Jim O’Leary.
“Motherfucker,” I muttered. The only saving grace I could see was that the armored truck was the only sign of the IFF outside. That Hummer staying back made a lot more sense now—they’d been shepherding us back to Hillview so they could hit us hard in the place we thought we’d be safest.
A stray bullet hit the window, smacking into the glass just about where my head was, and I ducked down again.
“Myparents,” Aidan said again, panicky this time.
“I’ll go—” I began, but then I heard footsteps staggering in the hallway outside, and scrambled into position in front of Aidan, aiming my gun at the door. But when two figures appeared in the doorway, Aidan let out a cry of relief. It was John, supporting Nancy, who seemed dazed, and Aidan ran to them to help them into the room. I slammed the door shut behind them.
“Bastards took out the whole front room,” John said, looking at me as he deposited his wife carefully on the floor, well away from the windows. Aidan began to check her over immediately. “We were coming up to our room when it hit. I don’t know where Tara is,” John told me softly, then turned back to his wife. “You’re okay, Nan. I just need to talk to Teo. Aidan will take care of you.”
He patted her hand and pulled me aside so they could not overhear us. “You got another one of those?” he asked quietly, nodding at my gun. I hesitated only for a moment before reaching down into my ankle holster and passing the small handgun to him. “A toy like this won’t do much against those soldiers,” he grunted, as he checked the mag and then peered down the sights.
“Guess it depends where you hit them,” I said, and he gave a grim smile.
“Dad! Give Teo that gun back. It just makes you a target,” Aidan called over.
“You worry about your mother,” John replied curtly. I gave Aidan a reassuring nod, and he leaned back over Nancy again, who seemed to have hit her head. The music room was as good as any to hole up in, I figured. John and I shoved the heavy piano across the door and then looked around for any other possible breach areas. Only the windows might be a problem, I decided, if they shattered. And they would, eventually, if they were shot at enough.
“He doesn’t know?” I asked John. He didn’t pretend not to understand.
“I’d like to keep it that way, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.”
He gave me a nod of thanks. “I got out before Aidan was even born. We were bank robbers, Jim and I. Got caught on a job and I took the fall, because I knew Jim wouldn’t survive going inside. My lawyer got me out just a year later on a technicality. I swore I’d never break the law again; one year in the big house was enough for me. But Jim, he’d already gotten in deep with Donovans by the time I got out. Even for Nancy, he wouldn’t break away from them. He loved her, you see. They were going to get married, but then…” He shrugged.
“Okay. And now he’s running with the IFF?”
John cursed softly. “That’swho’s doing this?”
“Was your brother the nationalist type?”
“Jim was always lured by power. Wasn’t much use himself, not even when we were working together. He liked to work for dangerous people in the hopes that they’d lend him their protection.” I wondered if John O’Leary had been one of those dangerous people his brother thought might protect him. Aidan’s father was certainly not just a gentle baker of apple pies, that was for sure. “Once Jim gave up Finch Donovan to the Morellis,” John went on, “he would have expected a price on his head. Makes sense he’d join up with a bigger and badder group if he could find them. Or maybe they found him, thought he’d be useful. Maybe they’re the ones who carved him up, faked his death. They’re a bad bunch, the IFF.”
“You don’t say. So what’s your brother’s problem with Aidan?”
“No idea. Now listen, I don’t want my family to die in here. So I’ll have your back whatever you decide we should do. I’m not as young as I was, but I can still shoot a gun.”
“The best thing we can do is stay right here for now,” I said. “And hope like hell that O’Hara can mobilize his men to take out those fuckers before they find us in here.” We would probably have to move from the music room; I knew that. But I needed time to think, to find a way out of the mess we were in.
But after the first stomping rush of those six soldiers and Jim O’Leary into the house, it was strangely quiet within. Perhaps, I thought grimly, they were looking for Tara Donovan first. I hoped she’d made it to the safe room. On my suggestion, John crouched down by the window, watching the opposite building, keeping an eye out for snipers. I stayed at the door near the piano, listening as hard as I could to what was going on inside the house.
In the far distance we could hear sirens as cops and paramedics raced to Beacon Hill. I didn’t see what much use the police would be against a paramilitary operation like the IFF. They weren’t fucking around. From what I’d seen of them at Innisfree, they had military training, and based on the Hummer attacks and now this armored truck slamming right into the house, they weren’t afraid to die for their cause. God only knew what kind of weaponry they had with them. We needed to move soon, find an escape route. But before I could come up with any kind of plan, I heard a voice calling in the hallway outside.
“Aidan?”
It was a man’s voice, reedy and thin, and it called again, “Aidan! Come say hello to your Uncle Jim.” A hacking cough sounded afterwards, and then I heard a scuffle, and a new voice.
“Letgoof me, you asshole!”
It was Tara Donovan.
That changed things. If Jim O’Leary had her as a hostage I couldn’t just shoot through the door andhopeI got him. I put my finger to my lips at John, Nancy and Aidan, and I held Aidan’s eyes as his uncle called him on again outside in the hall.
Aidan stood up.
I pointed firmly to the ground, glaring at him, and kept glaring until he sat his ass down. Aidan O’Leary was not going to make a goddamn martyr of himself on my watch.
