"What makes you think I’m going to lose my shit over a piece of trash like MacMurray?"
"You forget that I know you as well as I know myself," he grumbled.
I shot him a smirk before I strode over to MacMurray.
My back to the crowd, I called out, "I’m sure that being gathered together with such short notice has come as a surprise to you." Turning to face my men, I dug my foot under MacMurray's shoulder and tipped him on his side. "I’m running a risk, after all, having you grouped in this one space, but I figure it’s worth it."
"No one would betray the Points, sir," someone shouted.
I peered over in the direction from which it came, but I didn’t bother getting the guy to stand up.
"You’d be surprised who’d betray us," was my reply.
I figured I kept it cool enough because, from the corner of my eye, I watched Finn’s shoulders relax some.
Finn tended to know what I was going to do before I fucking thought of it thanks to decades of friendship.
It was obvious that I was going off script at the moment.
Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.
Especially with how easy it had been for MacMurray to talk smack about me to my face.
My words triggered whispers.
"You’d be surprised who’d betray us," I repeated. "Our family… Because that’s what you are, are you not? My people?"
A low wave of murmured agreements greeted me.
After I unfastened the buttons on my sports coat, I shoved my hands into my pockets and peered over at them, ensuring that I was talking to no one in particular but to the collective.
Not even at Da's funeral had every Five Pointer been in attendance, with only the top brass joining the inner circle there and at the wake.
For the runners, I'd made sure there was an open tab at one of their bars—the unimaginatively namedFlanagan’s.
"When my father died, I inherited you. You might not see it that way, but I do. I inherited this position, I inherited the men, and I inherited the problems and the enemies as well as the allies.
"But it’s come to my attention that some of you think I’m a pussy." Ignoring the grumbles of disagreement as the bullshit they likely were, I waved a hand down at MacMurray. "A secret Cain let me in on."
My knee was at eighty-five percent strength. It had to be at a hundred for this, but if they needed proof that I was a changed man, here,now, was where I had to show them.
I stood on my weak leg, used the other to rear back, and kicked Cain in the ass.
He yelped around his gag as he tumbled five or so feet away.
"Do you agree with him?" I queried, staring at them with a forbidding expression as I followed Cain. In response, the men in the front row angled back and away from me. "Feel free to speak your mind. Like Cain also said, I’m not my da."
Darragh, the father of my cousin, Mary Catherine, got to his feet. "You’re not Senior, Aidan, but that doesn’t mean you’re not formidable in your own way."
I pursed my lips when I heard someone snarl, "Ass kisser."
"The second I inherited this bullshit was the second I knew someone would think they could try to take it from me.
"You can try, you will fail, but I understand that a man has aspirations. Give it your best fucking shot," I intoned calmly. "But what you willnotdo is what Cain did."
Jonesy, one of Da’s guards like MacMurray, stood. "What did he do, Aidan? Why you got him taped up like that? He’s one of us, not an enemy."
"Cain was detained after he beat a hooker to death—"