Catch my death.The phrase strikes me as darkly funny. Death has already caught everyone else in my family. Why should I be any different?
"Really, Mrs. Brady. I'm fine." My voice comes out sharper than I intend, and I see her face fall a bit. Guilt floods through me. She's only trying to help, and she's one of the few people left who knew my family, who remembers what this house was like when it was full of life instead of ghosts. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you."
She nods, her eyes glistening. "It's all right, dear. I understand. You've been through so much." She hesitates, then adds, "There's soup on the stove if you're hungry later."
I'm not hungry. I can't remember the last time I was truly hungry. But I nod anyway, because it's easier than explaining that I feel hollowed out, that there's nothing inside me but fear and grief and a terrible, gnawing emptiness.
I climb the stairs to my room, each step feeling like it takes more effort than the last. The house is too quiet. It's always been a large house, but when my family was alive, there was noise. Siobhan's sharp laughter and biting tongue, Desmond's heavy footsteps, my father's voice booming from his office. Even the arguments, the tension, the undercurrent of violence that always seemed to simmer beneath the surface of our lives—it was something. It was proof that we existed, that we were alive.
Now there's nothing but silence and the sound of my own breathing.
My room is exactly as I left it this morning. The bed is made, the curtains drawn back to let in the grey light filtering throughthe rain-streaked windows. Everything is neat and orderly, just the way I've always kept it. When you grow up in a family like mine, you learn to take up as little space as possible. You learn to be quiet, to be invisible, to never give them a reason to notice you. I never wanted to draw my father’s ire over a messy room or impose on the staff to keep it clean. I never wanted to give Siobhan a reason to cut me down or Desmond a reason to lecture. I never knew if Desmond would be kind or a bully, but Siobhan was almost always cruel.
Shutting the door behind me, I start to peel off my wet clothes, my fingers still clumsy with cold. In the mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself—pale skin, red hair plastered to my head, eyes that look too large in my thin face. I look like a ghost. I feel like one.
I leave the wet clothes in a pile on the floor—who is going to get upset at me for it now, anyway?—and go to draw my own bath. When the water is steaming hot, I slide into it, wincing with pain at the sudden heat against my cold body. But the pain feels good, in a way. Cathartic. An outward expression of what I feel inside, all of the time.
I lie there for a long time in the darkening bathroom, until my fingers prune and the water starts to gradually turn cold. I try not to think about anything—not about Desmond’s body cold and still in his grave, next to the decomposing bodies of my sister and father, not about my empty spot next to theirs. Not about the accounts I don’t know how to access or the uncertain future that my father didn’t have time to decide for me, or the men guarding this house that might or might not remain loyal to me.
Trying not to think about the wolves circling in the dark.
What’s stopping any one of them from coming upstairs? From finding out what liberties they could take with the Connelly heiress? Not Mrs. Brady or myself. Only loyalty and honor, and the last paycheck Desmond gave them. They’re allthat’s left to protect me, and if any one of them or more decided to change their mind about it…
I’m in danger, and I know it. Possibly from the men always in and around the house, certainly from men outside it. I can’t arrange my own marriage or seek out someone to keep me safe. I don’t have access to any of the knowledge of the accounts that might help me sell this house, or find somewhere else to live, or seek out a different life. And even then, I doubt I’d be safe in this city. I’d have to go somewhere else, start out somewhere completely different, where no one knew who I was.
For a moment, as I climb out of the tub and reach for a fluffy towel, the idea sparks an adventurous warmth in my chest.CouldI do that? Could I just… leave? Try to be someone else, somewhere else?
But I don’t have money, or a driver’s license. I don’t know where any identification is that could make it possible for me to leave—no birth certificate or Social Security card. It’s all locked away in my father’s office, probably, or maybe kept somewhere else. I have no idea. And I have no money.
That hollow, terrified feeling returns. Who am I? I’m nothing except what they decided I would be—my father, Desmond, the men who run this city. I was always too frightened, too cowed to try to be anything else, to try to fight for anything for myself. And now I’m reaping the consequences of it.
A softmraowdistracts me as I walk into the bedroom, and Fluff emerges from under the bed, coming to wrap around my ankles. It’s a silly name for a cat, but I called her that when Desmond first brought her to me while I tried to think of a name, and it stuck. She’s a fluffy kitten with soft grey fur and blue eyes, only a little bigger than she was when Desmond brought her home. It was probably the nicest thing he ever did for me.
“Hey there,” I murmur, feeling comforted by the sensation of her rubbing against my ankles. She keeps doing it as I fish outa pair of soft leggings and an oversized taupe-colored cashmere sweater from my dresser, with a soft cranberry-colored lace bralette to go under it and a pair of fluffy wool socks in an oatmeal color to keep my feet warm. I’ve always had a tendency to dress in oversized clothing, to want to hide my shape. Not because anyone in my house ever made me feel threatened, but because I was always very aware of what my developing body would mean for me, one day. That turning eighteen would mean being passed off to whatever man could help bolster our family’s wealth and influence, exactly as Siobhan was.
What do I do now? I reach down, scooping up Fluff and cuddling her close to my chest, tucking my chin against the softness of her head as I try to think past the fear and grief hanging over me like a heavy fog. I could call Ronan and ask him for help, as little as I want to. I could start going through my father's papers, trying to figure out how to manage the estate, how to pay the staff, how to keep this house running. I could go downstairs and start with something as simple as eating a bowl of soup.
Instead, I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at nothing.
Fluff butts her head against my chin, and I keep stroking her fur absently. I’m not completely alone, I suppose. At least there's this small, warm creature who depends on me, who doesn't care about inheritances or mafia politics or the fact that my entire family is dead.
The light outside fades. I wait for Mrs. Brady to come up and knock on the door, to urge me to come out, but maybe she’s decided that it’s better to let me wallow. Maybe, after the way the last months have been, she’s finally given up and realized that there’s no help for me. That thought makes me sadder than it should, especially since it would be entirely my fault if that were true.
The knock on the front door, when it comes, makes me jump so violently that Fluff leaps off the bed with an indignant yowl. My heart is suddenly racing, pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. For a moment, I can't move, frozen with a terror that feels both irrational and completely justified.
This is it,I think.Someone’s come for me. Someone is going to try to take me away.
I stand up, walking to my door and stepping just out into the hall, my hands trembling. I hear Mrs. Brady's footsteps in the foyer below, hear the sound of the door opening. Voices drift up the stairs—Mrs. Brady's, and then a man's voice, deep and accented. Irish, but not from Boston. From Ireland itself, I think, though I'm not certain. It’s thicker than any accent I’ve heard here, where everyone is at least one generation removed from the family members who came over to the States.
"I'm here to see Miss Connelly," the man says. "On behalf of the Irish Council in Dublin."
The Irish Council. My blood runs cold.
I don’t know much about the inner workings of the Irish mafia or about the business dealings my father and brother had, but I do know that every Irishman in Boston who works for the mafia, from the bosses all the way down to the lowliest dockworker, answers to the Irish Council. They’re five elderly men who run everything from their seats in Dublin, overseeing Irish business both at home and abroad.
I know that their word is law. Whatever they decide is irrefutable, be it over business or marriage or money, or death. And if they’ve come here to see me, it’s because they’ve decided something about my future.
A part of me thinks perhaps I should be relieved. If a decision has been made for me, maybe I won’t have to be so frightened anymore. But the rest of me is so frightened I feel like I canbarely breathe, all the warmth from my bath leached out of me in an instant.
