ned an Irish bar on Sixty-Third. I’d find it. How many could there be? Leo and Dane were going to freak, but they’d just have to deal.
How I was going to get past Leo’s guys who were posted at the door to protect me, that was something I still had to figure out.
I would. I’d find a way. I always did.
LEO
O’Sullivan had more white than red hair, but the bastard was still a mean fucker, even if he wasn’t so young anymore. In fact, he was deadlier than ever. But sitting across from him at a scarred table in a small Irish pub made him look like the grandfather he was. Nice. Kind. Huggable.
Until he spoke.
“You’re not dead.”
Yeah, the asshole was sharp.
“Your men are terrible shots, it seems,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.
There were three men standing around the table. Looming. Another sat at the bar and pretended to nurse a Guinness. The only people in the place without a weapon were me and Dane. My gun sat at the end of the bar by the door and Dane never carried. Even the bartender, who was using a rag to wipe down the glossy wood surface, was carrying.
“Look, let’s get this cleared up and we can go about our day,” Dane said, the obvious diplomat. He was used to making deals using words. I used my fists and that wasn’t going to work now.
“You and your friend saw something you shouldn’t.”
“We have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dane countered.
“You shot the shit out of Harper’s kitchen,” I said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” O’Sullivan parroted.
Yeah, this was going well.
“Fine. We want to live. Breathing’s good,” Dane added. “But we want to do it without having to worry about being shot at. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
Dane pulled his phone from his pocket, and the three goons surrounding us stepped closer. One aimed a gun at Dane’s head.
He lifted his hands in the air in surrender, his phone in one. Slowly, he placed it on the table, slid it across to O’Sullivan. “Here.”
“What’s this?” he asked, looking down at the screen but not touching it.
Smart man. No fingerprints.
“Insurance.”
O’Sullivan glanced at the screen, saw what his nephew had shared, but remained silent.
A commotion at the door had all of us looking that way.
I’d been calm. On edge, sure, but calm. I couldn’t fight off a bunch of guys with guns. This wasn’t my turf. But when I saw Harper with her arms up and being frisked—no, fucking groped—by one of the goons, I saw red.
Stood.
My chair scraped across the wood floor.
“What the fuck is she doing here?”
Harper’s gaze met mine. I saw determination in her face. Not fear.
“I didn’t bring her in,” O’Sullivan said. While he didn’t show any change of expression, I heard something akin to surprise in his tone.