But in person there was something menacing about Seamus O’Brien that couldn’t be conveyed by a photograph, a coiled energy that made Christophe think of a sleeping snake.
O’Brien studied him. “You came here alone?” Surprise colored his voice along with something that was either admonishment or admiration.
“I’m confident we’re capable of having a civilized conversation,” Christophe said.
He didn’t speak the other words lingering at the back of his mind: an army will come for you if I don’t walk out of here alive.
O’Brien might be a poor kid from Dublin at heart, but he wasn’t stupid.
“We’ll figure that out in short order,” Seamus said. “Sit if you want.”
“Thank you.”
There were three other men in the room—besides Mick, whose presence Christophe felt behind him—and O’Brien looked at them and waved them away. They headed for the door without a word.
Christophe watched them go before taking a seat at the table, careful to claim one that allowed him a view of the door. Mick closed the curtains in the doorway and stepped to the side of it, remaining on his feet.
O’Brien reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table and Christophe watched as the other man removed one and lit it, his eyes hooded behind the smoke as he looked at Christophe.
“You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.”
“My visit is less courageous than it appears, as I’m sure you know,” Christophe said.
O’Brien was silent as he processed the not-so-subtle reminder that Christophe’s backup may not be visible—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t out there.
“Even so,” O’Brien said.
Christophe leaned back in the chair. “I’m a believer in civility.”
“I’m a believer in efficiency,” O’Brien said, his voice suddenly cold. “Civility is for women and church, so why don’t you tell me why the feck you’re in my bar.”
Christophe nodded. “Put quite simply, we have a redundancy problem.”
“A redundancy problem?” O’Brien started to laugh, a good natured bellow that quickly turned to coughing. He looked at Mick, still standing near the door. “This French cunt thinks we have a redundancy problem.” The last two words were dripping with hatred. “You think we have a redundancy problem, Mick?”
Mick didn’t move. “I don’t think so, boss.”
O’Brien turned his eyes on Christophe. “I don’t think so either.”
Christophe held O’Brien’s gaze. Even when the moment drew uncomfortably long, the other man didn’t flinch.
“As I’m sure you know, I work for the Syndicate, or a new—”
“I know who you are,” O’Brien interrupted.
Christophe forced himself not to react. He disliked being interrupted. In fact, had one of his own men been the perpetrator of the faux pas, he might have found himself removed from Christophe’s company permanently, but Christophe was willing to make allowances in the interest of the aforementioned civility.
“Good, we can dispense with the preliminaries then,” Christophe said. “We appreciate your work on behalf of the Boston territory during our reorganization, and we are willing to discuss ways to bring you—your men, your operation—back into the fold.”
O’Brien took a long draw on his cigarette. “That would be the Syndicate fold, would it?”
“That’s right.”
O’Brien set his cigarette in one of the ashtrays and leaned forward over the table. “Do you think I don’t know who runs the Syndicate?”
“We’re a consortium,” Christophe said. “An organization with representation in every territory.”
“I know all about your representation, and if you think I’m going to hand this territory back to the wops who stole it from us in the first place, you’re more daft than you look.”
Christophe kept his expression blank. O’Brien’s reaction wasn’t entirely unexpected, although it was more colorful than Christophe had anticipated. The Irish and Italian gangsters had been at war in South Boston since before Whitey Bulger’s time. The prejudice ran deep—on both sides—especially among the old guard.
And Seamus O’Brien was undoubtedly old guard.
“We’re an organization built on shared goals and mutual trust,” Christophe said. “Ethnic origin has nothing to do with our model.”
“It has everything to do with ours. Do ya think we liked being run by that uppity prick Donati? That we liked taking orders from Carlo Rossi while he sat in his tower downtown?” O’Brien shook his head. “We know what a partnership looks like with the Syndicate. Those days are past. Sending some highfalutin Frenchie in here doesn’t change a thing.”
“A partnership isn’t the only possibility.” Christophe reached into his jacket and withdrew a folded check. He slid it across the table. “We’re prepared to purchase the territory with an offer totaling roughly five years of your current revenue, adjusted for what we think you’ll find to be a fair amount of growth.”
O’Brien held his gaze through the smoke in the room. Christophe was beginning to think the other man wasn’t going to look at the check when he reached for it.
He flipped it open half-heartedly, his expression unchanging. The glance was cursory. He quickly folded it and slid it back to Christophe.
“We’re not for sale.”
Christophe tapped his fingers on the table. He hadn’t expected the confrontation to be easy, but he’d hoped to be pleasantly surprised.
“I feel obliged to make clear the situation,” he said.
O’Brien picked up the cigarette and took another long drag, then stamped it out in the ashtray. “Say what you have to say and get the hell out of here.”
“Boston is Syndicate territory,” Christophe said evenly. “That has always been the case, and it will always be the case. We are prepared to work together under our new model, but if you choose to refuse our offer, the territory will be taken by force.”
O’Brien let loose another round of raspy laughter. When he caught his breath, he looked at Mick. “This French knobjockey thinks he can take us by force, Mick. What do you think about that?”
“I think they should be prepared to get belted, boss.”
O’ Brien got to his feet and placed both hands on the table. He leaned down until he was almost eye level with Christophe. There was a spark of madness in O’Brien’s eyes, and for the first time Christophe saw the man who had allegedly bombed a restaurant in Dublin, the man who had been a member of one of the most deadly terrorist organizations in modern history.
“You hear that, Frenchie?” O’Brien asked. “You should be prepared to get belted, and a whole lot more than that if you think you’re going to take this city. Now get the feck out of here.”
Christophe rose slowly and buttoned his jacket. “Thank you for your time.”
“Get your weapon at the door,” Mick said as Christophe passed into the main room of the bar.
He was halfway to the bar’s entrance when O’Brien spoke again.
“Don’t see my hospitality as an invitation to pay us another visit,” he called. “We won’t be so welcoming next time.”
Christophe continued without looking back, a deep sense of unease settling in his bones as he collected his weapon and stepped out onto the street.
Chapter Four
Nolan packed up his laptop and looked around. The lights were off in most of the other offices, everyone gone for the night except the team working on the Somerset case.
He could have done his work at his apartment, but he preferred staying late at the office, preferred the antiseptic quality of the space, although to be fair, his apartment was hardly homey.
The office provided endless opportunities for distraction—argument preparation and research and paperwork and more research. Putting off his return to his apartment was a habit. It was too quiet there, too cold, even with the high-tech climate control system that came preinstalled in every unit of the luxury build
ing downtown.
It was too easy for Bridget to creep back into his mind, too easy to fall into the web of his memories. The reliable list of hookups that were ready and waiting on his phone softened the edges, but the interludes were temporary. Eventually the women would go home and he would be left with the walls of his apartment, the big window overlooking a city that meant nothing to him without her.
He got to his feet and picked up his briefcase, turned off the light in his office, and started for the elevator. The offices of Glassman and Weld were a sea of gray and white, every surface designed to soothe the clients who paid upwards of fifteen hundred dollars an hour for their services. The space screamed understated money, the kind their clients liked best, the kind that could be hidden from a public increasingly crying foul over an economic model that left more and more people behind.
He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the parking garage. He’d felt a twinge of guilt when he’d accepted the job at the firm right after graduation. It was the kind of job Bridget would hate, the kind that didn’t contribute to the world in any meaningful way, the kind that kept the rich flush with wealth and the poor on their knees.
It wasn’t what he’d imagined himself doing, but then he’d never had the imagination to dream up anything more than a life with Bridget, a pack of kids and a white picket fence and Sunday dinner with Bridget’s family and nights falling asleep with her in his arms while their children slept safe and sound in rooms down the hall.
How was he supposed to come up with a dream better than that one?
The elevator dinged and the doors opened onto an expanse of concrete. He stepped into the parking garage and headed for his car. It was nearly midnight and the Lexus was one of only a handful of vehicles left in the garage.
It didn’t bother him. He’d come out of his time at the Syndicate with a little money and a lot of confidence in his ability to defend himself. Carrying a weapon was a habit he hadn’t been able to shake.
He was almost to the car when he felt someone’s presence behind him. There was no sound, but he sensed the subtle shift in energy, the hair standing up on the back of his neck, the sensation of being watched.
He kept his pace even, hoping to get to the car and the gun he kept in the glove compartment. He didn’t bring a weapon to the office for obvious reasons, and while he wasn’t above returning to his roots for a good old fashioned fight, he’d gotten used to the feel of cold steel in his hand.
“I’m not here to harm you.” The voice came from behind him as he pressed the button on his key fob to unlock the doors of the Lexus.
He turned around to find a tall man with dark hair staring at him. The man’s jeans and T-shirt were a sorry disguise for someone wearing such a perfectly tailored jacket and custom shoes.
“Then why are you lurking in an empty parking garage?” Nolan asked.
The man had the bearing of someone with money, someone who’d always had money—someone like Nolan.
“I needed a place to speak to you in private,” the man said. “A place where I could be reasonably certain we wouldn’t be seen.”
He spoke excellent English, but Nolan caught an accent that might have been French or Italian at the edges of his words.
“Here we are,” Nolan said.
The man extended his hand. “Christophe Marchand.”
Nolan hesitated, then shook his hand, the name ringing like a familiar bell in his head. “Marchand…”
“The Syndicate,” Christophe said. “Paris.”
Nolan nodded. “That’s right. What can I do for you?”
Marchand glanced around. “Is there somewhere else we can talk?”
“With all due respect, I’m not sure how I can help you. I haven’t been with the Syndicate for years. My time with them was…” Nolan searched for the right word, trying to separate Bridget from what he’d been doing with Will in the neighborhood.
“A rebellion?” Marchand suggested, the corners of his mouth suggesting a smile.
“That’s a good way of putting it,” Nolan said.
“I understand,” Marchand said. “However I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
“I doubt that.” Nolan turned toward the car, reasonably sure Christophe Marchand wasn’t going to gun him down in the parking garage for an alliance they’d shared four years earlier.
He threw his briefcase into the passenger seat.
“It concerns Miss Monaghan,” Marchand said. “And your friend Will as well.”
Nolan’s heart raced as he faced the other man. “Has something happened?”
“Not yet,” Marchand said. “But trouble is in the air, and there are things you don’t know.”
Nolan hesitated, his mind reeling at the mention of Bridget, at the insinuation that she might be in danger, that Will might be in trouble too. It had only been two days since his last sparring session with Will. He’d seemed fine, hadn’t mentioned a thing.
Nolan studied the man in front of him, had the feeling that he knew things—things Will didn’t know, things Bridget definitely didn’t know.
“Do you have a car?” Nolan asked.
Marchand nodded.
Nolan stepped into his car. “Follow me.”
Chapter Five
Bridget walked into the Black Cat with a familiar knot in her stomach. It didn’t matter how many times she stepped through the door and made her way to the room at the back, it always felt like walking the plank.
She lifted a hand in greeting to Connor, a recent replacement for Kevin, the previous bartender who had suddenly stopped appearing behind the bar a month earlier. Bridget wondered what had happened to him but knew better than to ask. Seamus didn’t like explaining himself to anyone, especially not a “lass” from the neighborhood.
She waved at the regulars as she continued through the main room. The curtains were closed when she reached the back, a tall, thin redhead in jeans and a T-shirt nervously keeping guard, one of Seamus’s new recruits.
She smiled at him. “Hey, Brendan.”
He blushed. “Hey, Bridget.”
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“It’s going,” he said. “Is he expecting you?”
She nodded and he ducked behind the curtain. A murmured exchange ensued and Brendan reappeared, pulling back the curtain for her to enter the room.
She stepped inside and took stock: the air thick with smoke and the yeasty scent of beer, Seamus in his usual seat near the wall, Mick to his right. Casey and Doug, two high ranking men in Seamus’s growing army, were seated to his left. A pile of cash sat on the table, along with stacks of envelopes marked with names.
Two of the other tables in the room were occupied with mid-level soldiers playing cards and smoking, glasses of beer in front of them. She was relieved to see Will among them. He didn’t say much to her these days, but his presence made her feel safer around Seamus.
“There she is,” Seamus said, grinning. “My secret weapon.”
Bridget smiled, playing the role that had been assigned to her. “Hardly.”
Seamus nodded at the empty chair across from him. “Have a seat, lass.”
She sat down, trying to put her finger on the dread in her stomach. The Cat was a safe space for Seamus’s operation, a place he owned lock, stock, and barrel. The people of Southie always treaded carefully around him, but no place was more completely his turf than the Cat. And yet there was an unfamiliar tension in the air, the men around the table grim-faced and quiet at the one place they usually let down their guard.
“Get you a drink?” Seamus asked.
“No, thanks. I can’t stay long.”
He picked up a stack of hundred dollar bills and put them into an envelope marked Big Billy H. “What’s the word on Dougie here?”
Bridget looked at Doug. “The DA is willing to plead you down to petty larceny. You’ll still do thirty days because of your record, but it’s a good deal.”
“Can you do
thirty days, Dougie?” Seamus asked without looking up from the pile of cash.
Doug grinned. “No problem, boss. Just a little paid vacation.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Seamus said. “I’ll send word to Eamon, let him know to expect you on the inside.”
“Thanks,” Doug said.
“You’ll take care of the details?” Seamus asked Bridget.
She swallowed her distaste. This wasn’t why she’d gone to law school. “Of course.”
He nodded approvingly. “You’re a good girl. You always have been.” Seamus reached for a stack of already-full envelopes and flipped through them until he came to the one he wanted. He removed it from the stack and looked at her, his blue eyes sharp. “Assuming you want to continue with our prior arrangement?”
“If that’s all right.” She had to choke out the words. Every week she got deeper into debt with Seamus O’Brien. The money he paid her for her legal work, while significant, just wasn’t enough to make the copays on Owen’s meds and physical therapy, to provide for experimental treatments that weren’t covered by their insurance.
Seamus had offered to solve the problem by fronting her an extra five hundred a week, an amount that compounded at a startling rate with the interest that was part of the bargain.
“Of course it is,” Seamus said, holding out the envelope.
For a split second she considered standing up and walking away. She imagined going home to her parents and telling them everything, letting the chips fall where they may.
But of course, she would never do that to Owen.
She took the envelope. “Thank you.”
Seamus smiled. “Anything for you, lass.”
She tried not to think about how she was going to pay back all the money she owed him. Tried not to think about how far he would go to collect, about the stories she’d heard from her father about Seamus’s reputation in Ireland, about some of the things he’d done to people in their own neighborhood and the girls who worked for him at the Playpen, a strip club on Lagrange Street that was reported to offer more than lap dances by women like her with debts to pay.
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