Page 109 of The Wrong Mafia Bride
And I promise myself—promise her, promise Seamus's memory—that Patrick Murphy will pay for every single tear she sheds.
In blood.
24
DANTE
The war roomin the basement of our Manhattan estate has never felt smaller.
Gabriel spreads a hand-drawn map of the O'Connor compound across the heavy oak table, his fingers tracing the perimeter walls with the precision of a surgeon planning an incision. Luca leans against the wall to my right, cleaning his gun with methodical efficiency—his way of staying calm when everything inside him wants to burn the world down. And I stand at the head of the table, staring at the layout of the place where my pregnant wife's sister is being held hostage by a man who has already murdered one person she loves.
Patrick Murphy will die tonight.
The only question is how much of the Irish mafia dies with him.
"The compound has twenty-three men on rotation," Gabriel says, tapping various points on the map with a pencil. "Patrick dismissed most of Seamus's old guard after he took over—said they were too loyal to the old ways, too soft. He brought in hisown crew. Mercenaries, mostly. Men with no connection to the O'Connor legacy."
"Which means they will fight," Luca observes, sliding the magazine back into his weapon with a decisive click. "No loyalty means no reason to surrender when we come knocking."
"They will fight," I agree, my eyes tracking the defensive positions Gabriel has marked. "But they will also die. The question is whether we can get to Erin before Patrick decides she is more useful as a corpse than a hostage."
The words taste like ash. Rosalina is upstairs in our bedroom, sedated by the doctor I called after she collapsed from exhaustion and grief. She cried herself unconscious in my arms, her hands clutching Seamus's birth certificate like it was the only thing tethering her to this world. The birth certificate that named her Rosalina Margaret O'Connor—daughter, not ward.
Seamus's final gift to her was proof that she belonged.
And Patrick murdered him.
My hand curls into a fist on the table, and Gabriel glances up at me, reading my expression with the ease of someone who has known me since childhood.
"We will get her," he says quietly. "Erin. We will bring her home to Rosalina."
"And Patrick?" Luca asks, his voice carrying an edge that could cut glass.
I meet his eyes, let him see the cold, lethal certainty settling into my bones. "Patrick does not leave that compound breathing."
The phone on the wall rings—a sharp, jarring sound in the tense silence. I cross the room in three strides and lift the receiver.
"Salvatore."
"Dante, it is Callahan." The voice on the other end is rough, aged, carrying the weight of decades in the Irish organization. Thomas Callahan—Seamus's oldest friend, his most trusted lieutenant, and the man who was like an uncle to both Rosalina and Erin.
"Callahan," I acknowledge, my mind already racing. "I was going to call you."
"I imagine you were." There is a pause, filled with the kind of grief that has no words. "I can’t believe what Patrick has done. Murdering Seamus, killing Dolan, holding Erin prisoner.t is an abomination. A betrayal of everything the O'Connor family stood for."
"He’s a man who must be avenged." I say.
"Then we are on the same page ," Callahan says, and the steel in his voice makes feels akin to the loyalty I feel for Luca and Gabriel.. ". Patrick has a dozen men who are loyal to him—mercenaries and opportunists. But there are eight of us left who served Seamus for twenty years. We have been waiting for someone to make a move against Patrick."
Eight men. Eight experienced Irish officers who know the compound inside and out, who have access Patrick would never suspect.
"Can you get to Erin?" I ask.
"Not without triggering an alarm. Patrick has her in the east wing, third floor. Two guards on her door at all times, another two patrolling the hallway. He is paranoid, rightfully so. Heknows that if Erin dies, the entire Irish organization will turn on him—there are still too many people who loved Seamus to tolerate his daughter's murder. She is leverage, but she is also his insurance policy."
"Then we need to make him feel safe enough to move her," Gabriel says, appearing at my shoulder. He must have heard the conversation through the receiver. "Give him a reason to relocate her to a less secure position."
Callahan is silent for a moment, thinking. Then: "There is a delivery scheduled for eleven tonight. Weapons shipment coming in from Boston. Patrick will want to be at the docks to receive it personally—he does not trust anyone else with that kind of inventory. If we can make him believe there is a threat to the shipment, he might move Erin to the safe room in the basement. Easier to defend, only two entry points."
