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Alfie's movements were jerky, telegraphing his frustration as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "She could've given me to them, Con. They were her cousins. Emilia hid me in the back storeroom and fed them a lie about me going out the back."
I lit the cigarette he'd given me earlier and slouched against the shipping container next to him. Neither of us said anything. I counted to one hundred in my head, and then two hundred, blowing smoke up at the rafters while I thought about what he'd said.
The thing was, I trusted Alfie with my life. We had seen each other at our worst and come out the other side. He had saved my neck more than once, and if he said Emilia Moretti wasn't a threat then I believed him.
That didn't mean I wasn't going to let him sweat a bit. "So, it's true love, then? With the daughter of Lorenzo fucking Moretti."
"Adopted."
"I feel that's a distinction I'm going to be hearing a lot."
Alfie's lips twitched in the faintest of smiles. "You'd like her, Connor. She's real."
"I would hope so."
"You know what I mean." He breathed out. "She's real in the way that most people in our line of work aren't. Anchored to the earth. Content with her simple little life, only it's not little, not to me. It's something you can grasp and hold onto, something steady and constant and nothing like I ever thought I would want. Not in a million years."
Alfie laughed to himself. "She's a mess, you know. Laughs as much as she cries, blushes at a kiss but she's got a mouth that would make Sloane blush. She's messy and she's loud, and she'd rather have her nose in a book than speak to another human being, but I love her, Connor."
He looked at me, daring me to challenge him. "I love her."
"I never thought I'd see the day when cupid's fucking arrow would finally claim the great Alfie Doyle." I crushed my cigarette out on the side of the shipping container. I had lost the taste for it.
"Never thought I'd see the day when you'd let someone into that frozen heart of yours either, Connor."
"So should I start drafting letters of condolences to the greater female population of South Boston, then?"
"Fuck you, Connor."
I stood and brushed my hair back. The relief I felt knowing my best friend wasn't the mole was immense, but the reality hit me a moment later--there was still a traitor in our ranks, and I needed to find out who it was.
I grabbed Alfie's hand and pulled him up, clapping a hand on his back. "I'm not going to apologize, because you should have told me."
"I know."
"Still. I'm happy for you."
"Thanks." Alfie grinned at me, but then it faded. "Can we just keep this between us for now, though? This isn't the best time to be bringing something like this to Callum."
I nodded. I'd already anticipated that. "Let's keep it to neutral territory for now, yeah? No more fucking around in the North End, not for a while, at least."
"Deal."
"All right. Now, let's go see where Unger got off to."
"How was work today?" I shrugged off my jacket. Cassidy was still in her scrubs, still glowing from her first full shift back at work.
She made a clucking noise when she noticed my hand. "Maybe I should ask you about yours." Delicate fingers caressed my palm as she examined the bruised knuckles and broken skin, and she pointed to the kitchen island. "Sit."
"Yes, ma'am."
I liked watching Cassidy when she worked. There was a little crease that would appear between her eyebrows, closer to the right than the left. Her hands were sure and strong. She bit her bottom lip a lot, especially when she was thinking. And God help me but she was bossy.
It sent my blood straight to my dick. Every time.
"Well, you didn't break anything," she said, turning my hand beneath the lights, "but this needs to be iced. Let me get some antiseptic on these cuts."
I stole a kiss before she could lean away, and I felt her shudder against me.
