I sigh. “What?”
“You call me the moment it’s done,” Cillian barks.
“Yes, Da.”
“Just do it, you little asshole.”
Saoirse’s sigh cuts between our jabs. “Can you two just say you love each other and be done with it?”
“Didn’t we just do that?”
Cillian chuckles. “Call me once it’s done, Kian. I mean it.”
The line goes dead. I put down my phone with relief. The call with my brother is out of the way.
Time to spill some blood.
I shake out the cramp in my hand and stretch my neck in both directions. I need to fucking concentrate. The last Lombardi security detail has just left to go and comb over the church.
The thirty-minute window I’ve accounted for has just swung open.
Today is a wedding. Not just any wedding—it’s the wedding of the don of the Lombardi Mafia, a contemptuous fuck named Giorgio who thinks that he gets to decide how things operate in New York City. He’s very, very wrong about that.
It’s about to cost him everything.
My lieutenant Rhys jumps over the short brick wall that separates the grass from the narrow pavement. He gives me one swift nod to confirm that everything is unfolding according to plan.
I grip the detonator in my hand. My finger grazes over the red button and savor the calm before the storm. One last moment of peace before all hell breaks loose.
Then I press down firmly.
The explosions start in little bursts. Like a firework display that’s gone off too soon. It takes a minute before the explosions work their way down the chain to the front of the gated compound.
Rhys gets into the passenger side door the moment the gates start to tremble on their hinges.
“Fucking fall already,” I growl, watching the structure with a careful eye.
“You could just drive through,” he suggests.
“I like my face arranged the way it is. Not flattened by a two-ton gate.”
It takes another minute for the Semtex explosives to do their job. Which is a minute longer that the Lombardis have to prepare.
But I figure we can afford it. I don’t want this mission to be too easy. That shit’s no fun.
Another tense few seconds tick past. And then—
BOOM!
The big payload hits. Iron shrieks as it’s torn to pieces. A fireball the size of a Volkswagen billows up and then rips in every direction, taking the exterior perimeter with it.
The moment the gate crashes down, I stomp on the accelerator. Two more vehicles follow me inside, each containing five men. It seems like a relatively unthreatening group.
Which is exactly what I want the Lombardis to think.
Security is predictably massing up out front with their weapons drawn when I come to an abrupt stop in the paved driveway that precedes the Lombardi estate.
Leaving our weapons in the car, Rhys and I clamber out with our hands raised.