“Innocents.” McBride repeats the word, his tone neutral. "Is that what you think? That you were exercising strategic judgment?"
“I made a choice,” I say simply. "And I hesitated. It won't happen again."
"You're damn right it won't happen again," Fitzgerald snaps. "The question is whether we can trust you at all after this. Whether you've become a liability."
The threat hangs in the air, unspoken but clear. Men who become liabilities to the Council don't retire peacefully. They disappear, and their bodies are never found. My position with them won’t help me; only months ago, Padraigh O’Malley, an Irish patriarch from Boston, was killed by his own son in this room. No one is exempt from the justice of the Council if they decide that death is more beneficial to their ends than life.
I say nothing. There's nothing to say. My life is in their hands, as it has been since I was fifteen years old and they gave me my first test. They'd handed me a gun and told me to make a choice.
I'd pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Since then, I've killed thirty-four people for the Council. Politicians, rivals, traitors, witnesses. Men and women. I've done it cleanly, efficiently, without question or complaint. I've been their most reliable asset, the weapon they point at problems that need to disappear.
Until Cormac Brennan and his daughter with the pink backpack.
McBride leans back in his chair, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. "You've served us well, Sean. Twenty-three years ofloyalty, of good and faithful service. That's worth something. We're not going to end this relationship over one failure."
I feel a flicker of something that might be relief, but I don’t let it show. Whatever else comes of this meeting, it doesn’t sound like they’re going to kill me today, which is worth something.
"However," McBride continues, and that single word drops like a stone into still water, "there must be consequences. There must be a way for you to prove that your loyalty hasn't wavered, that you can still be trusted to do what needs to be done."
Of course. I sure as hell didn’t think I was getting out of this scot-free. "I understand," I say.
"Good." McBride nods to Thomas O’Quinn, who opens a folder and slides it across the polished wood of the table toward me. "Then you'll accept your next assignment."
I pick up the folder and flip it open. Inside are documents, photographs, financial records. It takes me a moment to process what I'm looking at.
The photo at the very front of the thin stack of papers is of a young woman with red hair, milky pale skin, and soft, pale blue eyes. She’s beautiful in a waifish, delicate way, almost ethereal. Fairy-like, I think, and then wonder where the hell that thought came from. I’m not the kind of man to wax poetic.
Refocusing, I look at the name at the top of the first document.Maeve Connelly.
"The Connellys of Boston," McBride says. "You're familiar with them?"
I shake my head. “No.
“Irish-American crime family,” McBride continues. “Connected to the Boston underworld."
"More than connected," Liam Fitzgerald says. "Patrick Connelly built a good deal of wealth before he died about four months ago, shortly after his oldest daughter Siobhan was murdered. His son Desmond came home from Seattle tomanage things and protect the younger daughter, Maeve, but he was killed less than a week ago. That leaves only the daughter." He nods toward the photograph I'm looking at. "Maeve. Eighteen years old, alone in the world, sitting on a fortune and connections that the Council has a vested interest in controlling."
I look down at the photograph again. She looks young, innocent. There's a vulnerability in her expression that makes something twist uncomfortably in my chest. I frown, wondering if I have the ability to do what my first thought goes to—the only thing they’ve ever needed me to do. “How does killing her help you control her money and connections? The money I could see, but the rest?—”
Liam snorts, and I look at him irritably. With the threat of my death removed, I’m a little less tense.
"You're not going to kill her. You’re going to marry her," McBride says flatly.
The words hit me like a physical blow. I keep my expression neutral, but inside all I can feel is disbelief and a strong, visceral urge to get up and walk out of the room.
I’d be dead before I made it to the door.
I clear my throat. "Marry her," I repeat it slowly. “I don’t think I understand.”
"Yes." McBride's tone brooks no argument. "You'll go to Boston with three of us, present yourself as a representative of the Council, and you'll marry Maeve Connelly. You'll bring her wealth and connections under our control. You'll ensure that the Connelly assets serve the Council's interests."
"She's eighteen years old," I hear myself say. "She's just lost her entire family."And I’m the last man in the world who should be marrying anyone, let alone this girl.
"Which makes her vulnerable," Fitzgerald says with a cold smile. "Vulnerable and in need of protection. Protection we'regoing to provide, in the form of you. You'll marry her, control her assets, and keep her in line. Consider it your penance for the Brennan failure." He chuckles. “We’ll protect her from the wolves who will want her for themselves by sending a Wolf of our own.”
I look at the photograph again. This girl is supposed to be my punishment? My redemption?
