"Think that’s the first time he ever admitted that out loud?" Declan whispered to Eoghan.
"I think so," Eoghan agreed as he kicked up his feet and settled them on the coffee table. "You accepted you’re not stupid just dyslexic?"
Aidan scowled at him but, to me, said, "Send the files over to these asswipes."
A couple taps later, and the information was in their inboxes.
Well,someof it.
"What’s going on with you, Aidan?" Finn rasped. "You’ve been acting weird since MacMurray."
"Nah, since before then," Brennan argued. "But that slicing off the tongue shit rammed the message home nice and clean."
Aidan cast him a look. "No complaints in the ranks?"
Brennan shook his head. "None. Aside from with Da’s detail. But we knew they’d be a problem."
Aidan clamped his hand down around his glass. "Anything Da touched is a fucking problem. It ain’t going to be enough to keep them under our thumb through fear. We’ve got too many potential leaks. They’ll sink us if we ain’t careful."
Finn’s nod came slow as his brain raced to follow Aidan’s when he was in the dark about a lot of shit. "You’re talking Sparrows?"
"I’m talking Sparrows, and I’m talking ECD, and I’m talking just plain old Bratva. Da got too fucking big for his boots, and instead of letting us in when he got sick, and allowing us to manage the leaks before they spread, now I’m the one who has to consolidate everything before it comes tumbling down on our heads."
The words settled around us like nuclear fallout.
The bitch of it was, I couldn’t argue.
"Deartháir," Brennan rasped, "talk to us."
But Aidan just sighed. "Ain’t it obvious what I need to do?"
I frowned. "You’re shitting me."
Finn scowled. "No. You can’t do that."
Eoghan, Declan, and Brennan shared glances, their confusion clear, but Aidan didn’t let them speak, just rumbled, "I’m the filthy king, ain’t I? I can do whatever I fucking want."