Page 13 of Tamed Enemy
“Mam’s a Lynch by marriage. I’m a Lynch by blood. If you call yourself loyal to the Canton Crew, then step aside, Davey O’Farrell.”
He steps aside.
Jacobson isn’t happy, but he falls in behind me, jutting his chin for Cameron to come along. Cole takes his place by my side,and we finally enter the fussy Victorian mansion I called home for the first twenty-five years of my life.
Jacobson doesn’t bother renewing his objection when I wave him toward the parlor. Instead, he and Cameron take up positions just inside the door, like matching suits of armor. Cole comes along as I stomp to the dining room.
“Da!” I exclaim.
My father sits at the head of the table, his chair pushed back like a throne. He’s wearing a suit, brown with beige stripes, wool that’s too heavy for this July Sunday, so his face is slick with sweat. His trousers are either poorly tailored or he’s lost some of his girth; the fabric bunches beneath his belt. I wonder if maybe Tarasov was right after all, and Daiswearing a nappy.
“Ka—ay,” my father says. His lips look oiled as he wrestles with my name. I skid to a stop while his throat ratchets around another word. Cole cups a steadying hand under my elbow. Da’s gaze is unfocused as he raises one trembling arm and repeats my name. “Ka—a—ay…”
“Katie,a chroí,” my mother says from the foot of the table, shattering the horror that has me rooted to the spot. “We’re so pleased you could join us.”
I whirl to remind her that my name isn’t Katie, that my name hasn’t been Katie since Pyotr Tarasov worked his damage. But the angry words parch on my lips when I see Mam isn’t alone at her end of the room.
She’s dressed in a summer frock meant for a woman half her age—spaghetti straps and a plunging neckline, with floods of pink ruffles spilling across her lap. She’s colored her hair too bright, too red. Her hands grip the arms of her chair like talons.
Beside her sits a man I’ve never seen before. His flat face looks like he’s spent too much time pressing it against a window; his nose is too wide for his narrow cheeks. His mussed hair and his eyes are the exact same shade: The gray-brown of a rat.
Cole plants himself between me and the stranger. My mother sucks in her belly, sitting taller in her chair. “Katie,” she warns in a knife-edged voice. “Cole. Ilya Danilov is here as my guest.”
Danilov.
I assume he’s bratva. And that explains the ferret out front with Davey O’Farrell.
Mam took up with Pyotr Tarasov the instant Da was in hospital. Truth be told, she probably fucked the Russian before that. She keeps her bread well-buttered—the rest of the Lynch clan be damned. I wonder what she’s getting from Danilov.
Half my DNA comes from Orla Lynch. I’d dig it out with a trowel if I could.
My father makes a groaning sound, as if all the gears inside him have crashed to a halt. His throat works, and his right hand trembles as he points toward the Russian invader. “Go,” he says. “You. Go.”
A wicked smile twists Mam’s mouth, drawing out the jagged scar above her upper lip. “Don’t be rude, Barry, dear.” She turns her calculating gaze on me. “Katie,” she says, pointing to the chair by Da’s twisted left hand. “Sit.”
The old fire rises inside me, scorching through my revulsion. I’m Kate, not Katie. Mam can’t order me around like a dog. I’ve been fighting her for decades, ever since I recognized the stinking rotten hole that passes for her heart.
My father hisses, a sound that might besitor might beshiteor might be the meaningless seep of air from a dented tin can. He grimaces and works the left half of his mouth, and this time he comes up with a clear enough word: “Please.”
For the first time in my life, Da is asking me to do something, instead of ordering. He needs me.
I sit. Cole takes his place beside me.
Mam doesn’t waste much time gloating over her victory. “Cook?” she calls. “We’re ready now.”
The dining room’s uneasy silence is filled with the squeal of a cart’s unoiled wheels. Cook has been serving the Lynch family Sunday Roast since I was a child. She moves slower than she used to, and her eyeglasses are thicker. Her knuckles are so swollen that I wonder how she keeps her grip on the cart.
But she wastes no time setting out the traditional meal—lamb and three types of potatoes, roasted parsnips and carrots, grilled mushrooms and stewed onions and the colcannon that has always been Da’s favorite.
Cook finds space on the table for all of it before she puts a special plate in front of Da. Someone in the kitchen has cut his food for him—meat and veg, all in tiny squares.
Da protests when Cook sets the meal before him. His mouth works and he leans forward in his chair to pound the table.
“Such a racket!” Mam says, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. I’ve known that gesture for as long as I can remember. Mam is about to announce a migraine.
Ignoring her, I say to Cook. “He wants colcannon. There isn’t any on his plate.”
“It makes him gassy,” she says as Da continues to bellow like a lost calf.
