We both knew it.
Just like we knew he wouldn’t say jack. Not even to Forrest or Tink.
Clearing my throat, I muttered, “Don’t worry about it, Baggy. Everything will turn out all right.”
“It always does,” he agreed.
Neither of us mentioned how many poor fuckers would die before the shit turned out right in the end, though.
In fact, neither of us said all that much as we made it down trash-filled streets, roads lined with dumped cars that we’d be sending over to West Orange to facilitate our trafficking product up to the Canadian border.
As always, at least three streets were bogged down with water because not only were we about thirty feet under sea level, this area wasn’t hooked up to drains.
Nobody gave a fuck about The Hole, and that was why I’d made it my home away from home.
Dirty water splashed in cascading waves wherever we drove, and when Baggy pulled up outside our warehouse, I sighed and, thinking back to what I’d heard Forrest grumbling about on the phone, muttered, “She’s in there, I assume?”
“Demanded to speak with you.”
“Probably prefers talking to me rather than Declan.”
“Yeah,” Baggy agreed. “Let’s face it, Dec don’t give a shit about the business, but once she screwed his son over, she became a walking target.”
I hummed under my breath. “She still is one. Nobody touches a fucking O’Donnelly and lives without regretting it.”
His nose crinkled. “Bitch lost a couple of fingers and a thumb, Brennan. Probably has to pick her nose with a back-scratcher—I think she regrets it.”
“She will before we’re done with her.”
“Wonder how she explained her injuries to her superiors.”
Uncaring, I shrugged. “Probably told them she accidentally sliced them off when she was cooking.”
Bagpipes snorted. “Don’t fucking cook much, do ya?”
“Nah, too worried about cutting off a finger.”
As he grinned back at me, I slammed the door shut after I got out, hearing the driver’s door bang closed a few seconds later.
The yard was as muddy as every other part of this dump, and the outer walls of the place looked like they were about to seize under all the asbestos, but once I walked up the three stairs to the low porch, and headed inside, it showed a different side to things.
The front half was for business.
Where people came to talk to me, to curry favors, to petition our help. We were a little like a feudal system for our clients who paid us protection money. Da was proud of our service. Unlike the other fuckers who took businesspeople’s money and didn’t give a shit if they were hit up or if they were raided by the cops, Da provided a different kind of protection.
We cost twice more than the Russians and the Italians, were a little cheaper than those Triad cocksuckers, but we were worth it.
Unfortunately for me, I was the one who mostly dealt with angry bakers who’d lost their permits, and flustered jewelry store owners who’d been dealing with a spate of robberies.
Fun.
“What’s going on?” I asked when I saw the fourth man in my crew, Tinker, hovering by the stairs, waiting on me to show up.
It felt like all three of my guys had been dithering around as I hauled my ass across the city, but they didn’t say anything.
We were best buds, shot the shit like we were brothers, but they knew when I was boss.
“Caroline Dunbar wants to see you, but so does Anthony Isaac.”