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She registered Nolan and Will in the room, along with Doug — fresh out of jail — and a kid she didn’t recognize. All of them were standing in a line near the wall. Nolan’s face was like stone, Will’s impassive, like Seamus losing his shit happened all the time when Bridget had never once seen him like this in all the time she’d worked for him.
Doug looked like he was about to piss his pants, and the new kid was desperately looking around for an exit he wouldn’t find. Seamus’s operation was like the Hotel California: you could check out any time you wanted, but you could never leave.
“Did you know anything about this, Monaghan?” Spittle flew from Seamus’s mouth as he shouted down at her.
It wasn’t hard to display an expression of shock. “About what?”
Seamus’s breath escaped his lungs in a raspy rattle that had Bridget fearing for his life in spite of everything that was going on.
He turned away and paced to the back of the room, and Bridget was alarmed to see a gun in full view on Seamus’s table. Everyone knew he had one, but he usually let the men do his intimidating, preferring to appear the friendly uncle passing the hours at the Cat unless business required his personal show of force.
He picked up the gun and turned around, his eyes combing the room, coming to rest on each of them in turn.
“Fecking shit-for-brains maggots are going to take a dive in the harbor with a cinderblock around their ankles when I find out who they are.” His voice was suddenly low, the threat all the more real for how softly he spoke.
This wasn’t a man out of control and making empty threats — these were promises.
Bridget’s heart was thudding rapidly, her chest constricting. She didn’t say anything. Even if she hadn’t known what was going on, she would have stayed quiet, not ask questions that would only rile up Seamus more.
He leaned over the table and lit a cigarette, took a puff, then erupted into a coughing fit. When he caught his breath, he took another puff, set the cigarette down in an overflowing ashtray, and paced back to the line of men that included Will and Nolan.
“Someone ratted out our entire cover at BPD,” he said to the men. “Internal Affairs sent a fecking army into every district and pulled out every single man we had inside the force.” He stood straighter, like he was finally gaining control. “I don’t suppose any of you know something about that.”
“No sir,” the kid said. Bridget felt sorry for him. He was practically quaking in his shoes.
“The kid here can’t know anything because he doesn’t know anything,” Seamus said. “Get out of here kid.”
The kid almost bowled Bridget over on his way out the door.
“Burke here is new to the outfit,” Seamus said. “You got some kind of intel on my operation, Burke? Trying to cause trouble for me?”
“Just keeping my head down, boss. Haven’t been around long enough to know any of your men in BPD,” Nolan said.
Bridget had to hand it to him. His face was expressionless, his eyes cold, voice steady.
“Get the feck out of here,” Seamus said to Nolan. “But don’t forget, I’ve got my eye on you.”
Bridget caught the split second of hesitation in Nolan’s movements: he didn’t want to leave her and Will behind. He seemed to realize making a fuss would do none of them any favors, and he started for the door, his gaze skipping to Bridget as he passed her with his back to Seamus.
“That leaves you three,” Seamus said, looking from Doug to Will to Bridget. “You three and Casey.”
Bridget swallowed hard. She couldn’t live with herself if the betrayal perpetrated by her, Nolan, and Will caused someone else to get hurt.
“But none of you here are on my Operations team are you?” Seamus asked.
Bridget sensed it was a rhetorical question and assumed Will and Doug had come to the same conclusion. None of them answered.
“If any of you see Casey around the neighborhood, you come to me right away, got it?” They nodded and Seamus continued. “Yellow little pecker is missing, probably knows I have a price on his head. Now get the feck out of here before I dump you all in the river just to make a point.” Doug bolted for the door while Will took his time. Bridget was turning to join them when Seamus stopped her. “Not you, lass.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and turned around. Seamus was standing in front of her, the cigarette now in his hand. He looked at her through the smoke, his eyes shrewd.
“Now you wouldn’t use that fancy law degree of yours to get into my business, would you lass?”
Bridget shook her head. “I can’t afford to lose this job. My brother probably wouldn’t be alive without it.”
“You remind me a bit of my wife, god rest her soul. I ever tell you that?”
“No.”
