He plops down in his chair, sinking all the way down because I was messing with it. He sighs and readjusts. “You should, Aoife. I owe your father everything. It doesn’t sit right with me that he doesn’t know.”
I stiffen. “I get to decide when to tell my dad. Not you. Regardless of your position.”
Ace was a fighter, long ago. He came in off the streets, and my dad gave him a place to train, to fight, and to be safe away from the war on drugs and away from his abusive family. Cormac told me he and some of my dad’s other men wanted him to bring Ace into the fold, into the Irish business, and give him a place. My dad saw something in Ace—something more than another body to fuel the Irish machine growing in Boston. He had promise, tenacity, and the grit to make something of himself. He didn’t want this life for him.
What do you know? Ace went to the police academy straight out of high school. He stopped his underground fighting, but he never forgot my dad. He never ignored him when he needed something. Eventually, he worked his way up to be appointed police commissioner. He’s never erased the O’Donnells. Always kept us apprised and in the loop. His loyalty is to his wife, his city, and to the Irish. He’s a good man. Always will be.
“Ronan … I can’t believe it. Finn and Ronan, do you think the Irish are being targeted on purpose?”
He shakes his head and digs through a stack of folders on his desk. “Reed and Grayson don’t think the killer is going after one group more than the other, but I guess the discovery of Ronan today might call that into question. I’m sorry, Aoife. I put my best guys on it. Reed wanted the case, and Grayson … Well, you know. He doesn’t like to back down from a challenge.”
“Yeah, until I become the challenge,” I mumble. Clearing my throat, I lean over his desk, looking him square in the eye. “The Irish are taking over. I will not allow my men to be picked offone by one, and I can guarantee the other organizations won’t either. The Yakuza, the Albanians—it’ll be an all-out war if this isn’t solved.”
“Aoife …”
I turn toward the bookshelves, looking at the photo of Ace with me as a kid in the ring. “You’re like an uncle to me, Ace, but I’m done waiting for the detectives in your department to do something.” And with that, I stride to the door and open it. “I’ll text you when I have something.”
I run out of the station and to my bike. The sky is low and gray, and when I take off toward the harbor, sleet stings like needled pellets shattering against my body.
I take it. Welcome it.
My fingers throb when I tighten them over the handle grips. The tires slide once, twice, skating over the slick pavement, and when my stomach drops with each skid, I think,good. Maybe I’ll save work for the killer if I die on my bike instead.But then I think about my family, and I hold steady.
The harbor waits ahead. Masts of docked boats wear strings of lights for Christmas, the reflections rippling off the choppy, dark water. By the time I park my bike, I’m numb, in more than one way. I can’t feel the tips of my fingers despite my leather gloves. I hike past the pine wreaths that hang on the railings of the yacht clubs and wonder if Ronan has his Christmas decorations up at his apartment. I’ll need to send people over there. I need totellpeople. Sucking in a breath, I blow out, watching the fog crystalize in the dropping temperatures. Why did I think I could do this?
Carols play somewhere far away, punctuated by the church’s bell toll, and I step onto the dock that used to house my dad’s yacht, walking all the way to the end. Hell, I miss him and Summer.
It’s icy, the boards slick, but I fold into a sit, back toward the marina, and focus on the glow of boats anchored out. Grayson could never love me, could he? It was a long shot, fueled by recent events, that’s all. I’ll get over it.Doomed from the start, I think as I pull out my phone.
The reality is, Christmas doesn’t feel like a celebration anymore. Not with my family gone, not with Grayson mad at me, and not when we’re being hunted. I need help, and I need to set aside my pride for the sake of my people.
The wind whips the water into tiny whitecaps, and I look down at the photo of my dad and me on my wallpaper. Then I dial his number.
Tears fall down my cheeks and stick as the cold steals the sob rattling in my chest.
“Aye?”
“Dad?” I sniffle.
“What is it, little love?”
“Finn and Ronan are dead.”
It’s night before I finally stand to leave the end of the dock. By the time I hung up with an irate Kieran O’Donnell—he’s Kieran because my dad was nowhere to be found on that call—he and Summer were already at the private airstrip before I ended the hour-long argument. I explained it all. The killer, Finn, the Albanians, my screwup with Luka’s shipment, Grayson, and then Ronan. I cried, and he yelled. Summer cried, which made him yell some more.
I failed him.
And I’m frozen.
I mindlessly wander back down the dock, ignoring the multiple calls from Mark and my other guards. My bike sits covered by the dusting of snow we got in the few short hours, but behind it—I blow out a breath and rush forward. “Grayson,” I whisper into the wind.
His dark sedan sits parked behind my bike, and smoke tangles with the snow in the air, seeping from the cracked driver’s side window. It’s too dark to see inside, so I move around the front toward the driver’s side, waving into the void for him to roll his window down all the way. The faint orange glow flares in the dark, then dims. The window whirs down, and when I catch who’s inside, I take a step forward.
There’s a sharp hiss from a spray, and a warm mist blasts across my face before I can turn away. It’s too late. The smell is sickly sweet, and it burns my tongue and nose. I stumble back clawing at my eyes. My phone tumbles from my grip as I choke and the world tilts. The eerie light from the harbor lampposts bubbles into a bokeh haze. I blink, the slow, syrupy shift making me tumble to the ground. I look for my bike as panic claws at my chest.
The car door opens, and the cigarette fisted at his side flickers its last ember. It’s the last thing I see before everything dissolves into nothing.
CHAPTER 16
