Page 5 of Mob Saint

“I didn’t say you would ask her out on a date. I think you’d asked her out to do something entirely different from dinner and a movie.”

“Feck off.”

Our parents would skelp our arses if we ever really swore at each other. Not between brothers and not among the cousins. The twins have an older brother, Finn. And we all share our cousin, Dillan. Three sisters married three brothers. Even if we weren’t the mob, we’d be a close family.

“You never know. She might be into it.”

I glare at my brother. I am not asking a witness I don’t know to do anything with me. It’s utterly unethical. I’m not asking a woman I don’t know to fuck me at a sex club. That’s utterly pervy.

“Let’s go. We need to brief Dillan.”

Chapter Two

Tiera

Fucking asshole.

Gareth can suck a dick. I told him it was a shit idea to get me involved in the arson case, and it was a fucktastrophe getting me on the prosecution’s witness list. I would have done better testifying on behalf of the defendant. I just told him that for at least the fifth time in a week as I walk to the soccer pitch.

I looked like a fucking idiot on the stand last week, and I deserved it. But what the fuck am I supposed to do when my third cousin twice removed, who happens to be my uncle’s best friend because my family tree is so fucking tangled that all three of us are nearly the same age, tells me to take my fat ass to the U.S. Attorney’s office?

That earned him a threatened fist to his dick. It was a douche move, and he knows it. That’s why he said it. Some really shitty shit’s happened to me in the last three years, and I’ve eaten my feelings. He thinks tormenting me by reminding me of the worst time of my life will make me give in just to make him stop talking. It used to. Now I simply walk away, hang up the phone, or ignore his texts. Let the asshole chase me before I agree to do jack shit for him.

He volunteered me as an expert witness for a case I was only tangentially involved in originally. Volunteered me before I even knew there was a fire clients would file an insurance claim for. That cross examination went better than I expected. Seamus O’Rourke only somewhat humiliated me after backing me into a corner.

If he weren’t the hottest man I’ve ever seen, I’d hold being a douchebag against him. That’s probably all the more reason I should since I felt like I ate shit in there in front of the singularly most menacingly attractive man I’ve ever met.

“Tiernan, are you coming or what?”

“Huh? Let me fasten my shin guard tighter. Give me a sec.”

I watch my friend Suze jog onto the field while I screw my head back on straight. I may not be as light on the scale as I was a few years ago, but I’m still light on my feet. I played DIII soccer all four years at John Jay. It’s a smaller college, so it’s not Division One—the most competitive collegiate division—like Columbia.

Oh, yes. I looked Seamus and Cormac O’Rourke up the moment I got on the subway last week. I know Cormac was at John Jay at the same time as me. Who knew? But Seamus went to Columbia. He and his brother both went to NYU for law school.

I’m no idiot though. I earned my Master of Science in Applied Mathematics at University of Chicago, one of the top programs in the country. Am I overqualified to be an actuary? Yes. Does it come in handy to be able to count to a million? It does when your family’s been in the Irish mob for six generations and needs someone clever enough to commit insurance fraud without getting caught.

I pull my sock up and tug on the tongue of my cleat before I jog onto the field. This is my happy place. I was a tomboy. The only girl on the soccer field in elementary school every day before and after school and during lunch. I was the only girl playing indoor soccer during PE in middle school. I was the only girl high school football kicker in my school’s league. Football was a fall sport, and girls’ soccer was spring. I could kick harder and farther, so they put me on the team. I nearly castrated Gareth when I kicked a football in his nuts for saying I kicked like a girl.

Damn right, motherfucker.

I’m watching my team spread out across our half of the field before kickoff. I’m a left forward, so I take my place on the line. Only then do I look in front of me to scout the team we’re scrimmaging against. I nearly miss the whistle.

Pull yer heed out of yer arse, lass.

I had a brawny Scottish Highlander for a coach in college. She played center forward and was a battering ram well into her early sixties. I need to take a lesson from her and focus.

Whether it’s moving the ball directly toward the goal or kicking it back to a center midfielder, the objective is clear. I watch our kicker draw his foot back like he’s going to take a straight shot forward, but at the last minute before the whistle, his foot moves to look like he’s going to do a pass back. That’s not our strategy.

The kicker taps it to the player between us, who passes it to me. That gives my team the opportunity to surge forward. In the seconds it takes for me to get the ball, I scan for the openings and where my teammates move. I’m left-footed, which throws people off even more. I see who’s barreling toward me, so I put all the force I can muster into the kick, the ball barely whizzing past my opponent’s left ear.

I take off forward, swerving around the behemoth who looks ready to murder me. If we were both trying to gain control of the ball, I’d have no issue shoulder checking the guy who’s close to a foot taller than me but likely only forty pounds heavier than me.

“Keep up, O’Rourke.”

Seamus was not who I thought I’d stand face-to-face with today. He is not the person I thought I’d pair off with at kickoff. But his position leaves him in a midfield defensive spot as I charge toward his team’s goal, since I’m a striker. I keep weaving until I’m even with our center forward, who passes it to me. I dribble around a woman who looks like she’s evenly matched with my skill. We tangle as we collide.

Okay, then. Game on, bitches.

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