“The business I want to talk with Marcello about is private. You don’t have anything to prove here.”
My chest tightens and flames lick my insides. I look my brother in the eye. “I’m not going to let you down again, Callahan. I want…this could be good for us and the job is?—”
“Complicated. They usually are.” He sighs. “Just keep your head low.”
Not good enoughis what I hear, but I swallow that down. “I’m still part of the family.”
“I fucking got that on the day you took your first breath and became a royal pain in my ass.” He curls a hand around the back of my neck and draws me in. “You’re a Murphy.”
My eyes prick with heat. But I take a breath because I can also see the possibilities of having an actual bodyguard service. It would be great for us.
I just can’t shake my perpetual sense of failure.
I step back. Whatever I’m about to say is cut off by my phone buzzing in my pocket. I grab it and read the message on the screen. “It’s Roark. He has something and wants to meet.”
“Tor, get the car,” Cal barks out, typing something on his phone.
We have two guards stationed at the house tonight, and others are close by. The place is going to be a fortress by the time we meet Torin and the car.
We lock up and pile into the car with guns loaded while Caltalks to Roark.
“So you really didn’t find out anything tonight?” I ask Seamus.
He frowns, checking his gun. We most likely won’t need them, but it pays to be ready. “Nothing much. Can’t find anyone to blame for the da’s disappearance.”
“Everything points to her mam knowing where Heston is and leaving him there. She wants the power,” Cal says as he hangs up.
“The da…” Torin’s voice is low. “He gambles, fucks around, likes strippers, and living on the edge. Dotes on his kid. He’s old money, born and bred. But he owes and doesn’t like to pay up.”
“Until he has to,” Cal says. “Shares, homes, deals, favors.”
“The usual for the rich fucks of the world. Their type’s worth more alive and happy than dead or miserable. One other thing…” Torin continues, making a left turn. “He put up a lot of his company shares as collateral here and there. He’s burned through money. Maybe he’s hiding from the Wicked Witch of Central Park West? Or made a deal with her to stay out of sight?”
He pulls up next to a rundown building in Washington Heights that’s seen better days, better decades, actually. We follow Cal inside.
A man waits in the foyer for us. Without a word, he leads us down to the basement. To our cousin.
Chained up to an old washing machine is a guy, no older than early twenties. Shaved head. Tattoos that won’t bode well for him.
Enemies from rival gangs are one thing. Neo-Nazi types are another.
Roark crouches down next to the guy, pulls his head back so the fuck’s got no choice than to look up at my cousin. “I really want to do the world a favor by shooting your peckerright off, but we need to talk, so you might get a chance to keep it.” He glances up at us. “Or not.”
Cal steps up and slams his foot down on the bastard’s gonads. The scream that follows is unholy. “Why the fuck were you shooting at my brother and his lass?”
“Fuck you.” He spits blood on Cal’s boot.
I kick him hard in the ribs. It’s not the way I usually operate, but the fucker’s not worth anything more. He tried to shoot Molly.
I step away and suck in oxygen to get the rage under control. Cal can be harder than titanium—cold and brutal. Although, all my brothers can all be brutal in their own way.
And me?
I cause fucking trouble, dive into the fray, and get what needs to be done, done. I don’t kill in cold blood. Even with the fever pounding through me, I never do that.
They won’t let me.
But right now…
