“Good,” he says. “She’s a nice lady, my aunt. See you at two Moira.”
“Bye,” I whisper to the dead phone.
His phone etiquette could do with some work. But that afternoon when I meet Jess and look around the house that’s in a lovely neighbourhood, I decide he can be as rude as he wants if we get to stay here.
I’m a little suspicious of the low rent, but then Jess explains why. “My nephew doesn’t really like people and he’s particular about who lives here, he doesn’t need the money. This is the rent for all the houses.”
She shows me a leaflet for the one’s over the road, and she’s right. They’re all the same price.
Mikayla makes a gurgling noise, and I look down at her, wide-awake in her car seat. “What do you think, baby girl? Shall we make this our new home?” she gurgles again, and I laugh. Looking up, I find Jess watching us with a smile on her face.
“We’ll take it, thank you.”
“Excellent,” she responds, whipping a contract out of her bag and laying it on the table. “Let’s get this signed and back to Andy, then we’ll arrange to get you moved in this weekend. I’ll feel much better when you’re living here where it’s safe, plus it’s closer to the bakery.”
She’s not wrong, the bakery I work at is just down the road. I sign where she wants me to. As I sign on the last dotted line, a feeling of rightness comes over me. This would be my first home by myself, and I knew without a doubt that we’d be happy here.
CHAPTER 5
BUTCHER
Fucking finally!
She’s finally where I want her, and she’s safe. I thought this would never happen, I never expected her to be so bloody stubborn. I’d had to do some major finagling, and set up a shooting in her neighbourhood for her to make the move.
The lads in our crew looked at me as if I were mad when I asked them to do it. And likely I was—but then again, I’d never claimed to be sane. My obsession with a woman I’d never spoken to was just one of the many things I’d done in my life that made me question if I was.
My idea had worked even though it had taken lots of planning, and lots of moving parts. A plus was that nobody had gotten hurtin the process. We had Garda on our payroll for a reason. I’d made them work for it, that's all.
They’d stayed away until I called them to pretend to make an arrest. I’d compensated our guys well, and they’d enjoyed the rest of the night at the pub.
Uncle Sean hadn’t been too pleased with me, but for once that didn’t bother me. Not if it meant I got to have her living close to me, where I could see her every day without having to travel across town.
There were days when I wondered if she felt me watching her, because she’d taken to scanning her surroundings as if she could. I’d know soon enough, since Aunt Jess had just confirmed that Moira and her babe Mikayla would be moving in this weekend.
I’d put my hand in my pocket and paid for some of our lads to move her, through my aunt of course. I didn’t want to scare her away before she got to know me.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be around this weekend to welcome them because I had other commitments, the type of commitments that fed my soul and kept me from going off the deep end.
I sometimes wondered if this was how junkies felt when they were jonesing for a hit. If I didn’t do what I felt was my civic duty at least once a month, I got jittery. I’d been planning this weekend for months, and I couldn’t put it off.
Not even for her.
Because there were some people who didn’t deserve to walk on this earth. I’d taken it upon myself to be their judge, jury, and executioner.
I didn’t think that made me a bad guy.
Did it?
As far as I was concerned, I was doing the world a favour—ridding it of fucktards in the only way I knew how; one bloody body at a time.
CHAPTER 6
MOIRA
Iloved my new home. It was so quiet here. No shouting, no fighting in the middle of the night. No cars racing up and down roads, just pure silence.
It was bliss and until this week, I hadn’t realised how much I’d needed to be away from all the noise and bustle that came with living in the poorer parts of town.
