Chapter 44 Summary: 40. Lila – Bad Bishop
Spoiler Warning: This page reveals key plot points from Chapter 44 (“40. Lila”) of Bad Bishop. If you’re not caught up, proceed with caution.
Summary
Autumn replaces summer. Lila’s pregnancy advances; she feels the baby kick and turn, creating private games of poke and response. She pours all her love into the child to compensate for what she believes Tiernan does not feel. He continues taking her to the shooting range twice a week, but one day he diverts the car onto the highway. They drive into the wilderness beyond Scarborough and arrive at a secluded cabin. Tiernan explains it is a safe house, a place off the grid where his crew hides people or goes underground.
He shows her the property and gives her a dire exit plan: if everything falls apart—if her family, his brothers, and he himself are dead—she must find a loose tar-smeared brick behind the house, retrieve a phone number, and call it three times. Then someone will spirit her out of the country. The gravity of the warning unnerves her.
They practice shooting clay targets with a thrower. Unsurprisingly, Lila is even worse at moving targets. Tiernan instructs her to wait for a clear shot and not panic-shoot, a rule that seems to double as advice for the threats ahead. After the session, he pulls her into a fierce, hungry kiss and they have sex in the overgrown field. As always, his hands skirt her belly, a reminder of the distance he keeps.
On the drive back, Tiernan stops outside Fermanagh’s but doesn’t park. He tells Lila he is meeting her brothers and Sam in Harlem to plan his Vegas move against the Bratva. He will leave this week. Lila blurts out that she doesn’t want him to die, her fear laid bare. Tiernan’s thumb traces her jaw while he reminds her they call him Deathless. She signs that she read the Koshchei tale: the God of Death gets impaled through the chest and dies a villain. Tiernan replies that he is a villain—selfish, soulless, perverse—and that no kiss or touch has changed him. The confession hits Lila like ice water. She climbs out of the car, telling him to have fun planning his own funeral.
Key Events
- Time passes into fall; Lila’s baby grows active and she develops a playful bond with the unborn child.
- Tiernan takes Lila off-route to a remote cabin used as a safe house.
- He gives her covert escape instructions: a hidden brick and a three-call signal.
- At the outdoor range, Lila practices hitting moving clay targets and receives Tiernan’s rule about waiting for a clear shot.
- The couple has passionate, physically intimate sex in the field, though Tiernan still avoids touching her belly.
- Returning to the city, Tiernan reveals he is meeting her brothers and Sam to finalize his mission against the Bratva in Vegas.
- Lila learns he will depart within the week and voices her fear for his life, referencing the Koshchei myth.
- Tiernan insists he remains an unchanged villain; Lila leaves heartbroken and defiant.
Character Development
Lila
Her pregnancy steel her maternal instincts; she creates a world of affection for the baby to fill the emotional void she senses in her marriage. The shooting lessons show her determination to survive in Tiernan’s violent reality, yet she is unable to hide her vulnerability. When she admits she doesn’t want him to die, she acknowledges her own feelings for the first time without cowardice. Tiernan’s brutal response shatters her hope that their physical intimacy has kindled something deeper, forcing her to confront the one-sided nature of her attachment. Her final line is a cutting rejection of the fatalistic role he expects her to play.
Tiernan
He demonstrates genuine concern for Lila’s safety—the safe-house tutorial and the shooting rule are acts of calculating protection—but his emotional walls remain impenetrable. He refuses to let her believe he can soften, equating his identity entirely with villainy. His silence about his own feelings and his decision to plan the Vegas trip without a concrete date for Lila underscore his pattern of withholding. The chapter confirms that while he may protect her body, he will not grant her access to his heart.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
- Moving targets: The clay-shooting exercise mirrors Tiernan’s emotional elusiveness. Lila struggles to hit something that won’t stay still, much as she fails to lock down his affection.
- Koshchei the Deathless: The folk tale becomes a dark self-portrait. Lila identifies Tiernan with the villain who dies violently; Tiernan embraces the comparison, cementing his image as someone who cannot be saved.
- Safe house: The cabin is simultaneously a promise of protection and an omen of catastrophe. Tiernan’s careful instructions imply he already visualises a world without him, driving home the real danger ahead.
- Intimacy without connection: The contrast between their raw sexual encounter and Tiernan’s avoidance of Lila’s belly symbolises his refusal to acknowledge the life they have created or to let their marriage become a true partnership.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 44 pushes the Bratva conflict to an imminent deadline. Tiernan’s departure date forces the narrative stakes from simmering threat to active peril. At the same time, it delivers the emotional gut-punch the romance has been building toward: Lila finally voices her love, and Tiernan explicitly states he is incapable of reciprocating. The safe-house tour functions as both a farewell rehearsal and a chilling gift of survival. For Lila, the chapter marks the end of her hope that sex and tenderness have transformed her husband. She leaves the car not as a broken bride but as a woman who sees the truth and refuses to passively mourn him.
Study Questions and Answers
1. What is the significance of Tiernan’s rule to “wait for a clear shot”?
The rule is literal advice for shooting moving targets, but on a deeper level it reflects Tiernan’s approach to protecting Lila. He wants her to avoid panic in a crisis. Yet the rule also echoes his own emotional pattern: he never offers a clear, vulnerable “shot” of his true feelings to Lila, leaving her perpetually waiting.
2. Why does Lila mention the Koshchei tale, and how does Tiernan’s response change her?
Lila brings up the tale because she sees Tiernan in it—the Deathless villain who meets a bloody end. She hopes the comparison will make him reconsider his fatalistic path. Instead, Tiernan proudly claims the role. His cold admission that nothing has changed him breaks Lila’s romantic illusions and forces her to accept that her love is unrequited in the way she needs.
3. How does the safe-house visit encapsulate the central tension in their marriage?
Tiernan provides Lila with a meticulous escape plan, ensuring her physical survival should the worst happen. This demonstrates care, but it is a care delivered from a distance. In the same visit, he gives her physical pleasure while refusing to touch her pregnant belly or admit emotional attachment. The safe house becomes a place where safety is offered but intimate connection is denied, mirroring the entire relationship.