Wait, he’s here? This whole time I could’ve just walked over to talk to him? That’s... weird.
Okay, so maybe that only makes me like Seamus a tiny bit more, and now I’m even more eager to meet him.
“This is happening,” Eian snaps louder, and clearly out of patience. Part of me feels sorry for Seamus, but then again, it’s not like we have a lot of time. “Be grateful I didn’t bring everyone down with me at the same time. You can come down now.” He says that last part for all of us obviously.
Rory goes straight down with Blake, and I find it oddly touching how Mac gestures for me to pass before Duffy and him.
There’s a huge room downstairs with a large couch, bigger TV, and some sort of mechanical system that I have no idea what it’s for. There are three different doors, one where Eian is standing and the other two closed—bathroom and closet?
Instead of going over to Eian, Rory and Blake walk straight to the couch and sit. As I take the last step down, I see a whiteboard nailed to the wall under the stairs, and when I look it seems to be some kind of investigation board.
Pictures of Lucian, his younger sister Cecilia, Lorenzo Di Leo, all the heads of the Italian families, and a map with different locations marked with red dots.
All it’s missing is some red string and it would look ready for a movie scene or something.
“Sit down, Colby,” Eian says, and he sounds like he’s trying to not lose his patience, so I hurry to sit next to Rory while Mac and Duffy stay standing by the board. Eian walks over to stand on its other side and then...
A young guy, with pure black hair, almost translucent skin, big hazel eyes that narrow with obvious trepidation... He’s bracing for the worst. Without even hearing him speak I know it’s gotta be Seamus, because that lack of trust in his voice is always very clear when he speaks.
He propels himself forward in his wheelchair, and I don’t react except with an up nod.
He seems to me like a guy who’s ready for a fight, and I’m not going to give him one, mostly because I don’t know what we would even fight about, but also, I don’t have the energy today.
“Colby, this is Seamus O’Malley.”
“Nice to finally meet you, Seamus.”
“Yeah, same,” he mumbles, and after a brief pause he pushes himself toward the whiteboard, then looks at Eian expectedly.
We all follow suit because... yeah, he’s up, and he doesn’t disappoint.
“There’s only one rule all the families in the city must follow for the others to allow them to exist. No human trafficking.”
His hard face seems like it’s made out of stone as he looks at each of us.
“Our issues with the Italians have always been about revenge, about simple hatred, but when Colby first heard about an organization peddling flesh in the city more than a year ago, the first leads he had led to me, to us. That was way before we found and freed the victims Duffy saw at the warehouse. Colby investigated further and found proof that it was actually the Italians, more specifically Lucian Venuti’s men who were involved. When he told his boss he had proof it wasn’t us, he was fired.
“That same day, a woman went to the brothel in Queens and asked for a job. She’s one of the victims and was planted there by Venuti. Colby and I talked to her and she identified the other man who’s leading this organization. It’s the mayor,” he says after a long pause. “Carl Brent.”
Eian’s face remains impassive while everyone else reacts. Strongly, loudly, with a lot of cursing. When they finally stop, Eian stares at the most vocal—Duffy of course.
“Are you done?”
“For now,” he says, voice feral.
“Good, because there’s a lot more. Brent apparently goes to see her every week, like clockwork. He was there two nights ago, so we have five days to take care of this, and we need to find a way to do it that doesn’t end up with Lucian claiming I’m the one who’s peddling flesh to the other families. I’ve been thinking about it, and that has to be his escape plan, or maybe he just really wants to get rid of me, because if he blew the whistle to the Feds, then he’d lose the business.”
“The mayor’s probably the one who’s making sure the Feds don’t come anywhere near this,” I say, following his logic.
“There’s no way to know unless we get one of them in a room,” Rory points out, and her way-too-eager smile tells me she’s not thinking this through.
“The second the mayor goes missing, we’re all but guaranteed to go to prison,” I say, because we have to be realistic. “There are too many cameras, and he has security. No matter how careful we were, we’d need months of planning and possibly infiltrating his security team to pull that off.”
“And we have less than five days before he realizes Luisa isn’t where he left her and starts coming for us,” Eian adds. “We don’t want him to know we know anything until we have some way to get rid of him.”
“And if he’s killed, he becomes a martyr,” Seamus pipes up, calmer now and looking thoughtfully at his murder board. “No matter how shady, all murdered politicians become martyrs.”
“Who gives a fuck?” Duffy demands. “If he’s dead, he can’t do shit anymore. That’s what we want, isn’t it?”
