Page 181 of Bad Bishop
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Four hours later, my son ripped into the world like a lion. With a victorious roar, fists curled in anger, legs kicking and thrashing, protesting the invasion of his perfect bubble.
Earlier, Lila allowed me to stay with her if I promised to be on my best behavior.
I held my wife’s hand and watched as he appeared between her legs in all of his purple-white flesh glory. New and wrinkly, unfocused, his ribs tightening each time he took a greedy breath to resume his screaming.
There was nothing particularly noteworthy about his scrunched, long-suffering face. It was full of white stuff.
It was his head that confirmed the suspicion I’d had for the past few weeks, since Lila killed the wrong guy.
More specifically, the shocking thick mane of hair covering his entire skull.
The unmistakable, rare, and familiar shade of dark red. Burgundy.
Of theCallaghans.
Red. All I saw was red. Rage took over my entire fucking being.
Fintan.
Fintan was the rapist.
It all made sense.
His name was on Sam Brennan’s list. In plain sight all along.
It had never occurred to me to look into him as a suspect before the warehouse incident because…
Because you’re a fucking gobshite who spent your entire life assuming the best about him.
I’d ignored his name because he disappeared often to get drunk or make illegal bets. Him not being by my side on that night was nothing special.
He had a girlfriend, but that meant very little to men of our trade; he had substance abuse issues, so it was likely he wasn’t on his best behavior that night. And while Fintan was a scaredy-cat not accustomed to violence, he certainly possessed a mean streak.
He’d taken one look at Raffaella, concluded she wasn’t going to fight back, rat him out, or complicate his life—and decided to destroy hers.
The writing was on the wall. How he protested the marriage from the get-go. How angry he was when it went ahead. And how concerned he’d been when he first heard Lila was sentient.
The last nine months rushed into the forefront of my mind.
He’d sent her a letter, had likely slipped it under the door himself. Why?
The answer was simple—he wanted her alone so he could kill her and get rid of both her and the baby. Bury his secret with them.
He tried twice—once when he crashed into her and Tierney in that intersection, after which he panicked and tried to pin it on Angelo—and a second time when he arranged a time to meet her at the dock, but I showed up instead.
He was the one who sent that Roger prick to the port and ordered him to kill whoever showed up, Lila or me. Because once I was gone, there’d be no one to retaliate.
He thought he could get away with it.
Until the very last moment.
The red flowers at Fermanagh’s…
My jaw locked. They were unevenly red.Old.
He kept her blood-soaked tiara of roses.
