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He leaped to his feet and blustered, “What makes you say that?”
That he bristled merely confirmed my suspicion.
“He’s a rich NHL star. Your suit saw better days ten years ago, Paddy.”
“You think I’d take money from him?”
“I think a good son with a father he respected would figure out a way to maneuver around any pricked egos.”
His nostrils flared and his jaw clenched, and for the second time that day, I prepared to be struck down, only he settled back against the sofa and muttered, “You always been this perceptive and I just didn’t notice it?”
“Few people notice it,” I mocked. “Until it’s too late.”
Paddy tapped his nose. “That’s smart, Finn. Real smart.”
Hitching a shoulder, I asked, “What went wrong?”
“His manager turned him against me.”
“And you were the completely innocent party?” I mocked.
He grunted. “No. I said shit I shouldn’t have.”
“About what?”
“His ma. She was a stripper.”
“You stuck around for math classes,” I pointed out. “So you weren’t totally deadbeat.”
“It’s complicated.” He heaved a sigh, but he didn’t argue with my description of him as a father. “Liam’s made a lot of bad decisions lately—”
“That why you had to pull a Lazarus and resurrect Padraig O’Donnelly?”
His mouth turned down at the corners. “He lost a couple million to some shady investors in Quebec.”
“Give the names to Conor. He’ll get the money back,” I said softly.
“Conor don’t want nothin’ to do with me. I get it. I did a shitty thing.”
There was no self-pity in the words, and that was probably what made me say, “Conor’s been betrayed recently. We all have—”
“I didn’t—”
I held up a hand to stall him. “Wasn’t talking about you. Yours is the least problematic of a bad bunch. You know Mark O’Reilly?”
He sniffed. “That dipshit Aidan thought was a best friend?”
Amused, I said, “Well, he’s still a dipshit. Callum was on Con’s crew. They were best friends, but we found out recently his son was a Sparrow.”
“Jesus!”
“Exactly. You notice Junior hobbles around?”
“Yeah, what’s with that?”
“He got gunned down on my wedding day, alongside Aoife. But Callum is the reason that drive-by happened.”
Paddy sank back into the sofa then, with a statement worthy of an award for understatement of the decade, muttered, “Tabarnak. The Sparrows have really messed with the Points, haven’t they?”
