“Fine,” I snap, shoving aside any thoughts of unpleasant consequences of my actions.
Turning away from him, I smile at Tristan, leading him out the door, ignoring Seamus’s hand that lands on my lower back.
I sit in the middle seat in the back of the SUV, Tristan huddled up against the door on one side, Seamus on the other, his thigh pressed against my leg, his fingers clamped around my thigh.
Tension radiates off him, but I don’t give a shit right now. Connor and Paddy are in the front, and they’re tense too. Roxbury is the Russian Bratva’s territory, so they don’t want to be here. Whatever. They have an alliance with the Russians – Dad used to rage about it frequently – so they can all suck it up.
Chapter Fourteen
SEAMUS
Tig directs us to some shitty duplex, and I really don’t fucking want her going inside there. I tighten my hand on her thigh, trying to keep her in the SUV, but she shrugs my hand off her leg, sliding out his door and following the traumatized lad inside.
We couldn’t hear what they were whispering over in the corner of the basement, but it doesn’t take a fucking genius to put two and two together that some fucking asshole is abusing the lad.
Connor stays at the door, his hand hovering at his back, ready to go for his gun. Paddy shadows Tig and me into the trash-filled parlor. My nose wrinkles as I look around. How can people raise their kids like this?
Before I can grab at her, Tig disappears upstairs with the lad.
“Ye should have checked out the upstairs before she went up there,” I reprimand Paddy, the Irish bleeding through my voice because I’m so fucking on edge. Paddy shoots me a look of disbelief.
“Ye’re down here. Why the feck would I check upstairs?” The Irish is bleeding into his tone too. He’s as agitated as I am. Possibly for a different reason.
“Because that’s where mywifeis?”
“I’m yer bodyguard, not hers.”
We are locked in a silent stand-off. I’m getting fucking tired of his attitude to Tig. She hasn’t given us a single moment to suspect she is anything other than loyal to me. I think we can give her some leeway. Thank fuck Paddy didn’t hear her threat to go to the cops back in the basement. He would never have let her leave.
Paddy prowls around uneasily, and over my shoulder, I can see the rigid lines of Connor’s form, his eyes continuously darting along the road. As the time stretches, my eyes drift to the stairs. It’s been almost an hour, and there are no sounds from up there. Maybe I should go and check in on Tig.
Just as I’m inching to the stairs, she comes storming down like an avenging angel. Snatching the phone off the wall, she dials 911.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Paddy hisses, striding across to her. I’m between them in an instant, blocking him from reaching her. She mainly ignores us, sticking up her middle finger at Paddy without a glance in his direction.
“This is Ylenia Albescu. I’m a social worker for the city of Boston,” she says when the dispatcher answers, rattling off some identification number. “I have two juveniles who need to be taken into care.”
Two? Tig names a Mcdonald's restaurant not far from here. What the fuck does she mean,two?
There is a sound on the stairs, Paddy and my heads swiveling. Paddy’s hand is at his gun, but he stays it as the lad reappears with two backpacks, holding the hand of a little girl who can’t be older than seven. Jesus fuck.
At the sight of Paddy, Connor, and me, the little girl starts wailing and screaming, cringing behind the lad. Connor’s head snaps around, his eyes widening at the sight of her, a disgusted look crossing his face. Even Paddy looks appalled.
Tig darts across the room, ducking around me, and picks the child up, murmuring soothing noises.
“We are going to go for a walk to MMcDonald’s Mya. Would you like a Happy Meal?”
“Yes,” Mya mumbles into Tig’s shoulder.
“Good. Let’s go.”
A wail starts up again, her little face burrowing further into Tig’s neck.
“They aren’t going to walk with us,” Tig soothes. Like fuck we aren’t.
I take a step closer to her, but Tig’s head whips around, a hand coming up to halt my progress to her.
“We’ll walk.”