For the first time I understood why Orlando had pushed me so hard into accepting him, because even though I didn’t trust Liam yet, the promise of future trust was there. He was now the only family I had. A fact that confused me.
I felt like I could trust him. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to be what he needed, because now I needed somebody. I never realized how much Orlando filled that role for me. Over the last four years since I had become Boss, he was the one person I vented to. The one person I used as a whiteboard for all my plans, telling him each and every step just because I needed to get it out of my head. I told him when I was stressed, when I just wanted to murder someone, and when I did murder someone. Orlando was my true right-hand, and now Liam was taking his place. Not in a creepy Liam is my daddy type way, but more like Liam was now the only person I could freely speak with.
Everyone else was under me, everyone else I didn’t respect. Orlando had been it. Now Liam was.
“You were right,” Liam replied, his voice serious as he took a seat in front of me. The maids were gone. I hated that he was in pajama bottoms. I missed staring at his ass.
“I know.” I smirked. “But about what?”
Rolling his eyes at me, he handed me the file before heading to his desk. He grabbed his brandy and poured us both a cup. Looking over the flight transcript, I grinned.
“Amory is on his way to Austria,” I read aloud, taking the glass he offered.
“Yes, and I was thinking about using it as a cover.” He frowned, drinking slowly. I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t.
“Well?” I asked, annoyed that I had to waste words.
He eyed me carefully as though I were a child before he spoke, and it pissed me off. “Orlando didn’t want the world knowing he was sick. I was thinking of causing a fake accident and let rumor spread it was Amory.”
He stopped, and in my mind I thought it was perfect. But he misread my facial expression.
“I don’t mean to use your father’s death as a chess piece, nor do I want to—”
“Liam, shut the hell up. I’m not a child whose feelings will get hurt. Yes, I care for Orlando, but he is dead. I knew it was coming for years. It sucks, but don’t treat me as if I’m glass. My father would have loved to be used to screw the Valero. So let’s do what we do best—a game of chess.”
I was not going to be seen as emotional because my daddy was dead. Nor would I let Liam forget who I was, even though our relationship was changing. I was still a fucking Boss, and I still had work to do.
He raised an eyebrow to at me before leaning back and smirking. “Glass you are not, wife. Very well. We will allow Amory to think he killed Orlando. The bastard will be so full of himself he’ll take bigger risks, thinking he took out the great Iron Hands. When he goes to Morocco in the next couple of weeks, we will go to Italy and burn down some cars.”
“Vance will be forced to react and bark orders at Amory, who will tell Ryan, and when we know, we will keep bleeding him dry,” I replied.
“Death by a thousand cuts.”
“And then cut off his head,” I said, raising my glass before knocking it back.
He handed me another file, this one full of pictures of all his men.
The first was of a hazel-eyed, dark-haired man in his early thirties. “Patrick Darragh, is like my malware. He can make sure nothing that we don’t want in the press gets in the press, and he can also get anything on air in seconds.”
“The next is Dylan Cormac,” he said as I looked at the green-eyed man. “He is my weapons expert. If you want it, he can get it, no matter what it is.”
I filed through all the photos quickly. “You fucking Irish breed like rabbits.”
“Speaking of, how many kids do you want?”
I glared at him, not sure if I should shoot him or not. “You will find out when I’m okay with the idea of being barefoot and pregnant.”
“Why do I have a feeling that that isn’t a measurable amount of time?”
“How about we get to know each other, and in a few years, we can discuss this topic again,” I said, and he grinned, the fucker. I knew he just couldn’t wait until I was round and fat, unable to drink, and stuck in bed while he fucked over the world. Hell to the fucking no to that.
“Was that Rule Four?”
“I guess so.”
THIRTEEN
“Murder is not the crime of criminals,
but that of law-abiding citizens.”
~ Emmanuel Teney
LIAM
“The plan was flawless,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Every last detail was planned out for you, you no good brainless cocksuckers. We all but drew you a fucking map! So where the fuck did I lose you!”
I threw a gun at Neal, Antonio, Eric, and Jinx’s faces. Those idiotic muscle-head fuckers messed up, and I was tempted to kill them all.
“Sir, we had Amory on the Port Lincoln, but he had already been in Austria for days and knew something was up. We set the trip wires and even gave him time to leave, but the Italian here didn’t give us a heads up he was circling back,” Eric said, looking at Antonio who was ready to throw a punch at his fucking face.
“You know what, you Irish son of a bitch—”
“Enough!” I stepped forward, my voice still echoing off the rafters. “Will one of you explain to me how we lost some of our own fucking men? Did you push the idiot button?”
“Amory found the trip wires and reconfigured them onto the safe house,” Neal answered, looking me dead in the eye, and I wanted to bash his fucking skull in. We lost five of our men—three Irish, two Italian—all blown to bits because of their fucking dumb shit.
“Is this your first time on a mission? You embarrassed the family.” I moved toward Neal. “You embarrassed me, and now you stand before me with your cocks in your hands unsure of what to do with yourselves.”
Sighing, I turned back around to find my wife sitting in my leather chair behind the oak desk, simply staring at the fucked-up men behind me. She was stunning dressed in a beautiful blue, lace dress with her white shoes. But I knew she was just as pissed as I was. In the last nine days, we had fought and fucked hard, and I was starting to read her as well as she could read me. Unfortunately, our men were like cavemen and had no idea how to fucking work together, and now I had five dead on my hands.
We stood in my basement with all our men around us, but no one was speaking. Not a single one of them. Mel pulled out a gun and placed it on the table with a single bullet before looking me in the eyes. She wanted blood, and so did I.
“Who was the biggest fuck up?” she asked softly. I noticed she never really yelled at the men when she was pissed off. In fact, her voice became softer, as though she wanted to haunt those around her.
No one spoke up, so I walked up beside her, leaning against the table. “She asked a question. We want an answer, or we will kill you all and start over. How much do we pay them, love?”
She glared at me, and I knew she hated when I called her that in public, but I didn’t care.
“Five million a year? I could go to the ghetto and get men to replace them in five minutes with the offer of 500k,” she said offhandedly as she spun the gun on the table.
Nodding, I looked back at the men. “So again, we ask, who fucked up the most?”