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Nolan wasn’t under any illusions: the Syndicate weren’t the good guys. But they were the better guys. Better than what the neighborhood had now. Better than worrying about Will getting popped or Bridget ending up at the Playpen to work off her debt to Seamus, a debt Nolan would happily pay if he thought he could get away with it, if he thought Bridget wouldn’t return the money the minute she found out it had been paid.
“You won’t leave?” Nolan asked Will.
“Not yet. I need a couple more years to set myself up.”
“And you won’t take my help? Even as a loan?”
“Jaysus Christ. Stop asking.”
Nolan stood. “All right.”
Will looked up at him. “All right?”
“I had to ask.” Nolan held out his hand. “Still mates?”
“What are you on your period? For feck’s sake.” Will took his hand. “Always. Now stop acting like a dolt before I belt you just to see you bleed.”
Nolan laughed and threw his arm around Will, rubbing his fist into Will’s hair until he shoved Nolan away.
They were both laughing as they headed away from the playground, but Nolan’s mind was in turmoil. Unless he wanted to pinch Seamus himself — and he didn’t — there was only one way out for Will and Bridget.
And one person who could give it to them.
9
Bridget looked at her phone, slid her laptop into her bag, and stood to leave. She’d spent all day doing research for a client who had been working his way to legal residency when he’d been stopped for speeding. The subsequent search of his car had led to the discovery of a minute amount of marijuana in the glove compartment. Her client insisted the joint had been left there by a friend, but it hadn’t mattered. ICE had gotten involved and was now threatening to deport him, a gainfully employed kid who was studying to be a software engineer and who had lived in the U.S. since he was three years old.
She sighed as she moved around her desk. His story was one of many like it in her files, good people who’d made a misstep — one that wouldn’t have mattered if they were white citizens — that threatened to cost them hard fought futures in America.
They were the people who kept her coming to BRIC every day, who made her tiny salary seem like enough. She was fighting for them, and for her country too, which was better off for all the immigrants who had reached her shores over the years, Bridget’s family included.
“Leaving so soon?” her boss Sheridan asked as Bridget made her way past Sheridan’s cubicle.
The lights were off in the rest of the office, everyone else gone home.
“You know me, I’m a slacker,” Bridget said. It was an ongoing joke among BRIC’s employees. Everyone who worked there was passionate about its cause, a fact that meant someone was usually in the office until midnight, sometimes later, working their way through the cases that had only seemed to increase in the past few years.
Sheridan sighed dramatically and tucked a piece of hot pink hair behind her ear. “Have fun painting your nails or eating bonbons or whatever else you’re going to do while I’m slaving away here.”
Bridget laughed and continued to the elevator. Sheridan was a single mother who’d graduated from Boston Law with honors. The fact that she was struggling to make it on the tiny salary from BRIC instead of going to work for a big paycheck with a well-known firm spoke volumes about her commitment to their clients. Joking about their struggle was how they coped — that and the secret stash of vodka in the bottom drawer of Sheridan’s desk, something that got them through many a late night.
Bridget exited the office and walked to her car, four blocks away thanks to the outrageous rates of the nearest parking garage. Her thoughts turned to Nolan as they had countless times since he’d appeared outside her house the week before.
Damn him.
She was honest enough to admit that he’d always been on her mind, drifting through her subconscious even when she’d convinced herself she was over him, but the past week had been hell. She hadn’t had a single decent night’s sleep, tossing and turning through a series of lucid dreams that caused her to wake with both an aching body and an aching heart.
The memories she’d had of him, powerful in their own right, were nothing compared to the reality of his eyes staring into her soul, his hand covering hers, his body promising passion and safety and belonging that she’d hadn’t known before him and hadn’t come close to with the few guys she’d dated since.
She came to her car and cursed when she saw a slip of paper under her windshield wiper. She’d forgotten to come out after dinner and feed the meter, a downside she usually didn’t mind when it gave her the excuse to get out of the office for ten minutes four times a day.
She removed the ticket and threw it into the passenger seat along with her bag. Then she started the car, pulled into traffic, and headed for the Cat.
She’d been thinking nonstop about what Nolan had said that night — almost as much as she’d thought about him — but it hadn’t changed anything. Nothing had made her inextricable ties to Seamus more clear than Nolan’s warning and the knowledge that she couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
She was in too deep now. If she tried to get out, Seamus would call in her debt. He might give her a few weeks to come up with a solution out of consideration for the situation with Owen, but the pressure would become stronger, the warnings more violent, not just against her but against her family.
Maybe even against Owen.
