Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Machine"Run!" Declan roared.
He didn't drop to the pavement. Instead, using his momentum, he threw himself and the child sideways behind the heavy stone pillar of the Liberty Hotel’s grand entrance, shielding Macy’s tiny body with his own broad shoulders.
Click.
The explosion was engineered to be contained. It wasn't a sprawling fireball designed to level a city block; it was a directional kinetic charge, meant to shred the interior cabin of the Escalade into a meat grinder of shrapnel and high-velocity lead.
The blast blew out every window of the fifty-thousand-dollar armored vehicle in a deafening cascade of laminated glass and twisted steel. The shockwave rattled the crystal chandeliers inside the hotel lobby, sending a shower of dust and plaster down upon the marble floor.
When the echoes died away, thick black smoke billowed from the shredded shell of the Cadillac, smelling sharply of sulfur, burnt rubber, and melted plastic.
Silence descended on Liberty Square—the heavy, suffocating silence of a city block that knew better than to interfere with business conducted by Declan O’Hara.
Declan slowly rose to one knee, brushing glass dust off his black wool coat. He looked down at Macy. The little girl was shaking violently, her small hands buried deep in the lapels of his coat, her face pressed against his chest. She hadn't made a sound through the entire explosion.
"You alright?" Declan asked, his voice uncharacteristically gentle.
Macy nodded slowly, blinking against the drifting smoke.
Finn Kavanaugh trotted over from the alleyway, dragging a groaning, zip-tied man by his arm. The substitute driver was already pinned face-down on the pavement twenty feet away, held down by two of Finn’s operatives.
"Car's totaled, boss," Finn reported, his hard, scarred face expressionless as he glanced at the burning wreck. "C-4 charge wired into the rear axle chassis, rigged with an aneroid and pressure-release trigger. Professional work. Not local muscle."
Declan stood up fully, pulling Macy into his arms and resting her head against his shoulder. He looked down at the man tied up in front of him—the man with the scarred hand who had been watching from the utility van.
It was a face Declan hadn't seen in six years.
A face he thought was rotting six feet under in a pauper's grave in South Boston.
"Garrett," Declan said softly. The name slipped out like a drop of poison on ice.
The man on the ground spat a mouthful of blood onto the pavement, laughing through broken teeth. "Surprise, Declan. Did you really think you could bury the past just because you bought a few judges and built a nice little empire downtown?"
Declan didn't blink. His ash-gray eyes turned into chips of polished flint. "You died in the fire at the Charlestown docks, Garrett. I saw the dental records myself."
"Money buys a lot of things, O'Hara," Garrett sneered, struggling against the heavy nylon zip-ties biting into his wrists. "Including a fresh set of teeth and a corpse from the county morgue that looked enough like me to fool your accountants. But you know what money couldn't buy?"
May you like
Garrett’s bloodshot eyes shifted past Declan, landing squarely on little Macy.
"It couldn't buy loyalty from your own blood."
