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  “Did you find all of your answers?” he asked Collin, finally looking up at him with dark, serious eyes, eyes that held punishment and pain like most held laughter.

  “I’ve a few that I’m still seeking.” Collin stood spine straight, tone serious, never taking his eyes from the thug before him. However, for me, this game of words was growing tiresome and annoying. Could we please just get on with it?

  Apparently my boredom was obvious, because Ron Jon turned those dark eyes in my direction and asked, “So, Ms. Lucky, managed to stay alive another day?” I could hear the laughter, the contained derision in his voice. What I ever did to this man I had no idea, but it was nothing to deserve his betrayal or his hatred. To think, I was actually considering buying him a birthday present.

  “You know, Ron Jon, you’re nothing but a two-bit banger,” I stated. “An alley-crawling betrayer of your own kind.”

  He stood in a rush, and I was suddenly holding my gun. “Do it,” I told him. “I believe I owe you for shooting up my Nan’s house.

  As I said this, every patron in the bar cocked a gun and pointed it at Ron Jon. “Ach, now ye shouldn’t have gone and done that, son.” The voice that came through the door was so filled with brogue that the lilt wafted through the air, sending chills down my spine.

  “Son of bitch,” Collin whispered next to me. The amazement in his voice brought my head around to see who had come through the door, but not before I noticed that he had his own gun trained on Ron Jon; a Smith and Wesson forty-five-caliber revolver. It was one of my granddad’s favorite guns. Nan must have slipped it to him on our way down the exit tunnel. “Who the hell called Father Carmichael?” he asked me as we watched the old gangster from Chicago shuffle his way inside the bar, an entourage of hoodlums in his wake.

  “I did,” Nan said stepping out from behind him.

  “Nan? What are you doing here?” I couldn’t even believe my eyes. What the hell was going on?

  “I told you Nan had your back, child.”

  “Well, isn’t this just a lovely family gathering,” Ron Jon huffed, retaking his seat at the bar. There was something in his eyes that I just couldn’t place: worry, annoyance, desperation, even.

  “Aye, son. ‘Tis. And ye’ve yer own explaining to do for yer involvement,” Father Carmichael stated, all but shaking his finger at the gangster. “Can ye tell me why ye be shooting up the home of me sister? Yer own lovely aunt. And then sending out hits on yer cousin to boot?”

  “You’re related to Father Carmichael?” Collin’s voice was filled with astonishment.

  “You’re my cousin, and you put a hit on me?” My jaw couldn’t have dropped more if someone had told me my Nan was a fairy.

  “Nothing personal, cuz,” Ron Jon said, then tipped back his beer and took a big swig. He set the half-empty mug on the bar, his face smug, unrepentant and before I knew what I was about, I grabbed it and tossed it in his face.

  “Hey!” he yelled, lunging for me.

  Collin was there, his fist connecting with the burly man’s jaw. “I’d be rethinking my next move if I were you,” he told him.

  Ron Jon was knocked clean off his bar stool. The sight of him in a heap on the dirt floor clutching his jaw gave me a little flutter in my belly. I think I was really growing to like Collin. A lot.

  “Son, clean yerself up and take a seat. Ye’ve some explaining to do,” Father Carmichael told him as he took a seat at the bar, not even bothering to see if he was ok. Old Tom poured him a draft, three of his men standing firmly behind him. “McGregor, ye’d best take a seat as well, for certain this involves ye too,” he told Collin with a nod.

  “And Lucky. My lovely little Lucky.” His arms were open, waiting for a hug. “Come and give yer old Uncle a kiss. It’s been an age since I’ve seen ye. Weren’t more than a sprout when Nan last came to see the family, yer mum and you in tow.”

  “I told you not to mention her mom, you old coot!” Nan scolded, elbowing the old gangster in the ribs as she took the nearest barstool next to him.

  “It’s okay, Nan.” I leaned in to my seemingly long-lost great-uncle, giving him a hug and a peck on the cheek.

  “Ach, sorry, lass. I forget me manners at times. I’d forgotten that yer mum passed on. God rest her blessed soul,” he said, making the sign of the cross. All around us gangster mumbled the epitaph, each one making the sign in his wake. Apparently, that’s why they called him Father. He was the only gangster who religiously mourned the loss of his victims. It was said that he actually went to church, confessed all of his sins and said his Hail Marys and everything. Now, if the Bishop were ever to admit to hearing any of those sins, well, I guess it would be the Bishop old Father Carmichael would be praying over.

  “It’s okay, Uncle Carmichael. It’s been several years, and I make do with it.”

  “You’re a good lass, Lucky.” He squeezed my hand.

  I stepped back, taking up a position behind my Nan. Collin had stood, mouth all but agape at the exchange.

  “RJ, if’n ye don’t get yer sorry arse up off o’that floor this instant, I’m going to give ye a reason to lie there and sulk!” Father Carmichael’s sudden yell echoed through the room, making all of us jump. Well, all of us but Nan. “And ye, McGregor. Take a seat, my boy. We have business to discuss.”

  Another hour passed and I was at the front of the bar, my head resting comfortably on my arms while I considered catching some serious z’s. There are times that some of this assassin stuff just bores me, and I’d rather be shoe shopping. I know that’s terrible and I should be paying more attention, but there you have it.

  Besides, it had been a very long night, and with the entire conversation for the past hour being a history lesson in Shiretown’s recent Underworld rulings, well, I was bored. Ten times they went back and forth over who was greasing whose pockets and for what reasons. Then it was why RJ, as Father Carmichael had called him, was actually hiding out in Shiretown away from the folds of his ‘family?

  As secrets go, this one wasn’t that good either. It seems he didn’t kill his entire family over a birthday squabble after all. But he did leave during a birthday party. Father Carmichael’s, as it happens. Who, in fact, was his actual father.

  So why did he leave? Well, the good father wouldn’t let his son take over a portion of the family business. So, ticked off, disgruntled and throwing a colossal baby fit, RJ decided he would set out on his own. Teach his old dad a lesson. It was a tale as old as time. The angered son runs off to prove he’s man enough to rule the family business by taking up with other bad guys. Only these bad guys are meaner, more vile and more corrupt. They find out his secret, and decide they’re going to use it against him.

  However, it still didn’t tell me why McCray had offed Three Fingers, put out a hit on me and Collin, or tried to use me to kill Collin in the first place. Maybe it was just late, and I was tired. Maybe it was too much roundabout information for me to keep track of. Or maybe I’d dozed off and missed something important.

  One thing was for certain, it sure as hell came as a surprise when one of Father Carmichael’s own bodyguards decided to play grabby-Patty, snagging me by the waist and pull me off the barstool at gunpoint, then drag me kicking and screaming towards the exit.

  “What the hell!” My shouts, I’m certain, could be heard down the street.

  “Rinaldo? What do you think you are doing?” This from Carmichael, who was now standing, weapon drawn. Even I could feel the hatred in the cold, dark stare of the old man. It was a look I never wanted to see again this side of hell. The only relief, it wasn’t directed at me. Oh no, those dead eyes were all for Rinaldo.

  Collin, Nan, even RJ had their guns drawn on us as this Rinaldo character was wrenching me towards the exit. The disbelief on all of their faces only sped my heart rate as I tried to figure out how this had happened. What was his involvement in this? When did he switch sides? Damn that McCray! He must have paid a pretty penny for this kind of betrayal.

  �
�You’ll not live to see another day if you harm one hair on her head,” Collin angrily told him, taking a step towards us.

  “Don’t even do it!” Rinaldo yelled clutching me tighter, pulling the hammer back on his revolver with his other hand as we shuffled backwards. His brow began to perspire and his eyes had a frenzied, wild look to them as we stepped outside. The moment we were at the curb, a black limo pulled up, Rinaldo yanked open the car door and we dove inside.

  “Hello, Lucky. So glad you could join my party,” Daniel McCray stated as he trained the barrel of his nine-millimeter on me.

  Where’s a damn rabbit’s foot when a girl needs one? One of these days I really needed to invest in a good luck charm.

  Seven

  I’m not really certain how long we drove for; it’s a little difficult to pay attention to one’s surroundings and the passage of time when you’re in a crowded space with a bunch of guns pointing at you. However, it did give me the time I needed to study McCray up close and very personal.

  Personally, I don’t think the man had an Irish bone in his body. I mean, who snaked their own kind like this? The man himself? He had beady little eyes, dusty gray hair with a bad comb-over and a pot belly that screamed ‘too many pints chugged back here’. His suit gave him a nice polished touch, but the man was still so side street thug there was just no getting around it. It was obvious he’d had to either buy his way--or butcher his way--to the top of this particular food chain.

  And speaking of food chains, the thought made me think of something that I hadn’t considered the entire time we’d been running from bullets, gangsters and would-be thieves.

  Three Fingers Jack, whose real name was Jack O’Rourke, was an accountant by trade, employed by the city by day and the mob by night. He was so high up on the food chain he actually was the accountant for the Mayor’s office, as luck would have it. Three Fingers also had the misfortune of being on the payroll of one Daniel McCray. So if my train of thought was leading me down the right track, I’d say that whatever Three Fingers knew, whatever he was going to spill to Collin, would not only be very bad for the Mayor’s office, but very bad indeed for McCray.

  “You’ve figured it out,” McCray suddenly said, his dark eyes pinning me to my seat as the car ground to a halt.

  “What?” Sheepishly I looked around, trying to focus on anything but him.

  “You know. Don’t you? You know what Three Fingers was doing?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, McCray,” I replied with as much of a dumb blonde ‘I’m just a ditz’ look as I could muster.

  “Play stupid all you want, Lucky. It doesn’t matter. We’re here, and you’re new boyfriend, McGregor is going to have to pay a very high price to get you back. Alive.”

  The laughter that filled the car as McCray got out and I was yanked out after was enough to set a girl’s nerves on fire.

  Okay. I really needed to think this one through if I was going to make it out of here alive. So I’d figured out some of McCray’s depravity. So what? I still didn’t know what Three Fingers had on him, despite what McCray thought. But whatever it was, it was definitely big. Now, if I could just get him to spill it, Collin to save me, McCray to either die, or get arrested for his crimes and my Irish mobster god and I to live happily ever after… Well, my life would be complete.

  Hey! A girl can dream, can’t she?

  We were down by the river, ‘The Wharf’ I believe is what they called it, and Rinaldo was ushering me into some grimy riverside warehouse. The stench of fish, ripe river water and other disgusting things I didn’t even want to consider filled my senses as I was pushed and prodded to the center of the giant room.

  Rows and rows of cargo boxes lined each side of the lengthy room, skid loaders with pallets full and waiting to be loaded onto something, all going somewhere, all waiting for mysterious dockhands to get them where they needed to be. The freight conveniently marked GlenShire-D, Collin McGregor’s main entrepreneurial company.

  “So what was it, McCray?” I questioned as Rinaldo slammed me into the nearest chair and started tying me to it. “You’ve been stealing from McGregor, greasing the Mayor’s office to cover it up and having Three Fingers filter your payoffs back to you?”

  “Such a smart girl you are, Lucky O’Brian,” McCray said with a sneer as he leaned against the nearest box in front of me, wiping down a black Smith and Wesson thirty-two revolver. “Figured that all out on your own?”

  “It took me a while, but yeah.” My shrug of indifference as I watched the gun rather than McCray’s goons kept my heart from bursting. I was really in the thick of it now. If Collin and my Uncle Carmichael didn’t get here soon--they had better get here soon--my luck, as it were, was going to run out.

  “So, why’d you do it? Why steal from the cops if they were doing you so many favors? And why involve me?” Now this, I wanted to hear. I’d never even met the man before tonight. I had absolutely nothing to do with any of this and his reasons for pinning Collin’s murder, or attempted murder in this case, was something I needed to understand.

  “Well, my dear, since you’re about to die, I guess there’s no reason I can’t tell you.” His delighted smile and oil-slick joy over the deaths of others was truly appalling. Made me want to bash his face in with the heel of a well-placed pump. Too bad I wasn’t wearing any.

  “You see, several years ago I met Father Carmichael, I believe he is your Uncle?” The tilt of his head and the gleam in his eyes as he watched my shock over that bit of information was even more appalling than previously thought. He just smiled wider and continued. “I was twenty-five at the time, looking to get in the business. He turned me down flat. Said I wasn’t connected enough. Even though my family came from the old country. My da farmed land in Claire County, my ma a laundress. I’d say that’s Irish enough.

  “As I was leaving this meeting I had a little run-in with a little boy, about age six or so. The laughter of boy still rings in my ears. His words still haunt me – Yer not a Paddy, he told me. Yer not a gangster!”

  Ron Jon, I thought as I watched the dark hatred grow in McCray’s eyes.

  “So all these years later when RJ showed up, of all places, on my doorstep looking to make his own path away from the family fold, I recognized him instantly. He looked just like Carmichael, only younger and I figured what better way than to pay them both back for the errors of their ways than to indoctrinate him into my family? It wasn’t long after that I found that Carmichael was about to accept my enemy McGregor into a rather large business agreement. It was one deal that I absolutely refused to allow.”

  The derision and scorn dripped from his every word. Hatred, anger and murder emanated from him like a dark beacon and for the first time in all of this I actually started to become afraid.

  “So why hire me to off Three Fingers and then Collin?” I asked, the only normal thought in the next line of questions. He’d explained where this started, so how was I involved? I had a feeling I knew, but I wanted to hear him say it.

  “Ah, Lucky. Still don’t get it, do you? You’re my little Ace in the Hole. It seems that Collin has a soft spot for beautiful women. According to your dear cousin RJ, you’ve always been one of Carmichael’s favorites. Well, in a roundabout sort of way. See, Carmichael loves his sister Nan, your Grandmother. He would do anything and kill anyone to protect her and Nan’s greatest prize possession in the whole wide world is…You!”

  * * * * * *

  “Now you wait just a minute, McCray!” Nan’s voice suddenly boomed through the warehouse, all lilting Irish indignation and ire.

  “Nan!” Shock, cold fear and overwhelming joy raced through me all at once as my shotgun-toting, five-foot-four inch, fired-up, whiskey-swilling grandmother sauntered down the middle of the warehouse with wrath of an Irish Warhound blazing in her green eyes. It was a sight to behold.

  “Shoot her!” McCray suddenly yelled. Shots from everywhere and nowhere suddenly rang out.

  “Nan
, hit the deck!” I screamed as I leaned the chair I was tied to over to the left and crashed to the floor. The chair shattered and my arms came free. In a split second gunfire exploded next to me and Rinaldo landed in a heap of blood, his gut shot out.

  “Damn, Nan.”

  “Lucky, get your ass moving!” That was Collin’s voice from somewhere nearby but I couldn’t tell where he was, the warehouse was dark and the only light was the red gleam of gunfire.

  “Yes, Lucky. Get your ass moving,” McCray growled, grabbing me by the arm and wrenching me off the floor. The chair was still attached to my legs and McCray was forced to drag me as I swung wildly at his face.

  “Hit me again,” he stated with a backhanded crack to my cheek.

  Oooh, it was so on. No one, and I mean, no one, hits me. In the same spot I’d slammed into the bathroom door handle when this whole sordid nightmare had began, no less.

  McCray was dragging me towards the back of the warehouse, between the crates of McGregor freight. So, I did the only thing I could think of; I screamed, “Collin. We’re here. Back here!”

  “Shut up!”

  “You shut up!”

  “Nan. Collin. Back here!” The legs of the chair, still tied to me, were hindering our retreat and McCray was growing angrier as I purposefully slouched in his arms, forcing him to haul my full weight. Granted, to his bulky frame, my mere one-twenty wasn’t much, but add two limbs tied together to the legs of a chair and the going was weird.

  “Damn it!” he swore. Suddenly he stopped and threw me to the floor.

  “Hey!”

  “Untie yourself. Now. And don’t get any bright ideas, or I swear you’ll eat this bullet faster than that little brain of yours can say shoe sale.”

  Sheesh! Did the man have my number or what? Quickly I began to untie the binds, but there was a knot that just didn’t want to give. “It won’t come free,” I told him with a disgruntled huff.

  “For cripes sakes, Lucky. Are you truly that inept?”

  “You know, I’m really growing weary of your rudeness.”