Page 4 of Blood in the Water

Mick shrugged.

Nolan stepped through the curtain and was immediately enveloped in a fog of cigarette smoke, the smell of beer and sweat heavy in the air. He took inventory of the room, a habit that had come back shockingly fast after his sabbatical as a law-abiding citizen when he’d left the Syndicate to play lawyer.

Seamus occupied his usual spot, behind the table at the back of the room, his back to the wall. To his right, Baren Maguire sat with a glass of beer, a cigarette sitting in an ashtray in front of him, smoke curling into the air. Across from Baren, Oscar “Oz” Gorman, Baren’s right-hand man and ever-present shadow, counted stacks of money, a ledger open in front of him.

Will and Doug sat at one of the other tables arrangedbehind the curtain, playing cards fanned out in an arrangement that suggested a game of 7-Card Stud.

They all looked up as Nolan walked into the room.

“Burke!” Seamus barked. “Did you pick up that envelope?”

Nolan reached into his jacket and withdrew the envelope he’d picked up from Ryan Whelan, a fixture in the neighborhood who was into Seamus for thousands of dollars of gambling debt.

He set the envelope on the table.

Seamus cocked an eyebrow. “It all there?”

“It’s all there.”

Seamus narrowed his eyes. “Should I count it?”

Nolan shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.”

Seamus hesitated a beat, and the room seemed to hold its breath before he burst out in a laugh that ended on a raspy cough. He looked at Baren. “You believe this fucking guy? Only been back with the outfit a few months and he’s already giving me shit. His father was the same before he became a big shot.” He looked at Nolan. “I’m glad you’re here, Burke. I like your spirit.”

Nolan wasn’t fooled. Seamus liked his spirit as long as it didn’t threaten or humiliate him, as long as Nolan toed the line. It was something Nolan had known — or felt anyway — even back when he’d been a snot-nosed brat, running the streets with Will whenever his father brought him to Southie to visit his grandparents. They’d been fixtures in the neighborhood, first generation immigrants who still thought South Boston was paradise even back before the Millennial hipsters arrived, back when it had been block upon block of faded row houses with flimsy iron railings leading to cramped porches where everyone sat to gossip and pass the time.

Seamus had been like everyone’s favorite uncle, passing out gum and remembering the name of every kid in the neighborhood, but Nolan had always been a little afraid of him. He’d sensed the danger under Seamus’s smiling surface and friendly Irish brogue, had had to force himself to smile around the alarm bells he didn’t understand that were ringing in his mind. His father had only validated his concern when he’d pulled Nolan aside one day and told him to steer clear of Seamus.

Nolan was willing to bet Seamus felt a secret thrill of satisfaction at having Torin Burke’s son on his payroll, especially since Nolan’s father had worked so hard to escape the neighborhood.

Seamus slid the money Nolan had handed him to Oz, then reached for a stack of envelopes to his right. He flipped through them and handed one to Nolan. Nolan knew it would already have his name on it even before he looked at it, a detail he’d made note of last year when he and Will had been looking for ways to get the names of the dirty Boston PD cops being paid to provide cover for Seamus.

“Thanks,” Nolan said.

Seamus’s phone rang and he lifted it to his ear, grunted a few words, and set the phone on the table. “Dougie! Get your ass over to the Playpen and talk some sense into our little friend.”

Doug jumped to his feet. “Right away, boss. Just talk?”

“For now.”

Dougie slipped on his track jacket and headed for the door.

“Fecking women,” Seamus grumbled. “You’d think those little cunts would be more grateful.”

Nolan’s fists tightened at his side. He forced himself to loosen them, to breathe until the rage passed. It wasn’t thefact that the women were employed as dancers at the Playpen — one of Southie’s most popular strip clubs and one of the many places Seamus’s men dealt drugs and laundered money.

It was the fact that they were given drugs to get them to do more than dance — and the fact that Bridget feared she might become one of them.

Nolan had told her over and over again it would happen over his dead body, but deep down he knew he couldn’t rule out that possibility either. And as much as he tried to reassure Bridget, he knew she was in dangerous territory because of the legal work she did for Seamus and the extra money he’d been slipping her for the past three years — money she desperately needed to pay for her brother Owen’s ALS treatments.

Nolan would pay off Bridget’s debt out of his trust fund before he let Seamus put her to work at the Playpen. He had more money than he could spend in his lifetime, thanks to his father, who’d made good by becoming one of the most sought-after political strategists in the country before his death.

Bridget would object, might cut him off forever if he paid off her debt — and doing so would out their relationship to Seamus — but if the situation got bad enough, Nolan would do it anyway and deal with the consequences.

He ignored the voice in his head that told him even that might not be enough, that Bridget was in so deep with Seamus that he wouldn’t let her go even if the debt was paid.

“Anything else for tonight?” Nolan asked.