“You know, Dolph had me take care of getting her situated. She likes opium, doesn’t she, your mother?” Nibs stepped closer to Harte and smiled, his teeth stained red from the blood. “You’re not out. And you won’t breathe a word of our little conversation here to anyone. Not unless you want me to make sure your mother’s out too. I can make sure she gets all the poppy she wants. Not to kill her. Not right away, at least. But there are worse things than dying, aren’t there?”
Harte reached for him again, but this time the boy dodged away. “No, I don’t think so. I know you can do more than read minds, Darrigan. I don’t think I want you to touch me again.”
“The only reason I’d touch you is to kill you,” he growled.
“You’re welcome to try. No one’s been able to yet. I’m always three steps ahead of them, and I always will be.” Nibs gave him a threatening look. “Go get Morgan’s nephew. I want that book, or I’ll make sure that everything you hold dear is destroyed. Your name. Your mother. Even your girl.”
“I don’t care.”
“Let’s not waste our time with lies, Darrigan. Get out of here before I tell Viola you need to be taken out.” He smiled, satisfied. “She’ll believe me, you know. They all will, because I’m one of them. And you never will be.”
Harte took a step back, a war rioting inside him. All of his careful plans were crumbling around him. But then he thought of Esta, stuck in that dank, vermin-infested prison. Esta, who could steal anything. He could never tell her all of what he planned, but with her help, it just might work.
“You’ve overplayed your hand, Nibs.”
“No,” the boy said with a lurid smile. “You only think I have.”
THE THREAD UNRAVELS
Viola was still washing glasses behind the bar when Dolph returned, tired and frustrated. He walked over to the bar, and she poured him two fingers of whiskey without his asking.
“You look worse than when you left.”
Dolph stared at the drink, but he didn’t take it. “I wasn’t out for my health. Kelly’s up to something. His boys cut up three of ours tonight.”
“I thought you’d worked out something with him,” Viola said with a frown.
He ignored the implied question. “He has some bigger game going. Even Jianyu is having trouble figuring out what it is.” He took the glass in his hand and rubbed his thumb over its smooth surface.
“I could try to find out for you?”
“No,” he said, and when she scowled at him, he explained, “It’s not that I don’t trust you to handle yourself, but I don’t need Kelly to know we’re worried.” She continued to frown down at where her blades were resting on the bar top. He’d upset her, but she didn’t argue.
That silence almost bothered him more. She’d been too quiet ever since Tilly’s death. He told himself it was natural, expected, but with everything else going on, he wasn’t sure if maybe there was something more happening with her.
“Jianyu return yet?” he asked.
“No, but Darrigan came in not long ago. Said that Esta had been picked up at the Haymarket. He was looking for you, but he had words with Nibs and then went storming off.”
“Is that right?” Dolph eyed the boy at the back of the barroom. “About what?”
“You’d need to talk to Nibs.”
The boy was sitting at his usual table in the back of the bar, poring over the nightly ledgers. His glasses were perched over a swollen nose and his right eye had already turned a painful-looking purple-green.
“I didn’t know you were taking up prizefighting,” Dolph said, easing himself into his usual chair.
“Not on purpose,” Nibs said, glancing up. “Darrigan did it.”
“Oh?”
“I might have pushed him too far when I reminded him that the Book was more important than the girl.”
“Viola mentioned something about Esta getting herself arrested in the raid tonight. Do we need to send someone?”
“Darrigan will get her out,” Nibs said. “He seems to be even more tied up with her than we planned.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Dolph asked. “It’s exactly what I wanted. Maybe if he’s attached to her, he won’t do anything stupid.”
“Unless she’s tied up with him, too.” Nibs made another mark in his book.
“That would be a problem?”
“It would be if they started getting ideas,” Nibs said with a frown. “We wouldn’t want them going off on their own and cutting us out.”
The boy was always figuring, always planning. It was a skill that Dolph had prized, back when he’d had the means to control Nibs. Back when taking his mark meant taking an oath of loyalty. But now that the marks were dead and useless, and Nibsy knew, Dolph was starting to wonder how much faith he should put in the boy whose plans rarely went awry.
Looking at Nibsy’s broken nose and battered face, though, Dolph dismissed that thought almost as quickly as it had come to him. He was getting too paranoid. ?After all, the boy had taken a hit from Darrigan for him—a direct one, from the looks of it. That had to mean something.
He’d talk to the girl and make sure things were progressing. It wouldn’t hurt to remind her what she stood to lose.
“Any news yet about what caused the raid?” Dolph asked. “It’s too much of a coincidence that after months of quiet, the police pick tonight of all nights.”
“I haven’t heard from Bridget yet, if that’s what you’re asking.” Nibs glanced up at him. “It’s strange, now that I think of it. Usually she sends word by now. ?You don’t think she was the one to tip them off, do you?”
“I doubt it.” Dolph frowned. “Bridget hates the Order and pretty much everyone else. She wouldn’t have anything to gain by helping them.”
“Then where did she disappear to?”
“I don’t know,” Dolph said, uneasy.
He understood what Nibs was suggesting, but Bridget Malone owed him too much to cross him. ?After all, Dolph had freed her from her violent drunk of a husband. He’d given Bridget a second chance and the freedom to build a new life, and she repaid him by sending him new talent before the other bosses found them. Most of their kind knew of the arrangement, and if a girl found herself in a bad situation, she knew to go to Bridget. He couldn’t see what she would have to gain by starting the raid.
“Did you finish with your business?” Nibs asked, turning back to his ledgers. “I expected you back a while ago.”
“There were problems with Kelly tonight. A gang of his attacked three of our boys. Beat them to a pulp—it’ll be lucky if Higgins can walk after he heals.”
Nibs peered up over the wire rims of his spectacles. “Did they cross into Kelly’s turf??”
“Of course not,” Dolph said. His people knew to be careful. “It happened on Elizabeth Street, not two blocks from here. Kelly’s boys shouldn’t have even been there.”
“You sure it was Kelly’s that did it?” Nibs asked.
Dolph nodded. “They carved the Five Pointer’s mark into each of their cheeks. Even if they recover from the other wounds, that will leave a scar. They’ll be marked now for life.”
“I thought you said he was under control,” Nibs said.
Dolph frowned. Things were changing, he thought to himself. Too fast. And for the first time since he’d started down this road, he wondered if he would be able to keep up. “I’ll send Viola. She can take care of the ones who did it without any evidence.”