The Mafia Heiress They Could Never Find novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Ring
At their father's memorial dinner Conor gives his ring and his chair to a half-sister Maeve has known three months, and Declan takes her workshop key; Maeve walks out and says yes to the federal program, and her professor writes back that a car comes Monday at six.
Conor stood up at our father's memorial dinner and tapped his glass for quiet.
A hundred and twenty people turned to look at him in Doran Hall, and every crew boss in Chicago was sitting at a table.
I was at the head table, two seats left of Dad's empty chair, with my hands scrubbed clean of gun oil for the first time all week.
"Six years ago we lost our father," Conor said. "He left us a ring, and he left us a rule."
He took the ring out of his jacket pocket and held it up.
"The ring goes to his eldest daughter."
Everyone in that room had assumed that meant me.
I had been the only daughter in the house for twenty-four years.
I had cleaned and rebuilt every gun in Dad's collection before I turned sixteen.
"Dad had a daughter before he ever met Mom," Conor said. "Three months ago we found her. Ciara, stand up."
My half-sister stood two seats down from me and pressed her hand over her mouth.
She was twenty-five, and she looked like Dad around the eyes.
Conor put the ring on her finger in front of everyone.
"Ciara sits in Dad's chair, at my right hand, starting tonight."
The crews clapped.
Finn clapped loudest, then said, "Does this mean I get to be the middle child?" and got a laugh from three tables.
Declan leaned across the table with his palm out.
"Mae, the workshop key."
I looked at him.
"Ciara's taking over Dad's books," he said. "She needs a room with a lock, and that's the one with a lock."
"That's my workshop."
"It's a room, Mae."
He said it quietly, and he did not look at me.
Conor came around the table and crouched beside my chair so only I could hear.
"Nothing changes for you," he said. "You're my sister. You'll always be my sister. Don't make this into something."
He squeezed my shoulder and went back to his seat.
I sat there while a waiter set a slice of the memorial cake in front of me.
It was Dad's favorite, lemon with white icing.
Ciara came to my chair a few minutes later with a plate of food balanced in one hand.
"I didn't ask for any of this," she whispered. "I told Conor you should have the ring, Maeve. Eat something, please. You haven't touched anything."
She meant it, or she sounded like she did.
She set the plate down and touched my arm.
"Can I borrow your laptop later? I want to send Mom the picture of the ring before she goes to bed."
"It's on my desk," I said. "It's open."
"You're the best."
She went back to Dad's chair and sat down in it carefully.
I looked at the key ring in my hand.
Dad had put the workshop key on it himself when I was fifteen.
He said, "Nobody else touches that room."
Six weeks earlier my professor had put my name forward for a closed federal weapons program, and I had never answered her email.
I took the workshop key off the ring.
I stood up, and the room noticed me standing.
Declan held out his hand again.
I walked to the end of the head table, where the memorial cake sat whole on its silver stand under a white crest.
I pushed the key into the middle of the cake, up to the bow.
Nobody laughed.
"Happy anniversary, Dad," I said.
Declan's chair scraped back, and I walked out through the middle of the hall with a hundred and twenty people watching me do it.
In my room I shut the door and opened my laptop.
The email from my professor was still at the top of the inbox, six weeks old.
Applications close Monday at noon. Closed program. Sealed placement. Tell me yes or no.
I typed: Yes.
I sent it before I could think about the ring or the chair or the way Conor had said it.
Then I heard Conor's voice through the floor, calm and carrying, telling the crews to enjoy the rest of their evening.
My phone buzzed against the desk.
It was the family chat, Always Five, the app Conor had built so that nobody in our family was ever out of his sight.
Conor wrote, "Mae, come back down. We'll talk about the workshop tomorrow."
Under it, Finn had sent a cake emoji.
I put the phone face down.
A second later my laptop pinged.
My professor had answered in under a minute.
A federal car will be at your gate Monday at six. Pack light. Sign nothing else, tell no one. Not even your family.
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