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Rose chuckles and pours me a cup of tea. “Well, she’s a step up from your usual playthings. This one looks like she might even have a brain in her head.”
“And fire in her soul,” I add. “She led me on a jaunty chase through the streets tonight and honestly, I don’t know why I followed instead of just letting her go and doubling back to check on the lads. If she doesn’t want me to keep her alive, why should I care?”
Rose chuckles. “Because you’re not the monster you think you are.”
I scoff. “You are the only one who can say things like that to me and get away with it.”
“Aye, I know. So, tell me what happened.”
I lift my mug to my lips and blow over the piping hot surface. “It seems Mattie McGuire is making a play for all of Dublin.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. That man has a brain the size of a bean and a cock to match.”
I swallow my tea and try not to choke. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Unfortunately, I know of what I speak.”
Oof, I really don’t want to think about that. “Size must not matter because he produced six sons.”
“Six Neanderthal eejits, you mean.”
Rose isn’t wrong. The McGuire boys definitely swim in the shallow end of the gene pool.
“And so, four of those Neanderthals busted into Jimmy’s tonight and unloaded their AKs regardless of the crowd.”
Rose gasped. “In a pub full of locals?”
“Aye. They came for me and didn’t care who else got caught in the crossfire.”
“And yet here you sit.” Rose toasts that by raising her ceramic mug.
“Aye, here I sit.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and frown at the cracked glass. “Not the only casualty of the night, I expect.”
Rose pushes a plate of shortbread biscuits toward me, and I pop one in my mouth and crunch down on the buttery bliss while I work to get my phone working.
“I’ve got a burner or two in the cupboard, lad. Give me a moment.”
While she goes to the living room, I drop my phone into my pocket and press my hands flat on the table.
The rage burning through me is making me homicidal. Sometimes in my business, collateral damage is unavoidable, but Da brought us up to live by a code.
Innocents, women, and children are out of bounds. Mattie McGuire knows this and crossed a line by sending his eejit sons into Jimmy’s pub during the evening rush.
That can’t go unchallenged.
“Here you are, lad.” Rose hands me a phone still encased in its plastic packaging, and I lean to the side and grab the kitchen scissors from the drawer.
“Grand. Thanks for this.”
“Not to worry. Just get control of this mess before it spills into the streets.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Well, your best has always been good enough for me.”
I cut open the packaging and in under three minutes, I have the burner phone plugged in and am watching it, waiting for it to have enough power to work.
There’s something relaxing about being in this kitchen. It’s warm and smells of the potatoes and cabbage she made for supper. The thought of Rose’s colcannon makes my mouth water, but I don’t have time tonight.
