Page 28 of Irish Vice

When we get back to the car, I decide to skip the strip club. Madden can pick up Jacko’s envelope later, along with all the other stops I’ve driven past.

We’re back on 30 when Fiona says, “So I’m your dirty little secret?”

I wondered how she’d take my keeping her name out of it. “No reason to paint it on the city walls—Kieran Ingram’s got my bollocks in a vise.”

“You think that’s what’s going on here?”

“It isn’t?”

“If Da wanted to dig in his claws, you’d be talking to his Warlord, not to me.”

“Sending his chief enforcer might make too loud a statement.”

She cocks her head to one side. I don’t know how she gauges it, but a shaft of sunlight falls straight on her slick red lips. “I can be plenty loud.”

With that tone, she intends her words to go straight to my cock. She wants me to shift in discomfort or—better yet—come back with a promise of all the ways I’ll make her scream.

I’ve been talking dirty since she was eight years old, and I always deliver on my promises. But I won’t be playing her game today.

“Your da’s using you,” I say.

“My da trusts me to build his empire.”

“By spreading your legs for the likes of me?”

She flushes so hard her cheeks match her lips. I don’t think she knows the meaning of the word shame, so I’m guessing that’s anger I see. “By serving as his Clan Chief. I’ll be in charge of Boston one day.”

“Not unless you grow a prick down there. How long did he give you to land in my bed?”

“Jesus, you’re an asshole. I just thought the two of us might have some fun.”

“Your type of fun leaves a man looking for a new line of work.”

“I’ll need a Clan Chief once I’m in charge.”

I suspect she doesn’t mean me to laugh. And I’m not sure the harsh bark that squeezes out of my chest even counts as amusement. So I make my voice deadly serious to avoid any misunderstanding. “I won’t be anyone’s second in command.”

“You go on telling yourself that,” she says.

She reaches out and slaps down the sun visor. Neither of us says another word until we’re back at Thornfield. I work the security at the gate, masking a wince as my bandaged arm stretches for the biometric reader. I start the long drive up to the house.

“Let me know when you’re ready to head back to Boston,” I say.

“I don’t need your permission to travel.”

“No. But you need my permission to stay.”

I wait for her to call me on the lie. If I bundle her home, Ingram’ll have something to say about it.

Instead, she says, “I don’t want to fight with you.”

“You have an odd way of showing that.”

“I’m here to learn,” she says. “I want to see how you run things.”

“You go on telling yourself that,” I say, matching her tone from earlier.

She squares her shoulders. “So you’re afraid of showing me how the Fishtown Boys work?”