Page 38 of Irish Brute
“Russo.”
“There is something you should see.” The phone beeps, and I pull it away from my face to accept a live video feed.
Donny. Lashed to a chair. Hands tied behind his back. His face has been worked over so I’m not sure he can see. The fingers on the one hand I can make out stand at strange angles. He didn’t give up his phone without a fight.
“Go ahead,” says Russo, somewhere off-screen.
A man steps into the frame with a petrol can. He starts splashing clear liquid over Donny, whose shouts are muffled by some sort of gag. As Donny struggles, I realize his mouth is stuffed with an Irish flag, the green, white, and orange splotched with blood.
“Don’t do it, Russo,” I say.
The guy with the petrol steps close enough to pour the last fluid over Donny’s head, focusing on his mouth. Donny’s shouts rise an octave.
“Russo, I swear to God, if you kill that man, we’ll be at war till I put you in the ground.”
Russo laughs. “Do not waste your time with thisstronzo.He did not even pick up the tail on his car until my men forced him off the road.”
“We’re even now, you and me. We each took out three joints. You’re ahead of the game. You put four of my girls in the hospital, and one of them’s still there.”
“The only reason we areeven,” Russo says. “Is because you Irish motherfuckers could not figure out how to torch my garage.”
Russo’s man is holding a matchbook. He’s already pulled a match; it’s trapped against the striking pad.
“You want me,” I say. “Not Donovan Fucking O’Keefe.”
“I will get you,” Russo says. “Along with your fucking wife. And when I do, you will be tied up worse than your man here. But I will not bother with a gag, because I want to hear what you say when you watch me fuck Giovanna. And when I am done with her tight little cunt, I will soak another Irish flag in gasoline. I will shove it up her hole, and I will set her on fire. And when she is nothing but a lump of charred fat, you will eat what is left. And then I will finish you off too, carving an inch at a time and shoving it down your screaming Mick throat.”
“You fucking?—”
But I don’t get to say the rest. Russo must signal his man, because the match flares bright on the phone’s small screen.
“Russo!” I shout, but it’s too late. The match arcs through the air. The flames hit the ceiling in whatever slaughterhouse Russo’s using. Donny screams for longer than I thought a man could last.
I watch, because that’s the only way I can acknowledge a brave man’s death. And when the flames start to die down, I say the only benediction I know over the blackened bones: “You’re a dead man, Russo.”
He doesn’t bother responding. He just cuts the connection.
I’m breathing hard enough that the roof of my mouth stings. My hands are clenched into fists I don’t remember making. Madden shifts on the sofa, which is the only thing that reminds me he’s there. He’s a color green no man should ever be.
I cross my office in four long strides.
“Where are you going?” my brother croaks.
“To find my wife.” And once I find her, I’m getting her logged in to the panic room downstairs, so there’s one place on earth I know she can be safe.
16
SAMANTHA
Once Braiden runs off with my computer, I try to figure out how to fill the day. I’ve been in this house for less than forty-eight hours, but it already feels claustrophobic. If I were home, in Dover, I’d go for a long walk, maybe head down to the state park that runs for miles along the Delaware River.
But there’s no state park here. And I’m pretty sure Braiden will lock me in the safe room if I try to venture beyond Thornfield’s walls.
Lucky for me, there are acres of grounds that come with this house. I’ve glimpsed them from the windows on the second floor. It’s time to explore my new home.
If I head upstairs to get my coat, I might run into Braiden. I’m not up for another sparring match, not so soon after our breakfast confrontation.
Instead, I make my way to the mudroom at the back of the house. Its walls are lined with coats on hooks, and there are rowsof boots marching neatly on the floor. I spy a puffy jacket—pink with a heavy purple zipper—that obviously belongs to Aiofe.
