CyberGhost: You think YOU have an answer for Lone Wolf?
CyberGhost: Think YOU can get past him?
CyberGhost: I’m waiting
CyberGhost: DarkMoney you cocksucker
CyberGhost: Icekiller?
CyberGhost: Shaddow?
CyberGhost: MaskedMarauder?
CyberGhost: Anyone? Forgot how your keyboards work motherfuckers?
CyberGhost: Come on you fucking pussies
CyberGhost: What you fucking got?
Dark, Ice, and Shaddow are morons. They’re hired hands, brought in a year ago, when I thought Red Cap was finally going to break into the big time.
MaskedMarauder is my only teammate who comes close to matching my skill at hacking. He can cut to the heart of any programming problem, slicing away all the bells and whistles to deliver simple, elegant solutions. But he givescautionall-new meaning. It takes him half an hour just to choose a new password.
“Katie,” Mam calls. “You leave me no choice.”
And my bedroom door flies back on its hinges, the doorknob punching a fist-size hole through the most recent repair in my bedroom’s plaster wall. Mam drops to her knees just inside my room, framed by one of my father’s enforcers, the gorilla who just kicked in my door.
“Why?” Mam wails, the scar above her lip quivering as she beats her breast like some penitent saint. “Why am I cursed with a daughter who tries my soul? Why, on this day, when all I ask is for our family to stand with all the other clans? St. Brigid defend us—just one single, solitary chance to show that we Baltimore Lynches belong…”
I know the rest of her complaints by heart. She never would have fought for her life against those shitehawks in a Donegal back alley if she’d known how cruel the world would be to a woman with a scarred face. She should have stayed in Ireland instead of coming to Baltimore’s Canton neighborhood where Da works like a dog with nothing to show for it. She should have become a nun when she had the chance, taking the veil to avoid being cursed with a daughter like me…
The recital loses some of its power for being delivered the third time this month. And the fist Mam clenches above her oft-beaten breast is lined with at least ten carats-worth of diamond rings. Plus, she’s wearing an eight-thousand-dollar Oscar de la Renta gown.
It’s not hard to figure out why Da’s branch of the Irish mob always runs in the red.
“Why?” Mam cries, increasing her volume. “Why?”
“Enough!” my father bellows from the hallway. “Shut yer fuckin’ gob, Orla.”
Mam stops mid-wail.
I get my height from my mother. My red hair, too, along with my dark green eyes and porcelain skin that burns if I even glance toward the sun.
My father, Barry Lynch, stands five feet four in his platform shoes. He’s got black hair, brown eyes, and cheeks that could stand in for a cherub’s. A fool might question if Mam had spent time with the proverbial milkman, but then they’d have to answer to my father’s raging temper. Da’s killed more than one man with his bare fists.
To be fair, I inherited that temper. Along with Da’s gift for foul language. And I’m not opposed to using my own fists when things don’t go my way.
“Downstairs,” Da orders his enforcer. Then he cajoles my mother to her feet. “Darlin’, don’t hurt yerself.” He holds her bejeweled hand over his heart, transformed into a solicitous, loving husband now that he’s getting his way. “Fetch Breagha from her room now, and both o’ ya down to the car.”
Mam bats her eyelashes until he kisses her knuckles. “A Lynch woman offers up her pain to the clan,” she says, pretending to be brave. With one final glare in my direction, she heads off to find my perfect, well-behaved sister, leaving me with my beast of a da.
“And you,” my father says, leveling his beady gaze on me. “You have five minutes to get your narrow arse downstairs. Makeup on. Dressed for Fiona Ingram’s wedding.” Before I can argue, he says, “Cross me on this, Kaitlín, and I swear to God I’ll send you back to Athgarven tonight. And this time, I’ll have you stripped to make sure you’ve got no phone.”
The Lynch clan hails from Athgarven, County Donegal inIreland, for generations back. The village has a church, a pub, and a pile of stone that stopped being a castle a thousand years ago. Just last year, I spent a month in the Irish countryside as payback for ruining my parents’ thirtieth anniversary party. I couldn’t help myself. The man I sent to the emergency room with a broken nose and a ruptured testicle wouldn’t takenofor an answer.
In Ireland, I spent twenty hours a day online with the Red Cap Raiders. I alternated business development with conquests in Winter Reckoning, the online game where we hang out when we aren’t at each other’s throats.
I’d go mad in twenty-four hours if I was stranded in Athgarven without my phone.