Page 8 of Sins of Innocence

I don't call Áine Mrs. Gallagher this time. For some reason the last name sticks in my craw.

"What estate? Who are you?" Allison asks imperiously.

"The Shaughnessy Estate," I reply to the first question and then add my answer to the second. "Kieran Lleshi."

I've seen Allison Shaughnessy several times over the six years since I joined the mob, but I'm not surprised she hasn't noticed me. She's one of those society dames who does not deign to notice anyone she believes to be below her on the social strata.

And a mere foot soldier definitely falls in that category for her. I may be one of Brice's captains now with my own crew and have more than enough money to buy a house just like this one and staff it with damn security, but I don't move in Allison Shaughnessy's circles.

By my choice.

"You told me you had to pick your daughter up from school! Why on earth would Brogan want you brought to the estate?" Allison demands of Áine.

"My daughter is there and I told you she needed me."

"What? Which daughter?" Allison asks shrilly.

"Sadie," I supply.

Both Allison and Áine look at me with varying degrees of shock and worry.

"Does this have something to do with the contretemps at Kenny Jr.'s school? Are you saying Sadie had something to do with Fitzgerald attacking my son? That little psychopath sent my son to the hospital, did you know that?"

It was urgent care, not the hospital, but the better question is: if she is so concerned, why is the boy's mother here instead of being with her son?

I don't ask. Neither do I answer her questions.

"Get your purse Áine."

Áine nods and rushes from the room.

"What? No! If you leave, I will dock your wages!" Allison threatens.

Is this what my mother had to endure when she worked as a maid for the capo who raped her and his snobbish family? The thought sickens me.

After I was born, ma helped with her parents' bodega and cleaned a realtor's offices at night. I spent a lot of time with my Irish gran and Albanian babagjysh in their bodega and their apartment above it. We all lived with gran and babagjysh until my stepfather got out of prison when I was eight.

Then ma moved in with him and didn't work as a maid anymore. He forced her into an entirely different type of employment.

But I didn't find that out until a lot later.

At first, she visited me at her parents' every afternoon. She was there when I got home from school and didn't leave until we'd shared an early dinner. I didn't see her on the weekends.

I didn't know that was her busiest time. All I knew was that I missed her, but when I begged to come live with her, she always said no.

There'd always been an underlying sadness in my mom, but after a few months, she started spacing out during her visits. Sometimes, she forgot what day it was and missed visiting entirely. She was always sorry after, but it happened more and more.

Gran took her to task for it, saying maybe ma should get more sleep.

The next time she came, ma was filled with erratic energy.

I was only ten by then, but gran and babagjysh didn't have to whisper about drugs and Lleshi's bad influence for me to guess what was going on. Kids at school talked and some of them even used drugs they snuck from their parents.

Babagjysh went to confront Lleshi about my mom's health and came home with a haunted look in his eyes. He and gran talked in hushed tones filled with distress that night. Babagjysh used an Albanian word I'd never heard before: kurvë.

I asked him what it meant the next day and he told me in a harsher tone than I'd ever heard from him that I didn't need to know and never to repeat it.

For the next few days my grandparents barely talked, but gran cried at night when she thought I was asleep. The bodega was closed on Sundays and the next one, Babagjysh said he was going to bring his zemra e vogël home.