“I have something to do, and I need to tell you. I've held it back because Malachy told me if I told any of you, this would all go to shite. War. But guess what?” I sniff. Am I crying? Am I bloody fucking crying? “It's already gone to shite. I've got a damn tribute to pay, Declan. If I don't pay it, Bronwyn's gone. That's why they took her before. I have to do it. We need to put our heads together. But you can't tell anybody except immediate family. Do you hear me?”
“What the hell are you talking about, brother? Listen, you have a head injury, you’re not right in the head just now.”
“No.Listen to me,” I say, each word deliberate. “Get Bronwyn. Get her now. Have her brought to the safe house. Do you understand me?”
Someone on the inside.
“Yes, I do. What are you doing, brother?”
“I'm going to rescue my wife. Meet me at the warehouse east of the safe house.”
I disconnect and toss the phone into the passenger seat. The warehouse district rises up ahead, all crumbling brick and rusted chain link. I know these streets. I grew up running in them, fighting in them, bleeding in them.
Tonight, I might diein them.
But my wife fucking won't.
The thought is weirdly calming.
This is where I pay the tribute tonight. Iknowthat’s where she’s gone to.
I pull up outside the warehouse I’ve been instructed to come to, and kill the engine. Tonight, I don't have the damn tribute.
Tonight, the tribute isme.
I sit for a second, trying to breathe through the nausea, trying to steady the way the world keeps lurching sideways. The door opens.
“What are you doing here?” Declan's there, stepping out of the shadows. “I don't know what you and Erin are up to, but?—”
“I need to find her.”
“You look like death, brother.”
“Feel worse.” I try to stand, but my legs nearly give out. Declan catches my elbow.
“You shouldn't be?—”
“Don't.” I shake him off and plant my feet. The ground's rolling, but I stay upright through sheer bloody-mindedness. I grab him by the front of his shirt. “You'll fucking get it when it's you. Whereisshe?”
“Don’t bloody know,” he says. “We tracked her movements. Ciarán says she left her phone at the house. She went back to your house, got something out of the safe.”
Fucking hell. She got the money, likely her money from the investments. She's giving it all to them.
“Is she in there?”
“Don’t bloody know.”
Cars pull up—no lights, no sound. And then I see them. A handful of our best lads, all armed and ready: Seamus, Daire, Ashland, and Colm. Even Da’s come. Our best men, tooled up and ready for war.
And there, on the ground at the warehouse entrance, I see a quilted bag. Erin's bag.
I walk over, nearly fall twice, but I make it. I crouch down, and when I do, the world spins faster. Bad fucking idea. I unzip the bag—it’s empty.
“Cavin,” Seamus says carefully, like he's talking to a man on a ledge. “What's this about?”
I can’t hold it back anymore. I need my family to help.
“When Malachy died, he told me I had a tribute to pay,” I say, my eyes closed, trying to stop the world from spinning. It doesn't work. “I'm supposed to pay this money every month. I've been paying it. Malachy swore me to secrecy—said if I told you, they’d find out, and we’d have war.”
