Like an avenging angel, Jack Kelly stood in the doorway, his righteous anger washing into the room like a typhoon. His fists were clenched, his shoulders were squared, and his green eyes blazed with fury. He had opened his mouth to say something, but Katherine cut across him.

"Get out of here!"

And suddenly his righteousness was swept away by his surprise as his eyes were drawn to her.

"Plumber?"

"Wait a fuckin' minute." Conlon went forward until he was face to face with Jack. Katherine whirled and aimed her gun at him, but he hardly seemed more shaken by her and Jack's recognizing each other than the threat of death. "Are ya the one that hired her? Ya fuckin twit!"

"So what? You took Crutchie!" Jack lunged forward and grabbed Conlon by the front of his shirt.

"Getcha hands offa him!" barked Race, finger curling around the trigger.

"Easy, easy!" Spot's hands latched onto Jack's and struggled against him without breaking Jack's gaze. They were locked in a confrontation that seemed all but inevitable, like a pair of brothers in a Shakespeare play. Yes, they were undeniably brothers, too enraged with each other to be strangers.

Lead filled Katherine's stomach. "You work for him."

All three heads swiveled in her direction and silence fell over the room. She should have seen it! His reaction earlier today to Conlon's name, a name kept on a need-to-know basis—how hadn't she figured it out?

Jack looked at her helplessly. "Detective…"

Conlon shoved Jack off him, his chest heaving. "As a matter o' fact, Detective," he spat, "he's my partner. Ya knew my whole life story, but ya didn't puzzle that one out?"

Katherine stared hard at Jack. No, she hadn't figured it out. His grief had been so heavy and all-consuming that she had seen the fearful brother and not the gangster that had gotten them all into this mess. This side of Jack had eluded her entirely, and it was her own fault.

Jack roughly straightened his jacket, averting his eyes from her. "Frankly, I's in the dark, too. Ya didn't even tell me nothin' when he disappeared! Isn't the ransom s'posed t' come the day of?"

Conlon scoffed. "Maybe this ain't about you! Ever think o' that, Jacky?"

"What're ya talkin' about?" The bafflement on Jack's face was comforting, Katherine had to admit. At least they were confused together.

Conlon rolled his eyes, as though they were struggling to comprehend basic math. "I started noticin' money gettin' skimmed off th' top, an' that it always happened whenever Jack was givin' us a hand up here."

"I ain't never stole no money." Jack's eyes were dark. "I only ever make the trip up when we's plannin' a raid, and I'm with ya the whole time!"

"Yeah, you are. But then Race here—" Conlon nodded at Race, "—reported to me that you wasn't makin' these trips alone."

Jack blanched. Even his lips were white. His eyes were trained on Conlon, but they seemed to stare through both him and the wall behind him, like his mind had fled to another realm entirely. When he spoke, his voice wasn't hard-edged and defensive; it was broken.

"I only brought him t' get some air an' see some girls."

Conlon shrugged "I know ya, Jacky. Ya hardly let that kid jaywalk. You wouldn't put him up t' some stunt like that."

Jack suddenly lurched forward again, but Race's gun stopped him from grabbing Conlon. So he wavered on his feet like a boxer, his hands balled into fists. "Tell me where Crutchie is. I checked all the safe houses on my turf."

"Ya ain't gettin' off so easy." Conlon folded his arms across his chest. "We's still got business t' sort out."

"What business? Ya got my brother under lock 'n' key! And I swear if ya hurt a single hair on his head—"

Suddenly they were interrupted by a loud thump from beneath their feet, causing all of them to jump. Katherine bent down and turned a listening ear to the floor, where she heard the faint scraping of boots on cement, followed by muffled shouts.

She looked up at Conlon. "Something's happening in your basement."

Conlon and Jack looked at each other, eyes wide with horror, and then they and Race bolted from the room.

Katherine followed hot on their heels as they sprinted down the hall and back into the dining room of the pub, where a handful of well-dressed men were weaving through the tables towards them. Race sucked in a gasp.

"Shit."

Suddenly the well-dressed men leading the charge whirled towards them, their hands reaching into their jackets. A hand clamped onto Katherine's arm and yanked her down in a heap beside Jack and the others as shots rang out above them, burrowing into the wall and shattering bottles. As liquor rained down on them, screams and shouts erupted from the dining room patrons, along with the scraping of wood on stone floor as people tore out of their chairs and scrambled for cover. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Race produce a key from his pocket and reach for a box on a low shelf. He unlocked the box and pulled out a tommy gun.

"Mother of god," Katherine murmured.

"Yeah, I know," said Jack. "Race, you cover us. We's gonna get t' the cellar."

Race glanced at Conlon, who nodded his approval. Jack's hand tightened on Katherine's arm. "The way out's a straight shot from here." He pointed with his chin at the back of the Galleon, where a door was nestled in between the stage and the wall.

"Has this happened before?" she asked. "You're all pretty practiced."

"Ya tend t' plan fo' th' worst outcome." Jack looked back at Conlon. "Whenever ya ready."

Conlon reached for the pistol on another low shelf. "Now!"

He and Race rose as one and let out a spray of fire through the dining room. Katherine and Jack dashed for the door at the back of the pub, legs pumping and hearts pounding. Jack shouldered the door open and together they burst outside into the beginnings of dusk. "The cellar door's this way. C'mon!"

They rounded the corner of the building and skidded to a stop at the sight before them. Three or four paddy wagons were parked haphazardly around a storm cellar entrance whose doors were thrown wide. Men streamed in and out of the entrance, dragging kids by their collars toward the wagons. There were a handful of teens but most kids were younger than twelve, wearing poorly-fitted clothes as filthy as their dirty faces.

Katherine's blood curdled. David had said Conlon was suspected of aiding fugitives—what were kids doing here?

The kids kicked and screamed, but the one that put up the most tremendous fight was a teen with an angular chin, straw-colored hair that stuck up in all directions, and a crutch.

Jack rushed forward. "Crutchie!"

The straw-haired boy jumped at the sound of his name, and then his face lit up with hope. "Jack!"

"Kelly!" The man who stood by the wagons and supervised the operation had his beady eyes on Jack. He was a broad, imposing man with ruddy cheeks and an angry frown. He pointed at them and shouted, "Get him!"

The men reached into their inside coat pockets and the backs of their trousers. Katherine caught Jack by the arm and yanked him back behind the corner of the pub just as a bullet whizzed past and caught the corner of the building.

"Don't you dare keep me from my brother, Plumber!" He fought to tear his arm free, but her grip was iron and resolve steel.

"We're outnumbered five to one," she hissed, pulling him along. "We're not getting anywhere near those kids without getting captured. And if we're captured, we can't help your brother."

"We can't just stand back!" He turned on his heel and tried to march back, but no dice. "I ain't lettin' him face Snyder alone!"

"Right now, us running away is his best chance!" The shots rang out closer as the men rounded the corner. That prodded Jack into full-fledged fleeing, but not fast enough: he cried out as they ran and pressed his hand to his shoulder. Blood bubbled around his fingers.

The door that brought them out here slammed open suddenly, and Conlon burst out with the tommy gun in his hands and Race on his tail. "Follow me!" screamed Race, bolting past them and into an alley beside the Galleon. They followed without hesitation to a beaten-up Ford, which Race was already climbing behind the wheel of. Conlon dove into the passenger's seat and reloaded as Katherine and Jack scrambled into the back. "Get us outta here, Higgins!"

Conlon turned around, knelt upon his seat, and took aim at the back windshield. "Keep ya heads down."

Katherine shrunk into her seat as the car roared to life and sped away, tearing through the streets of Brooklyn. Conlon emptied his whole magazine out the back, shattering the windshield and raining glass down on the her and Jack. It was quiet when Conlon reloaded again, quiet enough for her to brave peeking through the destroyed windshield at the street behind them.

The Galleon shrank into the fierce light of the sunset as they drove. The pub was emblazoned in a bright red, like the pit of hell they'd just crawled out of. The pit they'd left those children in.