“He’s not the only one,” Nolan said.
Great. Everyone in the neighborhood was talking about how she was working for the Irish mob, putting that hard-won law degree to good use.
“Why are you here, Nolan?” She wasn’t going to justify her actions to anyone. Not even Nolan. She knew why she was doing what she was doing. That’s all that mattered.
He turned his eyes on her and she almost fell into them all over again. “Something’s going down, Bridge. Something big. You need to get out.”
She thought about her meeting earlier that week with Seamus at the Cat, about the tension in the air and the feeling that something was coming.
“What are you talking about?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know much, but what’s coming is going to be bad for the neighborhood, bad for Seamus and anyone working for him.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what you want me to do with this, Nolan.”
“I want you to think about it,” he said. “To consider getting out before it’s too late."
“It’s not that simple. I don’t expect you to understand.” She reached for the door. “Thanks for the warning. I appreciate it. I really do.”
“Bridge, wait.” He put a hand on her arm as she opened the door. “You know you can come to me if you need anything, don’t you?”
She couldn’t move, the question sitting between them like a stick of dynamite. She could tell him everything, come clean, ask him for help paying her debt to Seamus and taking care of Owen. She could promise to pay him back with interest even if it took the rest of her life.
But nothing had changed. Nolan would never forgive his mother for offering Bridget the money, would never forget Bridget had taken it, even if he said he understood why. The cold hard truth was that the end of their story had been written on the day she’d cashed Moira Adams’s check.
“I have to go.” She stepped out of the car.
“I’m here for you, Bridge. That will never not be true.”
She shut the door on his voice. On the past. On the hope that anything would ever be other than what it already was.
8
Nolan sat in the car for a long time after Bridget left, their conversation replaying in his mind. It had been hard to breathe with her so close, the scent of her filling every dead corner of his body, her eyes flashing like green fire even in the dark interior of the car.
He’d seen the pain on her face, the defeat, but she wouldn’t have wanted him to acknowledge it. He knew Bridget, knew she wore her pride like armor. It was bad enough that he’d had to confront her about her work with Seamus. She’d almost flinched when he’d said it, and it had taken all of his discipline not to pull her into his arms, to tell her he understood, that he didn’t judge her, that he didn’t care, that there was nothing she could ever do that would change how much he loved her.
She hadn’t mentioned Owen as the reason she was working for Seamus, but Will had been right: Bridget was doing it for him. Nolan had seen it on her face, heard it in her voice.
I don’t expect you to understand.
It wasn’t fair. No one deserved what was happening less than Bridget, less than sweet, funny Owen and his kind, generous parents.
Nolan hit the steering wheel with his fist. “Fuck!”
The sound of his voice reverberated through the car and he was surprised to find that he was breathing hard, gulping in great gasps of air to fight the sob rising in his chest. The loss of Bridget was like an old wound freshly excavated, but it was more than that — it was the tilt of her chin and her unwavering voice, the strength she was determined to show even when all he wanted was to protect her from anything that caused her pain, take care of her parents and make Owen happy and comfortable while he lived with the disease ravaging his body.
It was Bridget’s losses that hit him the hardest, losses she didn’t deserve to bear, losses he would gladly have taken on himself. He hated that she’d had to resort to working for Seamus O’Brien, hated that she was so close to so dangerous a man.
He drew in a deep breath and thought through his conversation with Christophe Marchand, weighed his options with the Syndicate, with Seamus, with Bridget and Will.
Reaching for his phone, he texted Will.You busy?
Will’s answer came a few seconds later.Define busy.
Meet me at the Ramsey playground.
Now?Nolan could almost hear Will’s annoyance.