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“Sure, right now?”
“Right now. Go talk to Matteo. I’ll be there in a half hour.”
“All right, yeah, okay.” I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m sorry I’m being a huge pain, Nessa.”
“I love you, kid. Don’t worry about it. I feel like I owe you anyway, since I was such a huge dick.”
“True that.” I grinned and tugged at my hair. “All right, talk soon.”
“Bye.”
I hung up and trudged back along the hill to Matteo. He raised an eyebrow as I sat on the edge of his chair and put my hand on his chest.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Nessa okay?”
“She wants to meet,” I said. “Can we head into the city?”
He shrugged. “Sure thing. Where and when?”
“Rittenhouse, right now.”
He kicked his legs off the side of the chair and stood up, stretching his back. “Better put on clothes and load my gun then,” he said and winked at me. “You’re perfect the way you are though.”
I blushed a little. The towel barely covered a small, dark blue bikini. Matteo picked out it, and it didn’t leave much to the imagination, which was the whole point.
“I think I’ll get dressed too.”
“What a shame,” he said and squeezed my ass when I walked past him. “Maybe put it on again later.”
I grinned to myself. “If you’re nice,” I said, and he slapped my ass again before draping an arm over my shoulders.
* * *
I found Nessa sitting next to a woman named Deirdre O’Shay, a Healy cousin. She was in her late fifties, her head wrapped in a scarf, and seemed sunk in on herself, smaller than I remembered. “Hi, Deirdre,” I said.
“Hiya, Sam.” She stood and gave me a quick hug. “I hope it’s okay I’m here. Nessa said it’s okay, but—” She glanced at Matteo, and her expression hardened.
“It’s fine,” I said, touching her arm, then looked at Matteo. “Maybe you can wait over there?”
“No problem,” he said, nodded to Deirdre, then walked off and lingered next to a nearby tree.
“Sorry,” Deirdre said. “He just puts me ill at ease. I don’t know many Valentino men, only those that took my boy away.”
I nodded slowly. Her son was named Kieran and he’d been killed about a year earlier in a fight with the Valentino family. I could only imagine how it felt to see Matteo here, even if Matteo had nothing to do with her son’s murder.
“Let’s sit,” I said, and all three of us squeezed onto the bench, with Dierdre in the middle. The woman stared at her hands and I gave Nessa a look, trying to figure out what we were supposed to be doing here.
“Why don’t you tell her what you told me last night?” Nessa said, nudging Dierdre. “I think she needs to hear it.”
Deirdre looked at me and smiled sadly. “I was only talking about my son, you know? About how old he’d be now and what he’d be doing with himself. Did I ever tell you what he wanted to do with himself?”
“No,” Sam said. She’d barely known Kieran when he was alive, but recalled him as a quiet, polite boy.
“Wanted to go to vet school,” she said and laughed. “Can you imagine, a Healy boy becoming a vet? But he loved dogs and animals, that boy did. Wanted to work with them, said he’d put in some time with the family, earn some money, then pay his way through. I used to say to him, Kier, you do what Colm says and you’ll be all right, you know?” She had to stop and calm herself, forcing back tears. “I told him Colm would watch him, yeah?”
“I’m so sorry,” Sam said and touched her arm.
“Thanks, Sam. You were always a good girl, yeah? I just, Nessa told me what yous was up to, yeah? And I wanted to tell you there are a lot of mothers in the family that support your decision.”
“My decision?” I looked at Nessa, feeling a pit in my stomach.
“You’re going to kill the bastard.” Deirdre stared at me, eyes narrowing. “Right, dear? You’re going to kill Colm, the fucker?”
I sucked in a breath and slowly let it out, then nodded once. “With Matteo’s help, that’s the plan.”
“Good,” she snarled. “I told my boy Colm would watch out for him but what happened instead? Dead, shot in the head, yeah? Killed in the damn street selling some damn drugs for a family that didn’t give a shit about him. When I heard from Brody that Colm’s been refusing to make peace all this time, I just about lost it, yeah?”
I stared down at my hands then slowly shook my head. “I’m worried. I’m scared that killing my own uncle’s going to do something to me, like when it’s all over, I’ll be damned.”
Deirdre grabbed my hands in both of hers. “You listen to me,” she said. “If God wants to punish you for doing this thing, then he’s no God for me, you hear me? Colm needs to go. I don’t want a single mom to ever feel the way that I do. He’d been gone a year, and I still feel like I’m bleeding for him.” She squeezed my hands hard. “Please, Sam. Make Colm go away. Kill him for everyone.”
