost upwards of ten grand. I sprang for a new tuxedo for Barry Lynch too, along with cigars for him to hand out to all his crew—Cubans, not the cheap ones he picks up on his owndime. I made a very generous donation to St. Brigid Catholic Church, enough for them to overlook the fact that Kate and I haven’t done any pre-marital counseling. Enough for them to forget I’m not Catholic.
So I have every reason to believe my wedding is going forward today. I just haven’t heard from the bride or a single member of her family.
Which puts the Lynches in exactly the same category asmyfamily. Nutmeg hasn’t responded to my increasingly urgent texts. I certainly haven’t told Mr. and Mrs. A that I’m doing this. Their thirty-five-year-old loving marriage is nothing like the cold-hearted business transaction I’m attempting to complete.
The pews are filled with men, women, and children; I assume all of Baltimore’s Irish mob is present. The ushers didn’t bother asking if guests were friends of the bride or friends of the groom. It would have looked pitiful to leave half the church empty.
Glancing out at the congregation, I question my initial assumption.Mostof the crowd is affiliated with the Lynch clan. That’s obvious from the easy camaraderie of men accustomed to standing together, from the emerald-green neckties and the tie-tacks, lapel pins, and large masculine rings all featuring Celtic knots and dark green stones.
But other guests round out the crowd. Halfway down the right side of the church, there’s a knot of men in jet-black suits. Every one of them could use a better tailor—they have the broad shoulders and barrel chests of bare-knuckle fighters.
Alert and uneasy, they’re gathered around a man with a close-trimmed graying beard. From my station in front of the altar, his narrowed eyes look like charred ebony. His jaw is set as various Lynch men turn to stare, as murmurs ripple their way through the crowd.
I’m not well-versed in Irish mob politics, but I recognize a brewing battle when I see one. Fault lines of power like that are bread and butter to a seasoned conman.
My guess is the intruders are a rival family. Mafia, I’m betting. No—these guys are more Eastern European. I shift my money to the Russian bratva, the Tarasov brotherhood I’ve heard about.
