I snorted because I couldn’t help it. To a willfully ignorant redneck like Cunningham, anyone who wasn’t named Bill or Tom had weird names. The few times I’d met the Texan, he’d been as racist and small-minded as they came, even going so far as to tell me he couldn’t understand Cillian; although, he didn’t seem to be having trouble today. He always made bigoted comments, much to Sloan’s disgust. Then there was the Irish mob boss in Dallas, Orlaith Scully, who hated Cunningham’s guts and refused to work with him, which was why getting drugs across the border had become harder for Cunningham.
“Which one?” Cillian asked in a bored tone. “Ye’re dragging this out.”
“It starts with aWor some shit. All you foreigners are the same with your weird names and pronunciations, aren’t you?” He spat at the floor, the glob of saliva bloody. I was surprised he hadn’t aimed for Cillian, but clearly the man wasn’t completely stupid.
“Joaquin?” I offered with a smirk.
“Yeah, that piece of shit. Him. I’m supposed to meet him in a few days at the new hair place they were building near Bal Harbour.” He grunted and let his head roll.
“Bal Harbour?” Cillian whistled. “Lush. They must be makin’ a killin’, huh?” He sent me a look and anger stirred in his gaze. He wanted serious revenge on Joaquin for testing our limits, and I didn’t blame him. I did, too. It was one thing for Joaquin Herrera to shit stir with us about their business in Miami, but another for him to threaten Conall’s life. I happened to like the boss’s pet.
“I can give you the address.” Cunningham let out a rattly breath that didn’t sound too good and met Cillian’s gaze as well as he could. I could tell I wasn’t going to like what he had to say by the nasty smile that took over his bruised face. “If I tell you the meeting time and place, will you let me go? Maybe you’re not a man of your word. You are only Irish, after all. Not even American.”
Cillian surged forward, but I managed to grab him around the chest and wrestle him backward. He cursed, and I suspected it was in Gaelic because I didn’t understand a word of what he said. I shook my head, and he pushed against me.
“No. Don’t give him the satisfaction,” I whispered, patting his shoulder. “Come on. We need to get Joaquin so we can go home and be with our boys.”
Cillian glared at Cunningham, but his urgency to get to the man subsided. When Cillian was calmer, he nodded at me, and I released him. He walked back toward the chair and plopped into it again. “Information. Now.”
* * *
Getting permission from Sloan to put an end to Joaquin, once and for all, wasn’t difficult. Sloan had reached the point in his silent anger that he demanded a head, and hearing Joaquin had wished death on Conall made his murder a surety. But Sloan had stilled our hand on killing Cunningham for now. He wanted to keep the old bastard alive to see if we could get more information out of him.
The few days leading up to the meeting gave us time to acquire all the necessary equipment to design a bomb that would only blow up a small radius but have a huge impact. Getting it into the salon was much harder.
On the first day, we watched the store. It was already open for business with people coming and going. For the most part, the customers looked like normal salon clients—women who came out with freshly cut and dyed hair—but there were a few notable men who didn’t belong, the kind who had guns hidden in their suit jackets and entered with silver briefcases they didn’t exit with.
“Yep, they’re moving the money.” Cillian shook his head. We’d paid for a swanky hotel room near the top of a tall building, giving us a perfect view of the high-end street where they’d set up shop. He pressed a pair of binoculars against his eyes, watching the front of the salon. “Fecking pricks have balls, I’ll give them that.”
“Did you figure out a way we can get the bomb in there?” I asked, leaning back in the chair out on the balcony. Mother Nature had spun the dial up on the heat today and sweat clung to my face and chest, and even though we were up high and had a nice ocean breeze, it wasn’t enough to help with the humidity.
Cillian hummed. “Aye, I think so. They’ve got a back entry that leads into an alleyway big enough for a car. Looks like the kind of thing where deliveries are made.”
“If that’s the case, why don’t the Cartel guys come in and out of there?” I frowned.
“Probably because the owners of the other shops would get suspicious.” He shrugged and passed me the binoculars.
I looked toward the salon, which was quiet except for an occasional client who walked out looking happy with their new hairdo. I scanned my view to the back, and sure enough, the alley was there. A big white van turned in to the space between the buildings, then stopped behind a shop close to the salon. The driver got out while someone exited the back door of the shop wearing a bright blue apron, and together they opened the doors of the van, pulling out crates of what appeared to be seafood.
“Yeah, it’s a delivery access road. There’s one being made to a seafood place now.”
“Well, that’s one way to get in.” He crossed his legs and rested his hands behind his head, tilting his chin back. A T-shirt clung to his solid chest. Shorts and flip-flops completed his phony man-on-vacation outfit. At least the shirt protected him from the sun. While the burn on his back and ass was on its way to healing, the last thing he needed was more to add to his collection.
I couldn’t help but appreciate the sight of him, though, even fully dressed. His muscular legs were long and the golden-brown hairs shone in the hot sun. His thighs, hidden under his gray shorts, were thick and strong, and I wanted to take the time to lick every line of muscle there before working his dick into my mouth. It was a strange sensation to want to do all this with Cillian. I hadn’t been lying to him when I’d said the desire had always been there, lingering beneath the surface, but now that I’d admitted it, I found myselfcravinghim.
“Ye’re not watching the store,” Cillian said with a smirk, shooting me a knowing look. “See something ye like, Kavanagh?”
“You know I do.” I pointed the binoculars toward his crotch and made a show of licking my lips.
He laughed loudly. “Ye feckingeejit. Stop it.” Shoving the binoculars away from my eyes, he smirked. “Ye’re a fecking tool, mate. Horny as feck. If Vail and Fallon were here, ye’d be fucking them to an early grave.”
I laughed. “Probably, but they’re not.” Raising my eyebrows, I slid off the chair and threw the binoculars on it before I went to my knees beside Cillian. I crawled closer to him while he watched. Touching my hand to his soft dick, I rubbed my palm over him slowly. “But you are.”
He swallowed, Adam’s apple jumping in his throat. “Aye, I am. But I’m not like them.”
“Never said you were.” I crept my hand to the waistband of his shorts and tugged them down under his balls. He didn’t have any underwear on, which wasn’t surprising, and I pulled out his half-hard dick. The head peeked out of his foreskin, flushed and on its way to being ready for action.
He stared, gaze hooded and full of desire. “Put yer mouth to good use.”
