Slipping my phone into my pocket, I say, “Sorry. It was about a business deal in New York.”
Cal scrunches his brows. “What deal?”
I shrug, having to come up with a lie on the spot. “I’ve been going to New York to work out a line of business with the Italians.”
“Without my approval?” Declan asks.
He’s in charge of our shipments, so probably not the best lie. But to be honest, I don’t really have a job in the family business beyond being Callum’s right-hand man. He never runs decisions through me, so I wind up just picking up tasks he’s unable to do.
Like killing men who have crossed us, or reigning in our brothers while he makes peace with the Russians. Callum is a control freak, so he’s not usually one to delegate and it leaves me left twiddling my thumbs while I wait for the next task. So I run with it. “I’ve been fucking bored. I’ve taken it upon myself to align with the Italians.”
There. That explains my recent disappearances.
“We’ll discuss this later when Scotty’s out of surgery,” Sean says. He turns to Callum. “And what I mean by that is get your fucking men in line starting with that one.” He points toward me, aggression in the motion.
“Fuck off, Sean. You’re the baby of the family and have the easiest job,” I snap. I approach Callum and wrap the band around his forearm.
“Fuck off?” Sean laughs, and in my peripheral I catch him shaking his head, as if unbelieving his older brother could tell him such a thing. “You think because I sit behind a laptop all day, my job is easy? I spend most of my time making sure all of you fucks stay alive. It’s more than just hacking into systems and building firewalls. Now you have me hacking a city camera to figure out who shot Scotty. I deal with more than you, Paddy. You sit on your ass and drink away your day most of the time. Now you have the audacity to lie about what you’re doing in New York.”
My head pivots to him, right as I’m stabbing Callum with the needle. He grunts but doesn’t complain further than that. “Keep your fucking mouth shut, Sean.”
“Jesus Christ,” Callum says, his gruff voice filled with a dark edge. He pinches the bridge of his nose, head shaking. “The two of you always fought the worst. I hoped it would lessen as adults. But here we are.”
“For real,” Declan says, leaning against the wall and glancing at his feet. Declan’s always been the calmest of us. Quiet and reserved. Serious. He was the scholar and I know it killed him to come into the family business in control of shipments and bank accounts instead of finding his true potential.
Sean steps forward. “Callum. Scotty is lying on a table in the fucking basement of a warehouse with your girlfriend’s hand shoved in his cracked chest. And Paddy is to blame. So I will not shut the fuck up.”
“Paddy is not to blame for family wars,” Declan interjects. “This shit happens all the time. We just need to find out who and why.”
Sean glances at me, a look of warning plastered on his face. As if he wants me to tell the truth before he does.
I sigh, finishing Callum's blood draw. “He’s not wrong. I suppose this is my fault.”
“What do you mean?” Callum asks. He stands to allow Declan to sit next.
I clear my throat. “Do you remember Giovanni Sorrentino? Callum and I went to his son’s wedding a few months ago.”
“Aye, lad,” Callum says, his accent growing thick. I can tell when his patience is growing thin, and now is one of those times. If I don’t tell him what’s going on, he’s going to lose his shit.
The door opens as my courage grows, and before I can process what and who it is, I say, “I may have, sort of, gotten his daughter pregnant.”
Chapter Ten
23 Years Old (Past)
Myhandslidintothe band of my fatigues, and I gripped my hard cock, the aching unbearable. It had been a while since I was in our tent alone with no one to interrupt me. I had been trying to fall asleep for an hour now, to no avail.
And I knew it was because Paddy was on my mind. Tossing and turning and ignoring the heated feeling in my core didn’t work. So I needed to just put myself out of my misery. Usually, when images of Paddy came, I pushed them away. I’d always felt guilty of thinking of my best friend while I jerked off.
He was straight and had no interest in me, but here I was thinking of how his boyish, crooked grin made my stomach do somersaults, and how his bicep muscles flexed when he did pushups on the floor of our barracks before bed.
My heart fluttered every time I caught him smiling at me, and every time I thought about how he sacrificed his happiness to follow me here. He didn’t have to join the Army, didn’t have to deploy across the world in a war zone to keep me company.
And all of those things made me fall even harder for him. The guilt of those feelings always ate at me. He’d never want me–I couldn’t be what he needed. But now, I needed to get him out of my head.
I closed my eyes, resting my head on the bottom bunk that he and I shared. My hand gripped the shaft of my erection and I groaned at the sensation. Closing my eyes, Paddy’s face filled my mind. A shirtless Paddy, dripping with sweat as the sun beamed on him. This morning he was playing soccer with some of the others and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to kiss him, run my hands along the hardened muscles of his abs.
So in my head, I allowed myself to do those things. I gave myself permission to run my tongue along his earlobe and imagined the sound of his groans driving me on to touch him. And I moved my fist to the beat of what I’d do to him.
