Page 55 of Guilty as Sin

“Cubs or Sox?”

“Sox.” It’s the truth, but even if it weren’t, I’m not about to tell a South Sider I’m a Cubs fan.

Declan grunts to confirm I gave the correct response. I let him and Orla win the next several hands, mostly because I don’t draw any good cards.

Whenever Declan rakes in his winnings, he leaves them in a heap compared to everyone else’s neat stacks. It’s the technique of someone who doesn’t want his coins countable by others, who relies on the appearance of winning, whether or not he has the funds to back it up.

“Our man in Boston did a little digging on you.” Declan says it calmly, but it makes my pulse increase. If the O’Sullivans learn my name is still legally Samantha Greene according to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the loophole in my marriage disappears. But I keep my voice nonchalant.

“Did he?”

“You don’t hold the respect you should for the sacraments.” Brady’s father levels his gaze at me across the table.

I almost sigh with relief. They haven’t uncovered my identity, just something brash I did as a teenager. I should’ve known that story would catch up with me eventually. Tempted as I am to glance to Orla for her reaction, I hold Declan’s stare.

“I save my respect for more consequential things,” I tell him.

“Such as?”

“Power.”

Declan barks a laugh, a condescending noise with a slight wheeze to it. I stay silent as he shakes his head.

“You don’t think there’s power in the sacraments?” he asks.

“They rely on the power of belief,” I say. “Which, yes, is very strong. But if, tomorrow, everyone stopped believing in the sacraments, they’d be meaningless.”

Kieran sucks in a breath. In my peripheral vision, Orla goes still. I’ve just wobbled on this tightrope that I’m walking, and I can’t afford to fall.

“But take actual power. Say…” I wave my hand vaguely. “The type of power you wield. If, tomorrow, everyone stopped believing you were powerful, you’d prove them wrong.”

Declan’s eyebrows twitch up at this, a subtle cue that I’ve impressed him. I keep my face impassive as he tries to evaluate me, then Orla tosses her cards face down between us, breaking our staring contest.

“I’ll not hear any more blasphemous talk,” she says. “Kieran, it’s your pot.”

Nervously, the youngest O’Sullivan rakes in his quarters.

“Don’t go spending all of those at the arcade now,” his mother says.

What the hell else is a thirteen-year-old boy going to do with a bunch of quarters? Apart from keeping a roll of them in his fist for fighting, which sweet Kieran doesn’t seem like the type to do.

Our table returns to its silence, and it’s even more tense than before. Declan may be pleased with my responses, but Orla is visibly upset with me.

I do my best with several crappy hands in a row, meaning I fold more often than I’d like. After what feels like a long while, I get a hand with four clubs and one spade.

“One,” I tell Orla, discarding my spade.

“One means you’re usually going for a flush,” Kieran pipes up.

He’s as old as Connor was when I hugged him goodbye in Boston, but Kieran seems significantly younger than my brother at his age. It’s not that Connor has ever been mature, just that he was left to his own devices as a kid. Kieran, however, is so clearly cared for and protected by his family that it’s like he’s gotten a proper childhood, despite growing up in the mafia.

“Usually,” I agree. “But counting on a flush is pretty foolish.”

I peek at the card Orla dealt me, and let my lips twitch the slightest bit before sliding the card into my hand, second from the right.

I raise by a dollar and Kieran folds. Declan re-raises me. It’s the first time he’s done anything but call or fold. He stacks up some of his coins to slide eight dollars into the pot, the exact amount I have left. Orla folds.

I can recognize a test when it’s presented, and the O’Sullivan patriarch is challenging me. I go all in to call him. Declan lays down his hand, jack high, aka nothing. He was just calling my bluff. I lay down my hand of four clubs and one heart, queen high.