“Architect?” I mouthed.
Eoghan pulled a face and sliced a finger along his throat. Well, that wasn’tveryinformative.
“This bastard thought he could short change me,” Aidan growled, and said bastard began to moan behind his gag.
I’d heard it often enough to translate the muffled apologies and pleas for forgiveness.
It wasn’t going to work.
Aidan might believe in atonement and confession for himself and his boys, but for those who crossed him?
No such luck.
“How did he do that?” I asked, trying to keep my tone soothing. Not that it was easy, considering I was feeling anythingbutcalm.
“I wanted that wrap around pool, do you remember? On Acuig Heights?”
I mentally flipped through the manifest for the project that had brought Aoife Keegan into my life, and recalled the pool.
Aidan had seen a hotel in Asia that had a pool on the side of the building. The base was glass, so when you were swimming, you were looking down to your death.
It was the kind of sick shit he found amusing, and ever since I’d rummaged through the Points’ property portfolio and had come up with Aoife’s building as a nice location ready for gentrification, he’d been rambling on and on about the pool.
“Yeah, I remember,” I told him warily, wondering how we’d gone from that to this.
“Bastard only says it isn’t possible now he promised it to me. Says it goes against the permit we have.”
My nostrils flared, and I caught Aidan’s gaze with mine. “We can get new permits, Aidan. Getting a new architect isn’t exactly easy.”
The gushing sounds coming from the gagged man were noisy. He was agreeing and pleading for his life simultaneously.
I rolled my eyes at the noise.
Seriously, didn’t people realize how fucking annoying they were? Didn’t they know that pissing off someone with a loaded gun was only going to get them shot fucking sooner?
Christ.
“Architects are ten a penny,” Aidan countered, the lilt of our home land coming out.
None of us had even set foot in Ireland, well, none save for Brennan and Magdalena, and especially not Aidan, but the accent came out every now and again. Usually, when he was at his most enraged.
Taking the lilt for the warning it was, I murmured, “You know that’s not true, Aidan. We’re building the Heights to be one of the largest skyscrapers in the city. Greaves and Potters are the best on the East Coast with that kind of engineering.”
“Then we get the best in from the West Coast,” Aidan growled.
“And that will add time to our schedule.”
“Schedule?” Aidan snorted. “You can’t even clear the building, so we can pull the bastard down to make way for the Heights.”
I pursed my lips. “That’s where you’re wrong. I finally managed to clear the building today. By next month, we’ll be breaking ground on the Heights if everything goes according to plan, and you butchering our architect—” My words were interrupted by some noisy sobs and more piss puddling on my fifty thousand dollar rug. “—then that’s going to drag shit behind, isn’t it?”
Sometimes, when Aidan was like this, you had to explain things to him rationally. Almost as if he were a boy.
As he processed my words, he began to slow his pacing, until finally, he demanded, “Why didn’t one of you dipshits remind me I needed the architect?”
Jr. snickered. “Da, there’s no reminding you your fly’s down when you’re in one of your mads.”
Shit, that was true. Aidan’smads, as his wife called them,were infamous, but it was a little too close to the line for Jr. to be making jokes at his Pa’s expense.