Page 22 of Irish Vice

“Samantha’s General Counsel there,” I clarify. “She knows what’s what. She’ll get the book appraised. Help with an auction when we’re ready to move it.”

“She’llhelpall right,” Madden says.

I shoot him a look designed to shrivel the worm that passes for his prick. Fiona actually cracks a smile as he shifts in discomfort.

“It sounds like Samantha and I have a lot to talk about,” Fiona says.

I don’t like the tone of her voice. I like her words even less. But I can’t think of a single reason to forbid her to talk to the woman in the office down the hall.

“Do what you must,” I say, like I don’t care.

“You should know by now, Captain. I always do.”

Fiona’s lips curl as she takes another sip of coffee. It’s the smile of a lioness. I’m just not sure if I’m a lion or a gazelle.

9

SAMANTHA

Everything’s different. Everything’s the same.

It shouldn’t matter that the door to Birte’s refuge on the third floor is open. Now that I know Braiden’s first wife—his onlylegalwife—lives up there, I shouldn’t still be drawn to the end of the hall. I shouldn’t need to take careful steps over the runner, testing the floorboards for squeaks. I shouldn’t be sneaking around Thornfield.

But I do slink down the hall. I dart past the door to the infirmary as if monsters lurk under the hospital bed, waiting to suck me inside. And I don’t realize why I’m so on edge until I’m hovering outside Braiden’s office.

Braiden is meeting with Madden and Fiona. They’re talking Fishtown Boys business. The criminal empire is unfolding in that office, and I’m drawn like a lemming to a cliff.

Murder. Extortion. Racketeering in all its gritty filth—the sort of dangerous business that makes Thornfield’s electrified fence necessary, that accounts for the gatehouse with its armedmen, that justifies a presidential-grade safe room and an armory to match.

I’ve been with Braiden for nearly three months, and I still don’t understand all he does to maintain his illegal domain.

I catch my breath to better hear what they’re saying.

Braiden is talking aboutbutter.

After a minute, it makes more sense. He’s talking about counterfeit goods. About defrauding home cooks, maybe some restaurants. His plan might affect legitimate dairy farmers; he might cut into the profit of the dairy lobby.

But I’m ashamed when I imagine all the terrible things Ithoughtthey’d be discussing.

Before I can head back to my office, Fiona laughs. The sound is deep and throaty. I immediately picture her long limbs in a man’s silk pajamas, the top hanging open seductively.

On paper, Fiona and I are so similar we could be twins. Both of us were raised in the heart of organized crime. We’re accustomed to making our way as women in a world ruled by men. We speak up when we need to, and we fight for what we want.

In person, though, I can’t imagine a woman more different from me. I’ve spent the past eleven years filing off the serial numbers of my childhood. I’ve narrowed my life to black and white and gray, all I deserve after That Night.

Fiona, to the contrary, has apparently never doubted her value for a second. She’s jewel tones and leather, stiletto heels and hundred-dollar lipsticks. She takes what she wants, never doubting it’s hers, never questioning if she’s worth it.

And when Fiona laughs, I know I have no place in Braiden’s office. That meeting isn’t meant for me.

Down the hall, my own office feels cold and empty. I bring up a series of emails from Sonja Heller, the junkyard-dog lawyer I’ve hired to represent me in the proceeding that will determine whether I keep my law license. The ethics board has sent a list of demands. They want me to answer dozens of questions. Thereare hundreds of documents they want to review. They want medical records and pay stubs, and confirmation of dates of employment for every job I’ve ever held, including two weeks that I scooped ice cream during my sophomore year in high school.

And that’s only the start.

The board will decide if my hiding the drunk-driving deaths of three innocent people is a crime of “moral turpitude”. They’ll decide if what I did is so repulsive I can no longer be trusted as a lawyer.

I’ve done some legal research.

I haven’t found a single case where any other lawyer in any jurisdiction did what I did. It’s not just the three people who died. It’s the fact that I was drunk and high while I was driving. That I covered up the crime. That I kept it secret for eleven years, and would have hidden it for longer if a private citizen hadn’t made the details public.