Page 52 of His Dark Vendetta

Ronan O’Doyle lived on the bottom floor of one of the countless cookie-cutter homes lining the densely populated city streets. It hadn’t been difficult to get an address once I found out he was still alive. Hell, it hadn’t been difficult finding the name of the gang who attacked the Shaughnessys. Not when a teenage girl had been caught in the crossfire.

A TV backlit the curtains on the lower level and announced the highlights of the night’s Sox game, loud enough to wake the upstairs neighbors. But no lights were on behind the upstairs windows. Good.

I walked up the wooden porch steps and knocked on the door.

A chair creaked, boots hit the floor, and my supernatural hearing picked up each footfall over the obnoxiously loud TV. The deadbolt clicked and the door swung open.

A middle-aged man of average build, average height, and average features, Ronan O’Doyle had thinning hair and bushy, unkempt eyebrows. He narrowed his hazy blue eyes, and the creases lining his forehead deepened. “What d’ye want?” His voice had an unmistakably Irish lilt, but the words sounded as if he’d dragged them through gravel.

“That’s no way to welcome a guest, is it? Ronan O’Doyle?”

“What’s it to ye?” he asked and lifted a Sam Adams to his lips with his left hand—a left hand missing its index, middle, and ring fingers. Irish mob handiwork at its best. The only confirmation I needed, and the confirmation that had just ended his life.

I pulled out my piece from the inside of my suit jacket and aimed it at his heart.

He looked at the gun, then looked at me. He swigged his beer.

“Inside,” I said.

He backed into the living room, and I shut the door behind me.

Sparse. A bachelor pad free of decoration except for a framed poster of the 2004 World Series Champion Red Sox hanging above an empty fireplace, a big screen TV loud enough to deafen the hard of hearing, and a well-worn leather recliner. A side table topped with two empty beer bottles and a remote stood between the armrest and the fireplace. No evidence of a landline.

“Have a seat.” I gestured to the recliner with my gun.

O’Doyle moved toward the recliner as if a stranger holding him at gunpoint wasn’t out of the ordinary, and sank into his chair, making it creak.

I held out my hand. “Your phone.”

He twisted in his seat and reached into his pocket. “This some kinda shakedown?” he rumbled. “Cause I already told Johnny I don’t got his money. I’m good for it next month.” He pulled out a cell and handed it to me.

I dropped the phone in my pocket and lowered my gun. “How’d you lose those fingers, Ronan?”

He glanced down to where his thumb and pinky finger held the beer bottle on top of the recliner’s armrest.

“Dog got ’em,” he said to his missing fingers. “Real nasty mutt.”

I snorted. “That’s not the story I heard.”

I hadn’t expected anyone from the O’Doyle crew to have made it out of Southie alive, much less their ringleader. Leave it to the cyber guy to dig up an address and the dirty details.

He shrugged. “Don’t really give a fig what you heard.”

“You should.”

“Why’s that?”

“Cause what I heard”—I stepped forward—“was that instead of putting you in the dirt for shooting his niece, Paddy Shaughnessy cut them off.” Another step. “One for each bullet you put in her stomach.”

His face went flat. “Not sure where ye heard that tripe.”

“What I want to know is how you’re still alive. That’s the mystery I can’t figure out. Everyone in the O’Doyle crew is in the ground. Southie cops found them in a dumpster, each with a hole in his chest. Execution style at point-blank range. But not their leader. Not Ronan O’Doyle. Why’s that, Ronan?”

“Ye seem to know a lot about it. Why don’t ye tell me?”

“I can make this easy on you or hard. Your choice. You’re going to die anyway. Might as well make it easy.”

He shifted in his seat like he was settling into the idea, then lifted his beer, examined it, and drained the bottle.

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