Page 3 of Blood in the Water

“Point taken.”

Farrell stood. “Send us those dossiers.”

“What are the odds Burke will make it out alive?” Damian asked as they made their way to the front door.

Farrell thought about it. “Fifty-fifty.”

“And the woman?”

Bridget Monaghan had had problems even before Burke got involved with O’Brien’s crew. It wasn’t a matter of character. Monaghan had put herself through night school to become a lawyer and lived at home, helping her parents pay for treatment for her younger brother who had ALS. But the money hadn’t been enough, and with a law degree from a city college, she hadn’t been able to get a job at one of the city’s higher paying firms. Desperate to provide treatment for her brother, she’d accepted work for Seamus O’Brien, bailing out his soldiers when they got themselves into trouble and providing legal advice to O’Brien.

There were a lot of possible outcomes — none of them good — for someone that closely linked to O’Brien, someone with that much dirt on him and his operation.

“Making it out alive isn’t the only thing she has to worry about,” Farrell said.

A shadow passed over Damian’s eyes. “Let me know if I can help.”

Farrell held out his hand. “You can help by keeping New York locked down — and by taking care of the beautiful family you somehow managed to pull off.”

Damian shook his hand. “It’s the only thing that really matters.”

Farrell stepped through the door and started for the car.

Amen,he thought.

1

Nolan Burke heard Baren Maguire’s voice the minute he opened the door to the Black Cat. It floated above the others in a stream of Gaelic that had become almost familiar to Nolan in the weeks since Baren and his crew had arrived from Ireland. Nolan still had no idea what the words meant, and he’d spent the last month cursing himself for not listening when his grandparents had urged him to learn the language of their birth country.

It would have made spying on Seamus O’Brien a lot easier.

Nolan waved to Connor, standing behind the bar and serving two gray-haired locals, and made his way toward the curtain at the back of the large front room. Connor smiled and Nolan felt an irrational burst of annoyance.

Connor was a good guy — Nolan had no idea how he’d ended up bartending at the Cat, headquarters for all of the criminal activity headed by Seamus — but he also had a thing for Bridget. He tried to hide it, but Nolan saw it in the way Connor lingered at the bar when Bridget stopped for abeer while she waited to talk to Seamus, in the way his eyes lit up when he looked at her.

If the situation had been different, Nolan might have been happy Bridget had the attention of a nice guy like Connor to offset the misogynistic attention paid to her by the rest of Seamus’s men.

But the situation wasn’t different — and Bridget belonged to Nolan.

The assertion wasn’t some kind of macho power play on Nolan’s part. It was a fact. Bridget Monaghan had belonged to him since the moment he’d come upon her at Ramsey Park, her gold hair threaded with copper as she bowed her head to one of her law school textbooks. He’d been hers since that moment too, her ownership over him irrevocable despite the years they’d spent apart after she dumped him without explanation.

Nolan couldn’t blame Connor, especially since he had no idea Nolan and Bridget were a thing. No one knew. No one could ever know, not until Seamus was dead or so far gone they never had to worry about him again, because if Seamus ever found out Nolan was seeing the woman who kept him and his crew out of legal trouble, Nolan and Bridget were both fucked.

Then it wouldn’t matter whether Seamus found out they were spying on him for the Syndicate. Bridget was the chink in Nolan’s armor, the one thing that could bring him to his knees. It was too powerful a weapon to hand someone like Seamus O’Brien.

The sound of conversation got louder as Nolan approached the two men guarding the curtain that divided the public space of the bar from the back room where Seamus did his day-to-day business.

Mick, standing on the right, uncrossed his arms. “How’s it hanging, Burke?”

Mick was one of Seamus’s most trusted soldiers, which was why he usually worked as Seamus’s personal bodyguard.

“It’s hanging,” Nolan said, reaching out to clasp Mick’s outstretched hand.

On the other side of the doorway, Sean Maguire, Baren Maguire’s youngest son, watched Nolan with curious eyes. Nolan couldn’t help wondering why his father had dragged him into the group. The rest of them had met in Ireland during the IRA’s heyday. Sean probably hadn’t even been born back then, which was probably why he carried himself like he had something to prove despite the fact that he was a tall, skinny kid barely old enough to drink in the States.

“They’re waiting for you,” Mick said.

“Am I late?” Nolan checked his phone. He wasn’t.

---