“Holy Jesus fuck, what’s on the menu this year?” Neal asked, wide-eyed. I could see the excitement building in his eyes.
Fedel grinned. “You Irish better watch your backs.”
“Non vedo l'ora di prendere questi cani verso il basso.” Antonio laughed alongside Fedel.
Declan stepped forward. “If you’re going to trash talk us, do it in English or Irish so everyone can hear or beidh mé briseadh do liathróidí.”
“Just in case you don’t know, he said he will break your balls.” Neal laughed.
Antonio held up his hands, not even least bit afraid. “You Irish and your balls. All I said is I can’t wait.”
“Enough,” Liam snapped at them.
A whole week of this . . . how fun.
Sedric looked desperate, and I would be, too, if I had to spend time with the women. “Mel, are you—”
“No, Sedric,” Evelyn and I said at the same time. She looked at me and grinned as if we had an alliance.
“This sounds so stupid,” Olivia declared with her nose so high a bird could nest in it. “Neal—”
“Neal works for me . . . us,” I said as Liam glared at me. “This is part of the job. Don’t like it, too bad. But if you’re really worried, I will personally make sure he doesn’t become someone’s butt pirate.”
Their jaws dropped, and Liam opened his mouth but closed it quickly, chuckling to himself. Smiling, I glanced once more at Adriana before turning toward the plane. In an hour, we would be at camp and I wouldn’t have to deal with being a Callahan for a week.
The moment I stepped onto the plane, they all stopped speaking and looked at me.
“Continue.” I didn’t have anything to say to them. Sitting down, I noticed Eric had a leg brace on. He met my gaze, and I simply grinned, forcing him to look away.
Fedel walked up to me—not sitting, seeing as how he had lost that right—with a file I hadn’t seen before. I almost wanted to smile at him. Information was the key to my good graces.
“Yes, Fedel?” I asked as Nelson, the stuttering fool, handed me a glass of wine before going to serve the rest of the plane.
“I know you don’t like apologies—”
“And yet here you are wasting words, Fedel.”
He nodded. “I have kept watch on Vance and found something, but I haven’t been able to confirm it yet.”
I hated unconfirmed information because it often led to dead ends. However, he knew that, so whatever it was had to big enough for us to pay attention to whether it was true or not. Glancing around the plane, I only saw Neal.
“Wait until Liam takes a seat, and then join us,” I replied. I watched as shock flashed through his eyes before he nodded.
He wouldn’t have to wait long seeing as how a second later, Liam stepped onboard with Declan right behind him. Liam looked almost annoyed when he looked at me, and it was ticking me off. I wanted to shoot him in the fucking face, the emotional bitching bastard. I hadn’t done anything. He wanted to be Mr. Cold and act like a dick then I would let him. The cabin went silent again for him.
“If anyone plays a prank on me, I will cut your hand off and make you eat it. Feel free to spread that around, because I’m not joking.” He didn’t even have to state it. The amount of poison and ice in his voice promised more than the loss of a hand.
They all nodded before continuing to speak among themselves. Liam walked back to where I was, stopping to stare—glare—at Fedel.
“Didn’t you fire him?” he asked me.
“Leaders don’t fire people. It sets a bad precedent.” I smirked. “Instead, we kill them.”
In that moment, I saw his lips twitch up into a smile before it was gone again. He nodded, placing his bag in the overhead compartment before sitting down.
“Why isn’t he dead then?” he asked, pulling out the brandy from his coat pocket. He was such a drunk.
“He may have information on Vance,” I replied, taking a drink of my wine. Liam glanced up, waiting for Fedel to speak, but before he could, Jinx started the jet.
“Well sit down, Fedel,” Liam stated.
He was more than happy to, and I respected that he was working hard to make sure I didn’t ever have to put him in his place again.
“You said he might have something?” Liam asked, and Fedel pulled out what looked to be letters in code and some in Russian.
“I haven’t been able to decrypt them all,” Fedel replied quickly. “However, from what I can tell, this is Vance’s Step Two.”
“You skipped a step?” I asked, picking up the papers.
“It wasn’t clear until now. Step One was getting started with Alexei Rozhkov,” Fedel replied, pulling out the photo of the old Russian mob boss with a scar across his neck. Some brave soul had snuck into his bedroom and slit his throat but the bastard still lived.
He was one of the most powerful men, alongside Orlando and Sedric. Was being the key word.
“Did your people kill him?” I looked to Liam.
Liam shook his head. “Father had been hacking away at him for years. Then when Declan stole the rest of his fortune, the man was basically crippled. He couldn’t afford the high quality smack anymore. No junky would even blink at his shit. His men left him, he lost his houses, friends, everything, and my father wanted to kill him, but I thought it would best to make him live in the slums he created. All he had was some precious fourteen-million dollar red diamond, which I thought was just a rumor until we heard someone stole it.”
Fedel looked at me, snickering as I just drank my sweet red wine. The whole cabin became silent as Liam and his men’s eyes slowly fell on me. My people boasted with pride, but Liam stared at me in shock.
What the fuck were they shocked for? As if stealing a rock was the worst thing I had ever done.
“You stole it,” Declan said, slowly rolling it around his tongue, and Neal looked jealous.
“I needed a new coaster?” I replied. It wasn’t a big deal to me. Liam didn’t speak, he simply leaned back into his chair and frowned out the window.
“How old were you?” Neal asked, leaning back as well, as if I was about to give him a fucking bedtime story.
“It was the weekend before my eighteenth birthday. I wanted to get myself something nice, pretty, and shiny. So I did a little digging, found his not-so-secret safe house in northern Russia, and thought why not? I haven’t pissed off any Russians yet, and stole it.” It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but I did it.
“She was in and out in eight minutes,” Fedel added. “Three minutes to break in, two minutes to kill two of his men, a minute and nineteen seconds to grab the jewel, and then forty-two seconds to get out.”
“What happened to the last minute and forty-one seconds?” Declan asked, but his mind seemed to be racing.
“The last minute and forty-one seconds to send the house up in flames,” Jinx added over the intercom, making me smile.
Jinx didn’t often show his face—he preferred to keep hidden from everyone—but that didn’t mean he wasn’t always listening. Plus, he would know. He was the one who picked me up.
LIAM
Are you fucking kidding me! Seriously! At seventeen, I was a sophomore in college still trying to get rid of my acne and my awkward bullshit, while she was blowing up houses and stealing a rare jewel in the bloody motherland.