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I shake my head. “Tag has referred to himself as the Dublin Rogue a couple of times, but I thought he was joking around.”
Bryan wipes his fingers on his napkin and laughs. “Och, no. The citizens of Dublin came up with our monikers years ago. Tag is the Dublin Rogue, Sean is the Dublin Devil, Finn is the Dublin Charmer, Brendan is the Dublin Brute, and I’m the Dublin Beast.”
I blink, taking that all in. “Seriously?”
Rose laughs. “Don’t be offended on their behalf. The boys get a kick out of it.”
I search their expressions, and she’s right. They’re all chuckling and amused by the way the citizens of the city see them. “That’s a PR campaign waiting to happen.”
Finn grins. “Don’t think we haven’t tried to figure out how to use it to our advantage.”
“Well, Bryan and I did,” Brendan says. “It was part of our billing for the fight Saturday night.”
I give the boys a clap. “Right, congratulations for you both winning your matches. In all the chaos, I didn’t get the chance to congratulate you.”
Brendan waves away my apology. “Knowing what the rest of you faced that night makes our fights insignificant. We’re just thankful everyone survived to tell their tales.”
I meet the worried gazes and set my napkin on the table. “We did. And as Tag says, we’re looking forward. If you’ll excuse me. I’m going to lie down for an hour before we leave for my mom’s service.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Laine
“Ican’t get over how lovely the countryside is out here,” I say, my gaze locked on the rolling green hills covered in purple flowers and dotted with little lakes. “It makes me wonder why my grandparents would ever move from here to Chicago. It seems crazy to me.”
Tag squeezes my hand where it rests on the wide console between our two seats. “There are a lot of reasons people move away. I expect your mam’s parents saw the draw of innovation and opportunity in North America. It’s not uncommon.”
“But look how beautiful it is here.”
He nods. “Aye, it is, but this is the time of year when things bloom, and it’s easy to remember why Ireland is called the Emerald Isle. The same can’t be said for all the other months.”
“I find that hard to believe, but I suppose I’ll find out firsthand because I have no intention of leaving Ireland anytime soon.”
He squeezes my hand. “And in that vein, may I ask you a question or two without upsetting you on your family day?”
I turn sideways in my seat. “Of course. What would you like to know?”
“Well, I was thinking about what Marco said about the mob family in Chicago considering you a loose end.”
“The Tessiano family. Yeah, I’m not sure what to do about that. I wasn’t privy to what Milton and Marco were up to with them. They believed women are too delicate to handle the intricacies of organized crime.”
Tag laughs. “Some of the most ruthless family leaders I know are women. Hell, even Mattie McGuire’s wife, Samantha, is smarter and meaner than any of the McGuire men.”
“How much of the uprisings against your family do you think comes from Mattie versus his wife?”
He slows the truck down to make a right turn onto another country route. “I’d guess it’s all Mattie. Samantha’s too smart to stir up trouble on the hunch that we’re weak. She’s very business minded.”
“And because of her husband and her dumbass sons, they’ve missed several shipments of women, lost two dozen men, and look bad in front of the other families.”
Tag grins. “And that brings me back to the Tessiano family in Chicago. If Marco told them he knew where you were, they might send more men to take you down. I want to get ahead of that.”
I’m washed with a rush of vertigo as the air around me heats up. “I never even thought of that. With Marco dead, in my mind, it was over.”
He casts a sideways glance and winks. “I’ll figure it out, but that’s why I was asking about your involvement. Knowledge is power and I don’t know anything about the Tessianos. If I did, perhaps I could work something out with them.”
I wrack my brain, thinking of anything that could help, but come up empty. “Do you think Finn can dig up dirt on them?”
Tag makes a face. “I’d rather not poke around in their business when I may need to show my good faith. No. I’m hoping that even if you didn’t know something was valuable, maybe you picked up on a few gems we might use.”
