Joe stiffened in his arms.

Thomas released his grip and leaned back and ran his hands over his son’s cheeks. “I’ve been worried sick.”

Joe whispered, “Yes, sir.”

Thomas searched for signs of the boy he’d always known, but a stranger stared back at him.

“What happened to you, boy? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, sir. I got mugged is all. Some boys near the rail yards.”

The thought of his flesh and blood being pummeled spiked his rage for a moment, and Thomas almost slapped the boy for giving him such fright and lack of sleep these past few nights. But he caught himself, and the impulse passed.

“That’s it? Mugged?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jesus, the chill that came off the child! It was the chill of his mother during one of her “moods.” The chill of Connor when things didn’t go his way. It wasn’t part of the Coughlin bloodline, that was for certain.

“Did you know any of the boys?”

Joe shook his head.

“And that’s it? That’s all that happened.”

Joe nodded.

“I’ve come to take you home, Joseph.”

“Yes, sir.”

Joe stood and walked past him to the door. There was no child’s self-pity, no sense of anguish or joy or emotion of any kind.

Something’s died in him.

Thomas felt the chill of his own son again and wondered if he was to blame, if this was what he did to those he loved—protected their bodies while deadening their hearts.

He gave Danny and Nora a confident smile. “Well, we’ll be off then.”

Nora shot him a look of such hatred and contempt, Thomas himself wouldn’t have cast it on the worst jungle-bunny rapist in his precinct. It seared the organs in his body.

She smoothed Joe’s face and hair and kissed his forehead. “Good-bye, Joey.”

“Bye.”

“Come on,” Danny said softly. “I’ll walk you both down.”

When they reached the street, Marty Kenneally got out of the car and opened Thomas’s door, and Joe climbed in. Danny stuck his head into the car and said good-bye and then stood on the sidewalk with Thomas. Thomas felt the soft night around them. Summer in the city and the streets smelled of this afternoon’s rain. He loved that smell. He reached out his hand.

Danny shook it.

“They’re going to come after you.”

“Who?” Danny said.

“The ones you never see,” his father said.

“Over the union?”

His father nodded. “What else?”

Danny dropped his hand and chuckled. “Let ’em come.”

Thomas shook his head. “Don’t ever say that. Don’t ever tempt the gods like that. Ever, Aiden. Ever, boy.”

Danny shrugged. “Fuck ’em. What can they do to me?”

Thomas placed his foot on the edge of the step. “You think because you’ve a good heart and a good cause that it’ll be enough? Give me a fight against a man with a good heart any day, Aiden, because that man doesn’t see the angles.”

“What angles?”

“You’ve proved my point.”

“If you’re trying to scare me, you—”