“I, uh…” Danny shifted his gaze toward the door dividing this room from the tiny bathroom they shared with the next apartment. Though he couldn’t see the door in the darkness, if someone were using the bathroom, they’d be able to hear James and Danny talking on the other side. He thought they were Serbian, but he knew they understood some English.
Not Irish, though, so in a hushed voice, he said in his mother tongue, “Something bad happened tonight.”
“That why you were dressed the way you were?” James asked in the same language.
Danny sighed. “No, I mean we did… Yes, we was dressed that way to get in someplace we didn’t belong, and yes, we stole some things. But that’s not what I mean.”
“All right. So what happened?”
“I…” Danny squeezed his eyes shut as if that might chase away the memories that kept him awake. “A man and a woman came in. Me and Bernard, we hid, and I don’t think they’d have seen us, but…” His stomach lurched and his throat burned, but he swallowed hard to keep from getting sick. “I thought he was going to kill her. The way he threatened her, I…”
James put a hand over Danny’s. “What happened next?”
Danny was certain for a painfully long moment that he wouldn’t be able to keep back the bile, but he finally managed to speak through clenched teeth. “I killed him,” he whispered, still in Irish so an eavesdropping neighbor wouldn’t hear. “I… James. I killed him.”
James’s breath hitched softly.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Danny whispered, “I didn’t mean to, but he—”
“But he was threatening her. What choice did you have?”
“Aye. It happened so fast, and I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Can’t imagine anyone would blame you. Even if you were in that room for nefarious reasons, thank the Lord you were.”
Danny sighed. “It gets worse, though.”
“Does it, now?”
“The man was Enrico il Sacchi.”
James tensed. “You don’t… You don’t mean the gangster.”
“I do.”
The priest swore, something he hadn’t done much of since his days as a soldier. “And you’re certain it was him?”
“The woman who was with him—the one he threatened—she told me so. I’d already guessed he was a gangster from the things we found in the room. I just didn’t know he was that gangster.” Danny pushed out a long, ragged breath. “What do I do now?”
“Did anyone see you? Other than the girl?”
“I don’t think so. And I had gloves on.”
“So no fingerprints.”
“No fingerprints.” Danny rubbed a hand over his face. “The girl helped me escape. She made sure none of the men saw me, and we ran out. When we got out of the hotel, she told me who he was and she told me to run.” He swallowed. “So I did. Ran halfway across Central Park before I nearly fell on some ice.”
James was quiet for a moment. “It wasn’t a thing you did out of cold blood, Danny. You were protecting someone who might’ve been hurt otherwise. Or killed. Can’t imagine you had much choice.”
“No, I didn’t. But I still… I mean, I promised my parents and my brother I wouldn’t get involved with gangsters, and now—”
“This hardly counts as getting involved with gangsters. Especially if none saw you.”
“Maybe. But it’s closer to their kind than I wanted to be.”
“I understand. Did the others make it out? The rest of the lads?”
Danny tensed. “I’m not sure. Mathew told me they’d get out and we’ll meet up tomorrow, but I can’t say for sure if they did.” He exhaled. “Damn. I should find out if—”
“Danny.” James pulled him back down before Danny had even realized he’d started to sit up. “Just sleep tonight. They’re all smart, and none of you’s been sent to jail yet.”
“Can’t say the workhouse is much better.”
“All right, that’s true, but the lot of you have probably spent a month in there between you. They’re smart. I have no doubt they got themselves out somehow or another.” He paused, then laughed softly. “Probably in some harebrained way neither of us can imagine now.”
That made Danny chuckle. “You’re probably right.”
“Aye. So don’t worry so much about them.” James wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer. “Just try to get some sleep. You can’t change what happened tonight.”
“Maybe I should go to confession in the morning.”
“Well.” There was a hint of mischief in James’s voice. “I am a priest, and we can’t see each other, so—”
Danny snorted. “I don’t think they meant confessing to the priest who’s lying in bed with me in the dark.”
“No one specifically says it can’t be.”
Danny laughed, which felt good after the night he’d had, and he relaxed against James. “All right, all right. Go to sleep.”
“You too.” James stroked his hair, and his tone turned a bit more serious. “You think you can sleep?”
Sighing, Danny closed his eyes. “I hope so.”
James and Danny had barely pulled themselves out of the warm bed the next morning when someone banged on the door.
“Oh, Lord,” Danny grumbled. “Suppose I’m lucky they waited until the sun was up.”
James grunted around his cigarette and continued pouring them coffee while Danny went to the door.
Bernard and Tommy stood in the hallway, hugging themselves against the cold. They were pale and exhausted and looked scared half out of their heads. Danny gestured for them to come in, and they immediately went into the parlor to stand close to the fireplace.
Bernard opened his mouth to speak, but he glanced past Danny and gave a sharp nod. “Father.”
Danny turned around. In the doorway, James wordlessly returned the nod. The crew all knew that James sometimes slept here, and if any of them took issue with it, they never said it where Danny could hear.
With the priest in the room duly greeted, Bernard started again, and like Danny had last night, he spoke in hushed Irish. “We’ve got a problem.”
Danny’s gut knotted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Bernard scowled. “The police caught four of the lads last night.”
Panic shot through Danny. “Four? Who? Are they still in jail?”
“No.” Tommy looked up from warming his hands in front of the fire, and he shook his head. “That’s the strange thing—we never went to jail at all. They let us go. Was Paddy, Liam, Peter and me.”
“So they let you go?” Danny studied them each in turn. “What’s the problem?”
“The problem is why they let us go.” Tommy sighed. “Thing is, we was all cuffed, waiting for the cops to take us in, and this gangster comes in. He’s got all our names and everything. Addresses too.”
Danny’s stomach dropped into his feet.
Tommy went on, “He told the cops to let us go. And they did!”