“Katie, are you daft? It’s Niki, of course. He’s the only person who’s taken any time today to think about how Cole’s lies affect me. Just now, he went to the kitchen to fetch my nerve tea from Cook.”
Niki. Nikolai Tarasov is in the house right now.
I realize I’m not surprised. Mam has been dealing with the bratva for months now, maybe years. She wants power. She wants money. She wants to be the mob queen of Baltimore—and she doesn’t care if it’s the Irish or the Russian mob.
I think about ending the call. Mam will never help me. She’s invited the Lynch clan’s mortal enemy past the feckin’ gate. She’ll never ask him to spare me, to spare Cole, to end this fucking war.
But I’m down to my last line of code. I don’t have any other options.
Mam tells the makeup girl they’ll have to start over. She needs a different shade of foundation if the lights will be that bright.
“Can you take the phone into another room, Mam?” I ask. “I really need to speak with you.”
“There isn’t time, Katie. This piece needs to be finished by six. They edit it, you know, and Greta puts together her introduction. It all has to be final before it airs at nine tonight.”
“This is important.”
“Lots of things are important,a stór. It was important to your father, that he get someone in to help with the clan’s computers. Quite a mistake he made there, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t a mistake.”
“What wouldyoucall it? Do you know how many reporters have come to the gate? Niki can’t understand how they made the connection between Cole and the Canton Crew so quickly.”
I’m sure he can’t.
I fight for a version of the truth she’ll be able to hear. “Mam,” I say. “I need your help.”
She tells someone her hair needs more spray; it’s beginning to curl at the nape of her neck.
“You’ve always been so important to the Canton Crew,” I lie. “Da would be lost as captain without you.”
“Your father never understood our clan.”
She uses the past tense. But at least she’s listening. I have a tiny corner I can pry up, a hint of a chance of a possibility I can break through. “Butyoudid, Mam. You understood everything. The two of you have built an empire.”
“If only your father had a little more vision. If he’d listened to me when those krauts first came to town, we could have been the sole East Coast distribution point for Cr?—”
“You told him, Mam.” I cut her off. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she was about to sayCrash. What sort of story would Greta Harrison tell if she knew Mam wanted a monopoly on selling drugs to children?
But I have to hold on to my desperate dream that she’ll intercede with Tarasov. I’m herdaughter.
So I lie: “You’ve always done what’s best for the Crew. The Lynch clan has always come first.”
She makes a familiar noise like a purring cat. This is how Mam preens. I can picture the wicked smile on her face as she accepts everything she thinks she deserves. I can see her scar stretch thin above her lip.
“There’s one more thing you can do, Mam.” This is the hard part. This is where I need to turn her. I need to make her see. “One more thing to cement your legacy. Da can’t do it, not anymore. But you’re the one who’s always been in charge.”
“Your da’s a feckin’ turnip,” she says. “Niki says?—”
“That’s it, Mam. Niki. He doesn’t have the Crew’s best interest at heart.”
“Oh Katie…” she sighs. “Katie, Katie, Katie. Niki said you’d try to do this.”
“I’m not trying to do anything. I’m askingyou?—”
“He says you’ve always hated the bratva.”
“They kidnapped me when I was eight.” My answer is too loud, too sharp. I can’t help myself. “Breagha and Larissa too.”
