I pull out my phone. “Am I calling my waste disposal guy or are you calling yours?”
“I’m leaving, I canna hear ye. Goodnight!”
I shake my head at the dead M. Schmidt. “Michael always hated the wet work.”
Chapter One
In which Mason Does His Duty.
Mason…
“You’re joking,” Dad scoffs. “MacTavish men dinnae do arranged marriages.”
“Yes,” I say, “you just kidnapped the bride. Far more streamlined.”
Uncle Cormac, the Chieftain of the MacTavish Clan, narrows his eyes at me. “Not helpful, Mason.”
“My apologies, Chieftain.” I straighten my cuffs.
There’s six of us scattered around the conference table at MacTavish International, my uncles Cormac and Cameron, Dad, Michael, and his brother Duncan.
This building is the “clean” face of the MacTavish clan’s business interests. There is enough legitimate activity that we have a twelve-story office building in the heart of Edinburgh filled with employees. Most of the people who work here are on the up and up.
Maybe 60% of them.
Perhaps 45%. I’m not here enough to settle on an exact number.
“Who the feck wants an arranged marriage?” Michael asks with a frown, “The Russians? I know the Russians are all about it still, they’re stuck in the Middle Ages.”
“William Cavendish,” Uncle Cameron says.
“That posh fuck?” Dad scoffs. “He hates us. A pain in my arse, he’s been trying to dip into our action in Vancouver. I blew up six of his trucks, I thought that would keep him busy for a while.”
“Aye, I’m quite aware of ye blowing up his trucks loaded with drugs and ammunition.” I think Uncle Cormac might be grinding his teeth, he looks ready to spit out shards of his molars.
“Ye should have seen those feckers blow!” Dad’s laughing uncontrollably, the man loves his fire. “Flames shooting up, setting one of his warehouses ablaze too.” He sobers, “They put that one out in time, unfortunately.”
“That dinnae stop him from wanting an arranged marriage between his daughter and one of ours.” Uncle Cormac is doing his damndest to keep this meeting on track. “Ordinarily, I’d tell him to feck off, but he’s turning into a problem. He’s getting in bed with the Matsumori Yakuza.”
“Ah, shite. We’ve been working on them for at least two years and they’re aligning with Cavendish?” Michael groans.
“It’s a good fit, they supply the guns, the Matsumori Yakuza adds the drugs and they’re a package deal,” Dad says sourly. “I’m going to have to work through my disappointment by setting fire to more of Cavendish’s transportation options. Where does he keep his boats? Seattle? I could take a wee trip to the US west coast and burn ‘em all down to the waterline in a single night.”
“This isn’t the time for your revenge-fueled pornographic fantasies of arson,” Uncle Cormac says dryly. “The simple reality is, as much as I hate that son of a bitch, working with Cavendish is much easier than this low-level skirmish shite.Especially since low-level can turn into full-out war with very little provocation.”
“Well, what else would he agree to?” Michael asks.
Uncle Cameron shakes his head. “He’s insisting on a marriage between his daughter and a MacTavish. I know this isn’t our style, lads. But it’s important. We wouldn’t bring it to ye if it wasn’t necessary.”
Looking around the table, I know why Michael, Duncan and I are here. We’re the only single MacTavish men who are of age. I’m twenty-eight, Michael’s thirty-three, and Duncan’s thirty.
Michael looks ill. He’s got that deeply embedded sense of duty like his father, but it’s no secret that the fool’s been pining for Sophie, the daughter of his parent’s housekeeper.
Duncan now… Duncan’s gay. I don’t understand why he’s in on this conversation. I ran into him five years ago at one of my father’s sex clubs in Toronto with his tongue deep down the throat of a blond guy wearing nothing but a tail. We’ve never talked about it. His sexuality is none of my business.
Has he not told his family?
Being gay may still be forbidden in some of the older, weaker crime families, but we have gay soldiers. I can’t imagine Uncle Cormac and Aunt Mala caring in the slightest.
