“You get used to it the longer you spend time with thelanger,” Maeve says, and I see Ronan grin behind Saoirse.
“Secondly, Declan knows we will be arriving sooner than expected, but he’s with…” She pauses, looking from Maeve to me. I nod, confirming she could speak freely in front of Maeve. “He’s meeting withThe Cairbreabout a special order. He said he’d fill us in after dinner.”I pause, considering this news.The Cairbreis one of the most powerful men I’ve personally come in contact with. No one knows his true identity.
“Alright. I want to show Maeve the opera house,” I tell her. She nods and whips her head around to Ronan, who said something only she could hear. When she turns back to us, her face is flushed.
“Lead the way,” I tell her. She clears her throat and hits the gas. Maeve looks over at me, and we both laugh boisterously, finally lightening the mood. I look in the rearview mirror to see Orin out cold. He hasn’t relaxed in a long time. Here, he can breathe. The normal threats are lower. This isourkingdom. The Italians know they’re outnumbered twenty-to-one here. They’d be complete fools to try something.
18 Years Old
Ronan groaned next to me as he woke from his catnap. I sat in the passenger seat, only taking my eyes off the warehouse to briefly scan our surroundings. Ronan stretched and leaned back into his seat.
“Anything?” he asks.
I shook my head in response, rubbing the scruff on my face with frustration.
“They will show up, and when they do, I’ll finally be able to end this,” I said, not caring if he was listening. I said it for myself to hear, to believe. We’d been here for days, it seemed. We rotated with some of the other men, but at night it was Ronan and me.
“Why don’t you get some sleep, man? Let me take over,” Ronan offered, but I couldn't sleep. Not when we were so close.
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Whenwas the last time you got more than an hour of sleep, Cal?” He asked with concern. I didn’t respond. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know the answer to that question. I knew it had been at least four days, but I didn’t have to tell him. He knew. The silence hung in the air until, finally…
“Look,” Ronan whispered, sitting up straight in his seat.
We watched as one of Costas' runners walked out of the back of the warehouse, looking around to make sure the coast was clear. The fact that they didn’t have people watching from afar was absurd to me. We always had men watching, and from the least expected places, too. The man stepped out and walked to the van parked in the lot, reversing it to the garage door that was now slowly lifting. A group of more men, maybe six or seven, emerged, walking quickly to the back of the van while someone else drove a pallet on a forklift toward it. The pallet held what seemed to be a full shipment of drugs. Opioids, no doubt.
I’ve never understood why you’d sell a product that constantly dwindles your clientele. We dealt in the weapons trade. Guns, explosives, ammunition, modified vehicles, disguised weapons, military-grade weapons, and other specialty items that people couldn’t get elsewhere. The military-grade and specialty items were the reason the Egan and Collins families were so wealthy. Generation upon generation of weapons dealing. It was like the Costas forgot that we have items they could never get their hands on without our connections.
Once the men had finished loading the pallet into the van, they waited. For someone, or something. I didn’t know. It felt like time passed slowly as we watched.
Then, it seemed to freeze.
There were girls, young and skimpily dressed. Their hands were tied behind their backs, and black cloth bags covered their heads as they emerged from the warehouse. Ronan and I sat in stunned silence, each of us holding his breath.
“What the fuck?” Ronan whispered.
“Call your dad. Tell him to have some of our men follow that van to its destination,” I ordered.
“What? You're just going to let them send those girls off to whatever hellhole they’re bound for?” Ronan bit out.
“If you’d shut the fuck up for a second and listen, you’d know what my plan is. Who the fuck do you think I am all of a sudden? You think I’m okay with this bullshit?”
“Cal, that’s not what I—”
“We can do this shit later,” I say, cutting him off. “Right now, we need men following that van. Tell your dad to send more than necessary, not too far behind, and intercept the shipment, the girls, and the drugs.”
My anger rose at the thought of this shit happening right under our noses. I punched the dash, barely registering the pain that vibrated the bones in my hand.
“On it,” Ronan said, using speed dial, but before his dad answered, I had one more demand.
“Keep as many men alive as possible and have them brought to the river.” Ronan merely nodded. I needed to send a message. A big one.
Chapter 37
Maeve
Lethologica (n) the inability to remember a particular word or name
