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Forty-Seven
Savannah
The 26th of December
"How fucking dare you? You monster!"
Attention pricked, I twisted around and found a woman, with a very pissed off baby in her arms, screaming at an older version of herself.
When I thought about Aidan, who was the spitting image of his dad, then Shay and Declan who were close to twins with just a massive age gap, I wondered what it was about the Irish Mob that had them looking alike so much.
Something in the water?
Nah, I knew there were several pipelines that fed Manhattan its water source, but they didn’t specifically drop in Hell’s Kitchen. Even if that was a neat fix.
Jen would say it was chemtrails, but that was because she’d seen a documentary on YouTube, and had been obsessed ever since.
"Keep your voice down," the older woman, probably her mother or aunt, spat, taking a deep sip of wine after.
"Mom, if you’d just leave me alone, I would."
I frowned at the sight, then stalked over to them both. I had no idea what they were arguing about, but the baby looked like he was going to explode with outrage.
"Is everything okay?" I asked quietly, aware that people were looking without looking.
In my world, we’d have drawn all the stares. Everyone would be watching. Here, I guessed there was worse shit at sea than a mother and daughter raging at each other.
"No! Everything isn’t okay," the younger one snapped, not looking at me. Then, she cast me a glance and blanched. Literally blanched. "I’m so sorry," she whispered, her eyes wide.
The about-face was enough to have me blinking. "It’s okay. I didn’t mean to intrude."
"Look what you’ve done now, Mary Catherine. For God’s sake, you’ve never been able to comport yourself with decency, but ever since you took up with that biker—"
I frowned. "I beg your pardon, but who are you?"
The woman shot me a smarmy smile. "I’m sorry if we caused a stir. Ever since she gave birth, my daughter’s been prone to hysteria." She snapped out her hand and grabbed Mary Catherine’s arm. I saw how badly she pinned her fingers around the soft flesh, because the woman’s knuckles bled white. "We’ll get out of your hair."
While Aidan had said jack about me to the people gathered at his house today, somehow the crowd had picked up on the fact that I was Aidan Jr’s.
Whether that was by Morse code or intuition, but I’d been getting wide berths from the men, and women kept shooting me either simpering looks or catty ones.
Mary Catherine was the first to show outright fear.
Apparently, I had power here.
Oh, boy, the Five Points were not ready for that.
As I measured the older woman with a glance, one that had her coming up wanting, I tipped my chin to the side. "No. I don’t think you will." I smiled at Mary Catherine then eyed the squalling baby who was wearing a suit. I didn’t even know you could buy that kind of shit for such young infants, but he had a little vest on, bright blue, with black pants. I assumed it was a onesie, but hell, he looked dapper if pissed off. "Would you like to come with me? We can sort out your son. He probably needs his diaper changed or something. I can show you where to clean him up."
"Thank you," Mary Catherine rasped, tearing away from her mother’s clasp.
"I’ll come with you," the woman retorted.
"No. It’s okay. I’m sure the speeches will start soon. I’ll show her the way." While I smiled at her, I received a quickly hidden glare for my pains, but I ignored her and took Mary Catherine away from the large room filled with people who’d been willing to listen to her get raked over the coals without defending her.
Apparently, the Five Points weren’t feminists. Who’d a thunk it?
We were in, what could only be called, a wintergarten. A massive sunroom with more plants and foliage than an English garden, that was attached to the side of the property, something I hadn’t even known the house had until Aoife asked me to help carry things in there from the kitchen.
