“If I let you drive yourself, I might as well put a bullet in my brain here on the side of the road,” he says, but at least he grins. “If you’re so determined to go, then I’m gonna have to go with you. The Irish might kill me, but Iknowyour husband will, if I don’t at least try to protect you.”
I’d feel guilty, but this feels a little too effortless. “Thanks,” I say, as he starts up the car again. “But that was easier than I thought it would be, convincing you.”
He shrugs, checks the side mirror, and pulls out on the highway again. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of, the Boss will already know what you’re doing. He’ll have something planned to keep you safe. I don’t know what it is, but he’ll be looking out for you. Besides, he’s got that tracker on your wedding ring, right? I bet my ass he’s watching us right now from some satellite somewhere.”
“Shyeah,” I chuckle. “No doubt.”
And then I carefully cover my left hand to hide the missing wedding ring.
Marco’s faith in Luca is touching. But still, after all these months, Marco underestimatesme. I’m no dummy, either. I left my wedding ring sitting in my bedside drawer in New York.
Look, I’m not proud of myself, okay?
But Ineedto do this. I need to say goodbye. And I don’t want Luca worrying about me while I do it.
Chapter Eight
Finch
Iget a faint sense of unreality when we pull into the long driveway that runs up to the house. This place is where I used to spend my summers as a kid: the Donovan retreat called Innisfree, thirty minutes outside Boston city on the edge of the state woodlands. Memories are rushing back, making my head swim. I never think much about my childhood before Mom’s death, because it hurts too much. Back when my sisters all loved me, and my Pops did too, or was at least able to pretend better.
Before anyone realized I was the cuckoo in the nest.
It’s a long driveway, fringed by forest, but we only get halfway before the line of parked cars starts, pulled off the road. Marco pulls over and parks in line. “Better walk from here,” he suggests. “Might be a better idea to turn up on foot than roll right up to the door. We can get the lay of the land. Any security cameras I should know about?”
I shake my head. “Pops hated that kind of thing. Said it attracted more attention than it was worth to have cameras everywhere.”
Marco nods sagely. “Smart of him. Cameras can be hacked. Tino Morelli was never down with them, either.” He gives me a sidelong look. “Sorry,” he adds, like mentioning my other father was afaux pas.
“Forget it.”
It’s getting dark, and there’s loud music floating through the trees and down the drive towards us. The lights of the house quickly become visible as we tramp up the road.
“These boots werenotmade for walking,” I mutter as we walk.
Marco doesn’t reply.
I’m grateful that he’s here, that he’s risking Luca’s wrath just to covermystupid ass, but I still can’t help feeling lonely. My eyes are starting to water, just from the cool night air and the wind blowing into them, and my heart feels heavy. Inside that house is everything I thought I’d left behind. Inside that house is the corpse of my father, and once I see him lying there in his coffin, his death will be real.
All of the last few months will be real.
The house comes into view, lit up like the goddamn Fourth of July, and there’s punk Irish folk music booming out the windows, hollering and singing coming from inside, and a few drunk souls out the front singing an old Irish lullaby that my Mom used to hum whenever she was really focused on something.
My throat closes up and my boots, not made for walking in the first place, slow right down. Marco glances back at me. “Change your mind?” he asks.
“No. I just…I just need a minute.” I sit on the low stone wall that surrounds the flowerbed centerpiece of the circular drive and stare at the house.
“Sure thing,” Marco says, and takes up a position a respectful distance away from me, legs apart, hands clasped in front, looking exactly like what he is: a Mob bodyguard.
The lolling drunks, smoking weed and trying to harmonize their voices, don’t even look at me. They flick the last of their roach and go back into the house to rejoin the crowds. Once upon a time, they would have been rushing in to let everyone know the Donovan scion had arrived.
Once upon a time I was a prince in this house, the beloved only son of Howard and Orla Fincher Donovan. But it was a fool’s paradise even then, just a dream, because I never was my Pops’ son. I never was a real Donovan.
I try to remind myself of that, but memories still keep coming back. My sisters and me, running through the trees to spy on the camp kids on the other side of the lake in the woods.
One of them threw rocks at us once, and cut my forehead. Maggie legit punched him out for that. She was the oldest and the toughest of us. Róisín cleaned out the cut when we got home and Tara held my hand so I wouldn’t cry. We weren’t supposed to go near that summer camp, had been told off again and again, so we couldn’t tell Mom and Pops what had happened.
When Pops asked about the cut that night at dinner, I lied and said I’d tripped over my own feet in the backyard.
