Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“I’m just thinking, maybe… maybe if you got in their good graces, Erin—”
The words land like a punch.
My heart stutters. Races. I tap my pocket—once, twice, three times, four.
Mam grabs my wrist. “Stop that.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think.
She wants me to what? Seduce a McCarthy? Befriend them?
“Mam, what are you on about?” I ask her, trying to ignore the way my voice wobbles. “Did you actually forget how they treated me?”
She waves a hand dismissively—because of course she does. “Oh, Erin. You were children then. Let it go.”
I draw in a sharp, shuddering breath and turn back to my sister.
“You don’t have to let it go, Erin,” she says, her voice trembling. She takes another small bite of her sausage roll. “Not on account of me.”
Then it hits—what my mother said.
That Bridget wants this too. That I just refused a choice that could actually give my sister the only thing that might save her.
The McCarthys are friends with Dr. Rosenberg. But the McCarthys…
No.
“Get in their good graces,” I repeat.
Me?
“They don’t like me,” I tell my mother, but it feels like a last-ditch effort. Like I’m trying to convince myself.
“Maybe not,” my mother says, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “God, it’s dry in here, isn’t it?”
Because even though she’s mean, superficial, and sometimes cruel… it’s breaking her. Watching her youngest girl disappear in slow motion.
We all know the clock’s running out, and it won’t slow down.
“I was just… I was just thinking,” she stammers. “I could… could pay Caitlin McCarthy a visit, couldn’t I?”
This isn’t like her. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard her stammer.
There’s no amount of makeup, no filter sharp enough, to hide what’s bleeding through her face right now—the lines, the pain, the regret.
And my heart drops like lead. If anything, my mother showed me how it’s possible to both love and hate someone at the very same time.
But Bridget’s sweet voice echoes: Not on account of me.
“They’re in the news, you know. Sounds like some terrible things have happened.”
“I know,” my mother says quietly. “And the papers don’t even cover the half of it.” She would know. Make someone who’s the Queen of Gossip a mafia wife, and she’ll know more than anyone.
“So do you know what happened?” I ask, curiosity getting the best of me.
My mother swallows hard. “They say… after the bombing… Bronwyn McCarthy’s gone missing.”
Oh god.
Bridget’s eyes go wide. “Not Bronwyn. She was kind. She was good.”
She was mafia.
“What do you think they’ll do, Mam?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “But I do know your father was talking to Seamus McCarthy just last week.”
Seamus McCarthy, the acting head of the family now. I heard he got married to a Russian and they have a few kids now. I don’t really know him, just a few of his younger siblings.
They call him The Undertaker though. No one calls him Seamus anymore and hasn’t for quite some time.
“Right,” I say. “About what?”
“Don’t know that either,” she says quietly. Then she pastes on a fake smile I’m all too familiar with.
“I’m meeting Caitlin later this afternoon,” she says. “We’re going to have tea.”
Ah. So she’s already made the plans.
I stare at her like she’s grown a second head. Why now? Why Caitlin McCarthy?
“I want to see if there’s anything we can do to help find Bronwyn,” she says, but I already know what she’s really doing.
She wants to offer up what we’ve got—our name, our money, our contacts—to find Bronwyn McCarthy. To curry the good favor of Caitlin McCarthy.
But why?
Is she bargaining? Trading favors? I want to ask, but I don’t.
I breathe again, as deeply as I can, but it still feels shallow.
Fluorescent lights. Goddamn these lights.
When I look at Bridget, a thin trickle of red blood seeps from the bottom of her nose.
Oh god, oh no, not again.
I leap to my feet and grab a fistful of tissues from the bedside table. A simple nosebleed isn’t what it seems when bleeding doesn’t stop. We have boxes of tissues in here because, with Bridget, it starts small, before it escalates quickly.
The tissues are instantly saturated. I grab more. “Help us!” I yell into the hallway. My voice is high-pitched with a note of hysteria. “Somebody help us!”
“It’s fine,” Mam says, wringing her hands as she backs away from me and Bridget. “It’s fine, love. It’s just a nosebleed. She’s fine.” But Bridget’s gone pale, and her lips look blue.
But Mam's backing away, her face carefully blank—the same expression she wore when the doctors first told us Bridget's diagnosis. When they said the word “terminal” and Mam stood up, smoothed her skirt, and said, “We'll get a second opinion. The Kavanaghs don't do… this.”
As if illness cared about our family name.
As if Bridget could just decide to be perfect again.
“Erin,” Bridget whispers. She grabs at more tissues, but they’re soaked. Her words are slurred, her eyes are rolling back as a team rushes in to help, and I step back, still clutching bloodied tissues.