Page 90 of Irish Vice
The room looks like a den in someone’s well-furnished basement. A pair of heavy couches face each other, upholstered in forest-green leather. A huge television screen sits between them, filling most of the wall.
“We’re safe now,” I tell Aiofe. “No one can get in.”
A thick rug swallows the sound of my footsteps as I cross theroom to a small refrigerator. Finding a bottle of water, I crack the seal before I pass it to her.
“We’re safe,” I say again. I don’t know if I’m trying to convince her or myself. I take the Glock from my waistband, and the pistol’s weight is comforting, even though no one can reach us here. I know how to use the weapon. I know how to protect myself, and Aiofe too.
She’s still standing in the middle of the room. In her long white nightgown, she looks like an angel, or maybe a girl in a choir. Her lips form a tight little circle of displeasure.
“Drink up,” I say. And then I try to make things better. “I wish we had a plate of Fairfax’s cookies to go with that. We’ll ask him to make lemon snaps once we’re out of here. Maybe ginger cakes too.”
Aiofe only stares. Her eerie silence makes me long for a fallback, for more firepower than my Glock provides.
A gun safe is built into the far wall. Braiden taught me how to open it, the same day he gave me access to the room. I’ll feel better with a second gun in easy reach.
Turning my back on the frozen Aiofe, I cross to the safe. Desperate for the child to feel more secure, I keep up a constant patter.
“My father taught me how to fire a pistol on my eighth birthday. He took me to a firing range, an outdoor one, with targets that looked like they were miles away. He showed me his pistol and taught me the names for all the parts.”
I set my Glock on the credenza beneath the safe. Hands free, I lower my thumb to the biometric pad. “They had all different types of targets.” I continue speaking to Aiofe, pushing a smile into my voice because she can’t see my face. “My father said it was just like Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”
The lighted dial on the safe turns green. I go on: “None of the targets looked like donkeys, though. And I knew better than to go all the way down the range to pin anything on?—”
“Samantha! Look?—”
I snatch up the Glock and whirl to face the impossible.
Aiofe doesn’t speak. Aiofe hasn’t said a word in the four months I’ve lived in this house—not when she’s happy, not when she’s sad, not when she’s protesting one of Braiden’s edicts.
But my ears ring with the sound of her voice now—higher than I expected, louder than I ever dreamed. The vowels pull like taffy through an Irish brogue that matches Birte’s and Grace’s and Braiden’s.
And no wonder Aiofe screamed.
Madden Kelly is clutching her close to his chest. His forearm arches across her throat. He’s forcing her head back. Her eyes are so wide, I can see white around her pupils. Coinín’s collapsed in a heap by her feet.
An evil black pistol presses against her temple.
“She’s just a child,” I tell Madden. I try to pitch my voice like I’m talking to a jury, like I’m sharing simple facts that can’t possibly be in dispute. “Let her go.”
Aiofe sobs. “He was going to shoot you!”
His grip tightens on her throat. “Shut the fuck up.”
Aiofe ignores him. “He came out of the jacks,” she says. “While you weren’t looking. He pointed his gun. He wanted to kill you. Samantha! He wanted?—”
She cries out—in surprise or pain or fury—as he pushes his gun into her flesh. I’ve felt Madden’s rage before. I know it leaves a mark.
“Hush, Aiofe.” I keep my weapon aimed at Madden’s head. “You’re okay,” I tell her. “We both are. Take a deep breath. Everything’s fine.”
I take my own deep breath, trying to get her to imitate me. My throat is immediately coated with the scent of citrus and wood. It’s the smell of my childhood, of my father when he pulled me onto his lap and called me hisprincipessa. It’s Acqua di Parma, the cologne worn by Antonio Russo.
And by every man under his command.
The cologne means more than Asher’s photos, more than the bomb exploding in the garage, more than the gun pushing against poor Aiofe’s temple right now… Russo has branded Madden Kelly as clearly as if the Mafia boss pissed down the leg of his dark jeans.
In my mind, I hear the limerick Fiona left on my desk:She spied for a wop.Gave away the whole shop.“Fiona got it wrong,” I say.
“Fiona?” Madden sounds confused.