Chapter 6: The Night on the Bridge

Tadhg poured the tea into the thermos lid and handed it to me without a word.

It was black and sweet and hot enough to hurt.

I sat on my father's bunk in his flannel shirt, which Mal had found in the locker.

I drank the tea.

Mal had pulled his trousers on and nothing else.

He stood with his back to the porthole, and the light behind him made it hard to see his face.

"Tell her," he said to Tadhg.

The big man stayed in the hatch with his hat in his hands.

"Eleven months ago," he said. "November third. I drove the second car."

"Second car," I said.

"The one behind your father's. The old boss rode in the first."

His voice was a low, even rumble.

"Your father was a careful driver. He kept the speed limit and he never drank on a job. He took the Tobin approach at forty."

I put the lid down.

My hand was shaking so hard the tea slopped over.

"A black SUV came up fast on the left lane. It put its bumper into your father's back wheel. His car went across the barrier and into the pilings."

"Whose SUV?"

"Padraig's."

The cabin was very quiet.

"I went down to the water," said Tadhg. "Your father was already gone. The old man was breathing. I pulled him out."

"And the report said my father was drunk."

"A bottle was in his coat when the police came. It wasn't there when I pulled him out."

I stood up.

The blanket fell off my shoulders.

"How long have you known?" I said to Mal.

He did not look away.

"Three weeks."

"Tadhg told me the night he got enough nerve."

"I've been on my knees at that grave for eleven months."

"Yes."

"Three weeks, and you let me tail you for seven days."

"I wanted proof before I put his name in your mouth."

I hit him.

I didn't plan it.

My open hand cracked across his face hard enough to snap his head sideways, and the sound rang off the cabin walls.

He didn't lift his hands.

He stood there with a red mark spreading on his cheekbone and looked at me, and he let me do it again.

I did.

I hit him a second time, and a third, with my fist, against his chest, and he took every one without a sound.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Kidnapped the Mafia Heir, and He Never Tried to Escape from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.