Eleven
Brennan
As we drove awayfrom the stables, Bagpipes muttered, “You can’t trust Russians.”
I snorted. “Dipshit, you think I didn’t know that?”
“I’m your buddy. Your crew. I got your back—she don’t. She’s got your dick in a twist—”
My scowl darkened. “You can’t seriously think this is my dick doing the talking.” I mean, it was definitely chatting up a fucking storm now I’d seen her in person, but Christ, I wasn’t that fucking dumb.
“I don’t fucking know, man. I just know you’re gonna wed some Bratva bitch without your da’s permission. That means you’ve lost the fucking plot or something.”
I shrugged. “Da owes me some slack. Been taking up the reigns for Aidan for a while now, plus I’ve been keeping the boys in line.”
“Senior owes no one shit. You know how he works.”
Pursing my lips, I muttered, “I do.”
“And you’re still okay with going ahead with this anyway.” He shook his head. “You suicidal or something, man?”
“Nah, just got some old debts to pay off.”
“Since when do the O’Donnellys owe anyone? Usually the other way around, ain’t it?”
My crew and I were tighter than my brothers with theirs, but even though I’d come up with them, even though we’d come up together, that didn’t mean they knew all my secrets.
One of the main reasons behind my break up with Mariska was that Da had discovered I was screwing a Bratva woman, and had beaten the shit out of me for it. That would be the first time he’d broken my wrist but it hadn’t been the last, one of his usual punishments for not toeing the line when I was younger.
The family had kept our affair on the downlow. No one without an O’Donnelly last name knew I’d fucked around with a Pakhan’s wife. At the time, Forrest, Tink, and Bagpipes had jeered at me for boning an older woman, but I’d lied to them, told them it was the mom of a kid we’d gone to high school with. Now, my lies were coming home to roost where my friends were concerned.
Nose crinkling at the thought, I stretched my legs as I rumbled, “What the fuck’s Forrest’s problem anyway? He’s been nagging at me today like we’ve been married for thirty goddamn years.”
“Says you ain’t thinking properly, ain’t taking all the risks into consideration, and I can see where he’s coming from too. Your head’s been stuck in the clouds for a few days now.”
I scowled at him, but it missed the target because his focus was on the gnarly traffic that snagged us in its clutches as we headed toward Linden Blvd.
This was technically not our territory, but we’d had a place here for decades. It was rumored that Da had been burying people around this neighborhood for the past forty years, but Aidan Sr. wasn’t exactly the type of guy you could have a Q&A session with. If I’d asked, he’d have told me that the eighties were a completely different time.
Which didn’t answer my question. Nor did it delete my worries about the corpses that might pop up at any fucking moment.
The Hole was a part of the city that wasn’t really on anyone’s radar. It wasn’t hooked up to mains water, and because it was below sea level, it often flooded. On top of that, it wasn’t just the graveyard for our enemies, but also dumped cars. Those vehicles came in useful for us. On top of jacking a bunch and shipping them out to NJ for the Satan’s Sinners’ MC to strip down for parts so they could stuff ‘em full of product, we supplemented those with the abandoned junk cars we found in the neighborhood.
It was a community fucking service, not that we got any thanks for it.
The area was a shithole. More water than tarmac, fewer homes, and bad cell service. There were small housing estates that neighbored it, but that was what made it a great place for us to lay low.
No one was interested in The Hole.
Why would they be?
I’d made it my base when I’d come of age, taking over this small slice of hell because it was away from my da. We had a better relationship now than we had when I was a snot-nosed kid, but I thought most of us did to be honest. I didn’t think he’d ever view us as equals. We’d always be his blue-eyed boys —even if we didn’t all have blue fucking eyes—but as we grew older, as we reigned over our own parts of the firm, well, his respect had to be earned and we’d done that with every drop of blood we’d shed for the Five Points. All of us had bled for the family. Some of us more than others.
Not just like with Aidan, who’d nearly been crippled in a drive-by shooting, but with Finn who’d almost lost his wife in that same attack.
The sacrifices we made to be a Pointer were many. As I grew to know Seamus, Declan’s teenaged son, I had to admit he was one of the reasons I wanted to settle down. Why I was ready to wife someone who knew the score, and who wanted the same things as me—a family.
“You’ve been weird ever since Shay turned up,” Bagpipes muttered, disarming me with how his mind was running on the same track as mine. “He’s a cool kid, man, but fuck, it’s turning your head.”