Page 27 of Blood in the Water

Then he thought of Seamus’s red-faced rage outside his burning house, of Baren and the way he’d studied Nolan and Will when he’d ordered them to tail Bridget with Sean.

He tightened his hold on her and kissed her head. “We’ll do it this week.”

As long as he was breathing, he would protect her, but he wouldn’t lie to himself and pretend he might not stay alive to do it.

And if that happened, she would need to protect herself.

14

The sun was barely lighting the sky in the east when Bridget drove home. The city was eerily quiet, the kind of quiet that was only felt on an early winter morning, when everyone who had the luxury was still burrowed under covers or sipping coffee in their darkened kitchens, putting off the moment when they would have to brave the cold.

For once she wasn’t miserable as the car heated up. She felt alive, the frigid air, her night with Nolan, and the fresh danger of the escalating war between Seamus and the Syndicate making her nerves tingle with alertness.

Everything before the apartment was lost in the fog of her anxiety-ridden memory. She had only vague recollections of arriving at Seamus’s house, talking to the fire captain and ushering Seamus to the car, standing nervously among the men in the suite they’d rented Seamus at the Westin, suddenly aware of her vulnerability.

Nolan, as always, had brought her back to life, grounding her in the here and now, making it impossible to think about anything but him — his hands and mouth on her body, his arms sheltering her from the world, hispresence allowing her to believe, if only for awhile, that she was impervious to harm.

It wasn’t true. She knew this in the core of her being, which was why she’d asked Nolan about the gun.

She’d never considered owning a weapon before, had always found the idea repugnant. Now it seemed like a foolish and naive oversight. She was surrounded by criminals who would dump her body in the bay without a second thought, criminals who carried weapons — and used them — as casually as they used their cell phones.

She couldn’t afford to be foolish or naive, and she couldn’t afford to bank on Nolan saving her either. The possibility of something happening to him was the stuff of nightmares, something she didn’t allow herself to contemplate. She’d only just found him again. She wouldn’t give any energy to the possibility of losing him to something beyond her control, but deep down she knew anything was possible.

Seamus’s amiable demeanor, carefully constructed over decades in the neighborhood, was slipping under the pressure of the Syndicate’s attack on him and the probability of a traitor in their midst. The arrival of Baren and the rest of the IRA crew from Ireland was bad enough, but according to Nolan, Baren seemed to be stepping up on his own, making decisions and giving orders like the one for Nolan, Will, and Sean to tail Bridget. She didn’t like the way Baren looked at her, like they shared a secret no one else knew, like he was deciding the best time to wield it in his favor.

The men had been shaken after the explosion. She’d seen it on Mick’s face as he’d guarded the door of the suite at the Westin, had seen it in the way Sean had stayed at the periphery of the group, for once keeping his mouth shut instead of mouthing off in an attempt to prove he hadsomething valuable to contribute. Even Oz had been quiet, leaning against the bar in the suite’s living room, his attention turning inward, like he was working the problem of the explosion on his own.

The urge to flee had been powerful. They could have killed her then and there and no one would have had a clue. She wouldn’t even have been able to put up a fight. A gun would give her some control. In a worst case scenario, she would at least be able to make some noise.

By the time she pulled up in front of the house, the sun was rising in a clear sky, the lack of cloud cover forcing her to catch her breath as she stepped out of the car and into the cold.

She felt more in control than she had in days. The house would be warm and smelling of coffee and sleep, her mother just beginning to move around the kitchen, making breakfast for Bridget’s dad and preparing to help Owen get ready for the day. Bridget would sit at the table with a cup of coffee while her parents moved around, performing their familiar morning dance. She would help her mother with Owen before she got ready for work. She would get the gun from Nolan and learn how to use it. She would keep her head down, wait out the turf war between Seamus and the Syndicate.

It was all she could do.

She made her way down the sidewalk, hoping her dad was still in the shower. She had no idea if her mother had told him about Bridget’s late nights, if he knew she’d been coming home just before dawn a couple mornings a week, but she could think of better times to have the conversation.

She stepped into the house, expecting to hear the clatter of dishes in the kitchen.

It was quiet.

She set down her bag, hung her scarf on a hook near the door, and peeled off her coat. The living room was empty, pale blue light making its way in through the sheer curtains on the windows.

She wondered if everyone had overslept, but when she reached the kitchen, her mother was sitting alone at the kitchen table.

“Morning,” Bridget said, heading for the coffee pot. “Where’s Dad?”

“Sit down, Bridget.”

The tone in her mother’s voice stopped her cold. “What’s wrong?”

“Sit down.” This time her mother said it a little too loud, the words separated by invisible periods that made Bridget feel five years old.

Bridget sat at the table across from her mother. One of Owen’s medication dispensers was in front of her, the little plastic doors open, a pile of pills heaped next to it.

“What’s going on, Mom?”

“We had a visitor this morning.” She saw now that her mother was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, not her pajamas and a robe like she normally would before her shower. Her hair was combed but not styled, her face makeup free, dark shadows smudging the thin skin under her eyes. “It’s a good thing I was up starting the coffee. The banging on the door might have woken your father or Owen.”