Page 7 of Irish Reign

I end the call and fumble the phone back to the nightstand. I should go out to the living room. I should tell Seamus to bring in Rory. I should check with Fairfax, see if the fire inspector has made a preliminary report yet, find out if the fire was hot enough to destroy my brother’s body.

But my eyes are still closed against the pain. And my lungs are still refusing to take a full breath. And the pillows on this bed are so soft…

I fall asleep holding on to Samantha’s promise that she’ll be back soon.

3

SAMANTHA

Ihate the Rittenhouse.

It’s the most luxurious hotel in Philadelphia. They keep a file on Braiden. They know to make his bed European style, without a top sheet. They stock Jameson in his mini bar. And they deliver five newspapers every morning:The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times,The Washington Post,andThe Irish Times.

The suites are finely appointed. The room service meals are some of the best I’ve ever eaten. The staff is expertly trained, and I’ve never made a request they couldn’t meet.

But the Rittenhouse is where Braiden and Russo met to hammer out their territorial dispute, back in February. It’s where Fiona Ingram first played her hand, trying to squash Braiden beneath the Grand Irish Union’s heel. It’s where Madden publicly accused me of being Russo’s whore.

And it’s where Antonio Russo revealed my darkest secret to the world. He told Braiden, the Delaware bar, and every reporter he could reach about That Night. About the biggest mistake I ever made. About the single wrong I can never atone for: Driving drunk on a winding mountain road, resulting in the deaths of three innocent people.

So it’s no wonder I despise being trapped in this golden cage.

When I sit down for coffee in the living room of the Presidential Suite, I shouldn’t be surprised to discover I’m front-page news in my hometown newspaper. After all, Braiden and Russo are evergreen subjects for articles. Locals follow stories about organized crime as avidly as they track the Eagles and the 76ers, the Phillies and the Flyers.

Paparazzi have been trailing me since Russo announced how two of my cousins and an unnamed vagrant died in a mountainside ditch. I’ve become the subject of this season’s Mousetrap podcast, a true-crime series that details every mistake I’ve ever made. Just last week, theEnquirerran a huge exposé about me, telling the world about my connections to the Mafia and the Mob, about my fight to keep my license to practice law.

And the Philadelphia paper is back for more this morning. Apparently, theEnquirersent a reporter out to Thornfield. While the view through the gate was obscured, there was enough steaming wreckage from the fire to make the estate look like a combat zone.

“Struggling Lawyer Loses All in Suspicious House Fire,” blares the headline.

The article is a masterpiece in innuendo, recycling last week’s hatchet job. Every single statement is factually true. I can’t begin to make a claim for libel or defamation. Among other facts, the article states:

My father was a lieutenant for Don Antonio Russo.

I witnessed my parents’ death in a car explosion when I was ten, and I was taken in by an aunt and uncle with close ties to the Mafia.

After killing three people while driving drunk, I fled to New York, where I assumed a new name.

I am currently under investigation for those three deaths, and the Delaware bar is holding an ethics proceeding to determine the status of my license to practice law.

I work for a tax haven that caters to sometimes-shady billionaires.

I married Braiden Kelly, Captain of Philadelphia’s Irish mob.

A woman and her full-time caretaker perished in a fire at Braiden’s mob compound on Monday night.

I did not immediately answer reporters’ questions about this story.

I try to sip the dark roast coffee delivered by room service when they brought the morning newspapers. Ordinarily, caffeine is a jolt to my system, anchoring me for a long day of work. This morning, though, the coffee sludges through my veins like frozen motor oil, slowing every synapse in my brain.

Braiden is savoring his tea, brewed as dark as his own reputation. The liquid in his cup glints like midnight in the sunglasses he’s wearing as a reluctant concession to Dr. Kelleher, as long as we’re in the privacy of our suite. “What?” he asks, when I set aside the paper.

“Nothing.”

“I’ll call in Fairfax and have him read to me.”

Braiden Kelly does not make idle threats. So I tell him: “It’s an article about me. InThe Enquirer. Tying me to the fire.”

“Who else has the story?”

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