Chapter 23

Twenty-Three

C illian

The combination of sweet and citrus was always too hard to resist a sniff, as I leaned in and became soothed by the scent of peonies. Queenie was always excited for the little things. I could buy her a row full of jewelry and she would get giddier for the boxes that they came in.

She surprised me with food from home and while it may not have seemed like a big gesture to another man, when you weren't similar cultures, it took effort not to lose your own trying to make room for theirs.

Made me feel like she really saw me.

I could have asked Oisín anything about mum, or vice versa and both of them would have come up short for what they knew about each other. It had been an arranged marriage to fulfill the pursuit of keeping the family Irish—from Cork, no less. But I fancy knowing things about Queenie. The things I didn't know, I wanted to know them.

We would probably lose a night in sales, but a Ginger Rogers picture was playing and I had planned to clear out the theater for a private show.

It was still pretty new to be a married couple of different races in public. I was still adjusting and learning how to navigate that space to prevent another malt shop incident from happening, but I was committed to not keeping her caged up inside the house so she could show off all those pretty dresses she had gotten tailored.

"Queenie?" I yelled. Nothing feeling a miss so far; it wasn't like she wasn't known for going on walks or drives when the maid service came in. Guess it made her feel uncomfortable to watch people clean our messes.

Or she could have been just been taking a nap. Most times she was waiting for me, enthusiastically running into my arms when I got home. That or cooking. But only the smell of maid service and peonies stretched across the penthouse. My only other guess was she was in the shower.

I wanted to get cleaned up before I saw her but I wasn't opposed to joining her in our effort to get clean. Even if we got dirty on our way to get there.

Replacing the old flowers with new ones, I laid down my coat jacket tiptoeing toward the washroom that hosted the shower. As if in unison, the phone rang and thinking it could have been her, I instinctively went for that first.

"If you want to see the girl again, you're going to do what I fucking say." An old country accent on the other end spoke. It wasn't Americanized like mine. So, they were either older or fresh off the boat.

"Who the fuck is this?" My blood boiled with rage.

"Consider me an old friend. Follow these instructions. You're gonna go to Rebel City—your brother's restaurant—an hour from now. You're going to receive a call. You don't answer, the Colored girl dies."

"Who the fuck is this?" I yelled, but before I got an answer, the phone went dead. With so little time to process what I had heard, I screamed at the top of my lungs, tossing the light fixture closest to me against the wall.

It shattered, as I had been seconds away from ripping the phone from the wall, but I thought against it since this seemed like a situation I'd have to call my brothers for. For all the changes he had made, Tadhg had nearly everything figured out.

Dare I say, he was better at leading this family better than Oisín had been, completely transforming how we did things in a matter of three years. He was particular, but if anyone would know what to do, he would.

But I had to call him now. I couldn't miss that call at Rebel City.

"Hello?" Tadhg said, picking up on the fourth ring. That was his thing, he never picked up before the fourth ring.

"Tadhg, you gotta round everyone up. It's a fucking emergency?—"

"Slow down, Cilly. I can hardly understand you." He spoke over me.

"They took her."

"Who took who?" Tadhg asked for clarification, with as minimal emotion as he held with most conversations.

"My fucking wife—they took my fucking wife! I don't know who they are, but when I find out I'm going to fucking kill them. They're all dead?—"

"What fucking happened?" With so little detail, I could only repeat what I had been told. But the words didn't come. All I could tell Tadhg was that I didn't have time to waste and if that if he came to Rebel City, I would tell him what I had to tell him then. I had already wasted so much time and I couldn't miss this call.

***

"Breathe in, breathe out. You're turning beet red, and that's saying a lot for a ginger." Tadhg's poor attempt at calming me down.

Bellamy, the last of us to reach Rebel City, walked through the doors and joined us at the booth.

The place was filled with our people; roles as high as enforcers, roles as low as footman. Everyone was waiting on orders and since Tadhg didn't move until his second was by his side, I decided to wait until he showed up so I only had to tell the story once.

"Alright, Bell's here. We've got five minutes before the call. Tell us what the lad that rung you said."

"It was a short conversation. Straightforward. I have your wife and if you want her alive, go to Rebel City in an hour and don't miss that call. Only thing that stood out about it was he had an old country accent kind of like Pa. He also said he was an old friend. I had no idea who it fucking was."

Banging my frustration onto the table. That had been one of the major drawbacks of spending time in prison. It meant I wasn't used to new faces and I had been too wet and reckless for Pa to hand me half the responsibilities Tadhg had, to learn the old ones.

"Maybe you should just let me do the talking when the call comes. We want the best outcome. The outcome where your wife comes out unharmed. And you're no good to us or Elizabeth. When you're like this?—"

"Queenie. My wife's name is Queenie." Tadhg spent the least time around her, so I didn't blame him for referring to her by her first name. But she was family, so everyone should get used to getting her name right.

"Queenie then," Tadhg acknowledged. "But I'm still taking the call. That redheaded anger of yours could cause your wife's life or worse."

"What could be worse than killing her?" I asked, in a panic. Tadhg advised Paddy to pour me a drink.

"You ever hear of Recy Taylor?" Paddy sympathetically poured me a pint, as I asked him who that was. "Trust me when I tell you. You don't want to know what happened to her. But we don't want that happening to Queenie. Even if they don't hurt her, a church girl like that will never be the same after this."

I didn't want the drink but I took it to take the edge off. Could this have been my fault? My actions reflected my mood most times. And it hadn't been that long ago that I had pistol whipped a man in public.

Could it have been retaliation? They had seemed like the pussy type, but what if they just had strings in different places than us?

Most of all, who would be bold enough to go against the Sullivans? No one—and I mean no one—could survive a war against us.

The phone rang, as Paddy and Bellamy had to forcibly pin me to my seat to keep me from jumping toward him. "Calm him the fuck down," Tadhg demanded, and I couldn't believe at a time like this he would wait for the fourth ring to pick up.

"Hello?" As Tadhg mouthed, "They're glad that it's me." Continuing on with the call.

"Who am I speaking to? Since we used to be such good friends." Tadhg snapped his finger, urging someone to get him something to write with, as Bellamy silently answered the request.

Tadhg eventually revealed it to be Callahan, but he'd wrote it the Gaelic way, as ó Ceallachán.

Most folk that came over anglicized their family names, and we'd been no different. But from what I did remember about the Callahans was that they'd always favored their true Irish name over their Americanized one.

"You want to make things right? Can't say that you're off to a good start taking my fucking sister in law. That's dirty business and half of the reason why we cut you out in the first place." Tadhg had managed to keep his calm, but I was bouncing off the walls.

"This problem is long rooted. Can't say I trust your word for it—" What the hell was Tadhg even saying? Didn't even sound like he was trying to get Queenie back. At this point, he was just talking.

"You want me to meet in person? What you plan to solve with that? Just talking, huh? Well we're talking now, and I'm listening ain't I?" Noticing my agitation, Tadhg did me a solid by calming my nerves and asking for proof of life.

"Look, our ears don't open unless we can confirm that our sister is alive and no harm has come to her. No, like right now," Tadhg demanded, as he gestured for Paddy to let me go and hand me the phone.

It was quiet on the line for about a minute and then a weak, delicate voice called out my name. "Cillian?"

A small part inside me died a little bit, because all I could hear was the pain and fear in her voice. It was just enough to make me collapse.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Queenie? Did they fucking hurt you? I'm so sorry I wasn't with you. I'm going to come get you, okay?" The words all came out like one word, overcome with unhinged delirium over hearing her voice.

Tadhg took back the phone, confirming details that I should have had the strength to take down, but I was a mess after hearing Queenie's voice. Snatching the phone away, I screamed into it, only to learn that the line was dead.

"They want us to meet them at Lovell's Island. Fort Standish," Tadhg concluded.

"That abandoned military reserve?" Paddy questioned.

"Does that matter?" Tadhg wondered.

"Been abandoned for years. Great place to have a showdown but shit place to walk in when you don't know the place." Paddy himself had never been, but he knew enough about it to know going in light and blind wasn't a good idea.

"This ain't your fault, Cilly. This lies on us. We cut them out, but you were easier target because you've got someone that makes you vulnerable," Bellamy admitted.

"I don't give a fuck who's at fault. Just give me the chance to get my wife back," I screamed pulling at Bellamy's collar like a madman.

"Stay calm Cillian. It won't do your wife any good if you're emotional like this."

"I don't know Tadhg. I think the kid works better when he's angry," Paddy said in jest.

"I promise you, Cillian. On our father's grave, I'm not going to let anything happen to her," Tadhg promised, but my mind was full of haze, I could only see red.

"There better not be a fucking curl out of place on Queenie's head. Because if there is, anybody in Boston that's even walking around with the last name Callahan is going to pay for it. Mob family or not."