Page 88 of Irish Vice

I want to run to him. I want to bury my face in the crease of his neck. I want to breathe the cedar and spice scent of him, fill my lungs, fill my soul.

But there are too many words we have to say, too many mistakes we have to make right. His men are watching, and something important is at stake. The Fishtown Boys look like they’re plotting a campaign.

And I have to tell them they have a new enemy.

I should take Braiden aside. I should spare him hearing the news in front of everyone. I should give him a chance to absorb the blow before he has to act.

But there isn’t time to be kind. There isn’t space for softness. Not when Madden and Russo have met seven times in the past week. Not when Madden was in East Falls last night.

So I meet Braiden’s gaze. I swallow all the things Iwantto say—that I’m sorry, that I didn’t fight fair, that I’m back. I shove aside all the emotion, all the longing, all the sleeplessness and sorrow of the past week.

And I say, “Madden.”

Braiden doesn’t blink. “What about him?”

“He’s working with Russo.”

“He—”

“I have proof. Pictures. Time stamps.”

“How—”

The world explodes before he can finish his sentence.

39

BRAIDEN

The sound is a fighter jet skimming low over a factory floor. It’s a forest of transformers blowing all at once. It’s a hurricane locked inside a shipping container, and only the bulletproof glass behind me prevents the windows from shattering into a million jagged knives.

My ears feel like they’re packed with cotton as I yank back the curtains. It takes me a moment to parse the scene outside.

The garage is filled with orange-yellow fire. The framework for each bay stands out, black against the blaze, like Hell has opened up with six toothless mouths.

Part of my mind floods with rage. Samantha’s announcement makes everything fall into place. Madden took the milk run for his guinea boss. Madden turned on Fiona because she’d never accept his betraying Irishmen for the Mafia.

Madden’s working for Russo. And now he’s attacked Thornfield. He’s bombed my garage. I know it in my bones.

My brother got a taste for explosions when we were kids—cherry bombs at first, then M80s, then honest-to-God pipe bombs, set off in the fields behind the house, wreaking havoc on the lawn. He added to his knowledge each trip he took to Dublin, talking to the old-timers who fought through the Troubles. He set bombs when we went after Russo, in the tit-for-tat after I married Samantha. He even proposed explosives as a growth business for the Fishtown Boys.

And now he’s bombed my home.

Another part of my mind, stays coldly mechanical. That’s the part that registers my Aston Martin is wreathed in fire. The Jaguar too. The Jeep won’t be safe for much longer, but the Bentley might make it, at the far end of the garage. If?—

The petrol tank on the Aston Martin blows.

As I watch, Fairfax runs from the front door of the house, coming up short beside Samantha’s Mercedes on the drive. Silhouetted by the flames, he reaches into his pocket and produces a phone. I assume he’s calling emergency, getting firefighters on their way.

Turning back to the war room, I find a dozen gaping men. They’re staring out the window like they’re watching a film, like they’re deciding ifthesespecial effects are worth a little gold statue.

But it’s not the men who have my attention.

“Samantha,” I say, my voice low, like we’re the only ones in the room.

One hand is spread across her chest, as if her heart is beating so hard it hurts. The other fingers the web of tight white scars at her temple.

Russo firebombed her parents’ car when she was only ten years old, and the shattered glass marked her forever. But my windows are made out of bulletproof glass. They didn’t break. And I won’t ever let her be hurt like that again.