Page 155 of Handsome Devil

“Gia.” Kevin barreled toward me, pink-cheeked. He eyeballed Tate apprehensively before asking, “May I hug your wife, sir?”

“Sure, if you don’t feel too attached to your limbs.” Tate’s ice cube voice trickled down my spine.

I rolled my eyes, reaching to embrace Kevin warmly. “Thanks for being here, Kev. How’s your mum?”

“Better!” He perked. “Ever since the new health insurance kicked in, I’ve been able to get her more therapy sessions and access to better treatment. She started going to the gym. She’s even crocheting.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Gia.” Trisha hobbled to my side on her high heels, jerking me into a hug. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

Trisha bit on her lower lip, waiting for Kevin and Tate to disperse by the prolonged glare she gave them. Kevin shuffled along quickly enough, but Tate stayed by my side, awarding her with an expression twice as cold.

“Go ahead,” my husband said. “If you wait for me to leave, you’ll hit menopause before that happens.”

We really needed to work on his attitude.

Trisha swiveled to me. “I just wanted to apologize, for how I… Well, I wasn’t very nice to you when you first arrived at HR.”

“To put it mildly,” I agreed.

“I made some judgments. We all did, but we shouldn’t have. The union you started has improved so many lives, secured so many incomes. You made the biggest impact since I started working at GS Properties over nine years ago. So…thank you.”

I smiled. “All water under the bridge. Let’s focus on bettering people’s lives, yeah?”

“And making me richer,” Tate noted clinically.

When Trisha left, I turned to my husband and dropped a kiss on his shoulder, the only place I could reach without rising up on my toes. “I’m sorry about the union, but it was very important to me. I know how much the idea of being good and helpful to others pains you.”

“It truly does.” He resumed our walk toward the seats in front of Mum’s grave. “Of course, the union bumped GS Properties up to the number one spot onForbesAmerica’s Best Employers list, thereby allowing me to recruit the crème de la crème of Ivy League interns for half the price my competitors pay. They now think we have an altruistic cause. Amovement. We managed to attract the sharpest minds in the business without lifting a finger.”

An anxious blade grazed my spine. My legs froze midstride. “You set this up, didn’t you?” I whispered, squinting at him. “You knew I’d riot as soon as I witnessed how dire things were at HR.”

He transferred me to human resources because he realized I wouldn’t last more than five seconds firing people and wanted someone to start a union so his company would look great. He played the long, sophisticated game and won. Every single time.

“Shh, the service is almost starting. Let’s focus on the here and now.”

He placed a firm hand on the small of my back, ushering me into the thick crowd of grievers.

Ialways maintained it’d be a cold day in hell when I left the Upper East Side for anything that didn’t include an airport.

Well, it appeared that the netherworld’s residents were in need of a warm coat today.

I found myself descending to the lowly sewers of New York, also known as Hunts Point, Callaghan’s measly territory. The Ferrantes had no use for run-down neighborhoods full of drug users and particularly didn’t want to be linked to petty crime, prostitution, and violent burglaries, so they left the Irish the leftovers of the Big Apple.

More specifically, I was in front of Fermanagh’s, a pub kissing the edge of the Bronx River in a particularly underprivileged area. Though the street left much to be desired—namely, a bathtub full of bleach—the place itself was oddly charming. A medieval church converted into a pub. There was somethinginherently European about it. Like it’d been plucked from a green Irish cliff and screwed right into the grit and filth of the Bronx.

It was a little after noon, and when I pushed the red wooden door open, the place was packed. The Irish flag covered the majority of the shit-brown ceiling. The gray walls were exposed brick. The wooden floor creaked under my wingtips. The stench of stale stout beer, cigarettes, and sweat hung in the air like dirty laundry.

I headed directly to the bar, where I knew I’d find Fintan, the twins’ older brother. It wasn’t hard to recognize him. He had the same shade of flame-licked hair as his brother and sister. He was dressed in a sharp suit and looked considerably less unhinged than his siblings.

“Ay, mate. What can I get ya?” He turned toward me, drying the inside of a Guinness pint with a towel. He was a jack-of-all-trades, helping his father and brother run their various establishments around South Bronx.

“Your baby brother’s head on a platter.” I slid onto a stool at the bar, keeping my hands in my pockets. “But since the fucker is hard to track down—he’s been dodging the Ferrantes’ calls—I’ll settle for a word with him here.”

Fintan’s face was unreadable. Not unfriendly but far from alarmed. “Tiernan’s not here.”