Page 18 of Mob Saint

“It’s a woman? What the hell, Tiera? He has no boundaries. This isn’t okay if he’s targeting women now. It was bad enough when it was you. This is only getting worse.”

I don’t think I sound as angry as I am. Just the opposite. I think I sound surprisingly calm. But the last time I sounded like this, she told me to calm down. She could tell how I felt.

“Give me a day to look into this and see what I can find. Don’t talk to Gareth and don’t dig around to find anything about this woman. Let me do it.”

I don’t like it.

“One day.”

“Thank you, Seamus. Your number came up on the caller ID. I’ll call you by close of business tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

There’s a lull, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to fill it with small talk. Should I ask her about what happened after the game?

“Well, have a nice day, Seamus.”

“Wait. I didn’t like how things were the other night. I know you said I shouldn’t apologize for other people’s fucked-upness. But I still feel badly about what happened. It wasn’t right.” Something dawns on me. “You said you had too much work to go to Trenton. I know you were avoiding Gareth. Were you avoiding him because it’s him or because you didn’t feel up to facing him?”

She doesn’t answer. I soften my voice.

“Tiera, please tell me.”

“It wasn’t a great day, so no, I didn’t feel like dealing with him.”

That breaks my heart. I want to hug her. I never want to hug women outside my family. I don’t hug Makayla unless it’s part of aftercare. It’s not exactly perfunctory because I enjoy the aftercare. But my heart doesn’t ache to do it like it does with Tiera.

“I don’t want to pour more salt into this, so I’ll let it go. I wish I’d known what she was going to say before she started. I would have muzzled her. She’s always been a snappy and snarly chihuahua. High-strung and unfriendly unless someone’s spoiling her.”

“That paints quite a picture. I can’t disagree from what I saw. I’ll call you tomorrow. And thanks for looking out for me. I know I’m refusing, but I still appreciate it. It’s—it’s nice.”

That wasn’t what she was going to say.

“I’ll talk to you later.” I want nothing more than to call her cailín. It would feel so natural.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I look at my phone when the call ends. That didn’t go well, but it didn’t go horribly. I suppose that’s better than I expected.

I missed Tiera’s call because I was at the station. We have an abandoned train station in the Bronx we’ve taken over. We did some remodeling to accommodate our needs. A bunkroom, a bathroom with four showers, and a kitchen. There’re also the meat hooks, acid vat, and various accoutrements for our work. I was there three days, dealing with an O’Malley from Boston. We like to send regular reminders to Ewan O’Malley that he shouldn’t have fucked us over, and he shouldn’t have put his sister in the middle.

I think that’s why I’m extra sensitive about Tiera. It’s like recent history repeating itself. Sean’s wife, Nicolina, is the Boston mob leader’s half-sister. He put his sister in a shite position when the work he made her do didn’t stay anonymous. Luckily, she never got caught in the middle of any violence, but it trapped her when Ewan kept trying to manipulate her. Sean’s committed to making sure he knows she’s not only off limits, but Ewan’s still making amends. He will be until Sean says he’s done.

In this case, it meant working over one of his guys to tell us who Ewan’s hiring to fence some art he recently acquired. The guy held out longer than I expected. It took a day and a half to get the info from him. Then we spent a day and a half getting him ready for Ewan to see when he woke up. Apparently, he screamed like a baby. Our guys didn’t stick around once they made sure he saw the corpse. They disposed of his guy, making him ash that’s now sediment at the bottom of the Charles River.

All of this meant my phone was off the entire time I was there. I slept in the bunkhouse, so I didn’t need to go home. Sean, Cormac, and I were on rotation interrogating the guy. I knew I missed Tiera’s call, and I asked Finn to reach out to her. He said she guessed immediately but gave him what she found, which wasn’t much. The adjustor was on a planned vacation, and our claim wound up at the bottom of someone else’s pile. Tiera said she would see what she could do to push it along. But she warned it wouldn’t be much unless she wanted to raise suspicion.

I’m home now, and I don’t want to leave for at least a week. I love how comfortable my place is. We’re all homebodies even though we’re in our early thirties. The novelty of going out and enjoying our wealth wore off by the time we were legal to drink. We’d rather have a reprieve every night before we face whatever shitstorm that’s bound to greet us in the morning. There’s always something. Rarely are there no problems. We own so many businesses and manage so many employees there’s bound to be something going on.

My phone pings, and I barely want to make the effort to reach for it next to me.

Makayla

I was wondering if you’re coming over tonight. I didn’t hear from you that you aren’t.

Fuck me.

---