“Tell her, Dad.” Aaron glowers. “She wants to know so bad. Tell her what she’s got.”
From behind me, Jack’s voice is sad and weary. “Son, you really ought to try and learn as you go through life. Try to understand the way things work. Just demanding what you want, shouting and stomping, that’s not going to get you too far.” He sighs. “You need some finesse.”
Aaron’s face darkens. “You sound like Mrs. Henderson. Like all those stupid teachers.” Then his face screws up. “Tell her. TELL her!”
I’m more afraid now than I think I’ve ever been.
Jack’s hand grips hard on my shoulder.
A commotion outside is the sound of vehicles. Tires on the gravel. Then the crunch of feet.
Aaron looks round, reaching back. He snarls, “Your justice of the peace makes a fuck of a lot of noise.”
The cabin shakes. Hard. The door splinters and splits. Carrick smashes in. Backward.
He lands on his back, with the door, sliding on the wood floor. Two men stamp in, grab Carrick and hurl him, right out through the hole where the door was. Then they grin and turn to run after him.
Liam steps in and fills the doorway, plants his feet wide apart. He has a glint in his eye and two long-barreled silver automatics. He holds the guns at chest height.
He aims one at Jack, the other is on Aaron.
Aaron’s face seethes with rage. His hand is behind his back. Liam looks at him, relaxed. Lowers his eyelids a little and shakes his head once. After he deepens his scowl, Aaron drops his hand back, empty by his side.
“Tegan,” Liam asks me, “Are you okay?”
I could cry. But I don’t. I keep it together.
“I’m grand, thanks.”
I want to call him, ‘Silver bear,’ but not in front of the O’Learys.
Chapter Ten
Liam
“I was never happier to see that shirt. It never looked so good, either.”
Her smile lights me up. After what she must have been through the last couple of hours, I’m amazed. This girl is tough stuff.
I tell Jack, “I’m disappointed in you, old friend. After you let him mash up my business, you were going to have your runt here spliced to this beautiful girl, weren’t you?”
Jack works his jaw.
“Tegan, you might want to wait outside. You’ll be safe with Finn and Gavin there.”
She stands. Damn, she looks great. “He’s a brute and an ass, Liam, but I don’t want you to kill him.”
I smile. “You might when you know why he wanted you to marry his gobshite offspring.”
Jack protests, “They’d be great for each other.”
“That’s a matter of opinion, to say the least.” I look in his eye, but he can’t look back in mine. “That’s not the reason, though. Is it, jack?”
“Look, Liam…”
“Tell her, Jack. Tell her about Dixie Dean’s”
Jack’s face drains pale. Aaron blurts, “How the fuck do you know about–” My arm straightens and I hold the silver pistol at Aaron’s forehead.
Evenly, I say, “Tell her, Jack.”
He sighs heavily. Then he shrugs and tells her ,“It’s a bar. On the edge of the old commercial district. It’s a dank, dirty, run-down bar with almost no customers. Okay? It’s a shithole and if you went in there, you probably wouldn’t come out alive.”
“What else does it have, Jack?”
Jack hesitates. I cock the gun I’m holding on him.
“Alright.” He’s looking all around him now. But he gets it out. “It’s got a variance. Zoning permission and approval for a club.”
“And?” I prompt him.
“Development grants. From a regeneration fund.”
“So?” Tegan sounds puzzled.
My voice slows and hardens. “Go on, Jack.”
“Okay. Alright! The bar belonged to your daddy.”
“That’s the bar he had a share in?”
I tell her, “Yeah. But it wasn’t a share. It was one hundred percent his.”
She frowns. Then she starts, “What’s that got to do with me marrying…” and, instantly, we’re all caught up. She gets it.
Jack’s face falls. “Technically, the deed to the bar belongs to you. It’s yours.”
“Tell her why.”
“Liam…”
“Tell her.”
She’s seen it. She covers her face with her hands.
“You had him killed.”
Jack shouts, “Listen,”
But she isn’t going to listen. She spits in Jack’s face. Then touches my hand as she steps past me. Her cheek is wet as she walks outside.
Out into the fresh, clean air.
I shake my head.
“How did we get to this, Jack? You know, I really was going to let you get away with it. Fucking up the business I left you to take care of. Even worse, leaving your idiot son here to fuck it up. And thinking you could disrespect me. For all of our history, I was going to let all that go.” I’m chewing my lip now. “But treating Teagan the way you have, you made me forget all the reasons I would do that.”
His face is red. He shouts, “Seriously, Liam? You’d forget our history over that little whore?”
And those are the last words he’ll speak.