Chapter Twenty-Four

Eamon

Forty thousand dollars wasn’t a lot of money. Sure, to the average working stiff it was a full year of taking shit from some middle manager, two weeks of vacation time and endless meetings that made him want to kill himself, but it still wasn’t a lot of money.

I knew to Layla it was a lot of money, and I knew how it made her feel to fuck me to clear that debt, but it was an unimpressive amount. And when you saw it all together it was just four stacks, each containing one hundred pieces of paper with Benjamin Franklin’s face smiling at you.

On top of the stack was another five hundred bucks. Exactly the amount Peter Michaels owed.

“Is there anything else I can do for you Mr. Connelly?” The pretty bank manager gave me a professional smile, keeping her distance like a smart woman.

“No thank you Natalie. I’m set.” Her gaze slid to the now closed safe deposit box and back to my face.

“Very good, Mr. Connelly.” We locked the box and she escorted me to the door with a smile and a friendly, “See you again real soon.” It was folksy as hell but a nice touch.

So said Patrick when she gave him the same routine.

Cash in hand, I made my way to the car and ripped off the bands, balling up a few bills, rolling some between rubber bands and shoving it all into a convenience store paper bag. My dad would be pleased and that was all that mattered.

Patrick was waiting in the over the top sun room when I arrived. “I thought you might have had more important things to do than meet with your ol’ da.” Sometimes, for no discernible reason, Patrick would speak in a stilted Irish accent.

“It’s still Saturday, isn’t it?” I flashed a grin and though his wrinkled eyes were still keen as hell, his smile was the one I’d known all my life.

“It is. You look well rested.”

“So do you for once.” The old man refused to slow down even though his body wasn’t quite as sharp as his mind was, which was to say his big frame no longer held the fifty extra pounds of muscle it had in his younger days.

“Yeah, that Ambien is better than whiskey and a cigar. Who knew?” Another ghost of a grin flashed before his expression turned to business.

“Got something for me?”

“I do.” I nodded and handed him the paper bag, standing there in front of his desk like a child waiting to be scolded as he counted it out. By hand. Twice.

“Good job son. I can always count on you to get the job done.”

“Yeah, you can.”

He gave a sharp nod, the only sign he would ever give that he was impressed. “Shae and Rourke are waiting in the dining room, we’d better hurry before they eat all our lunch.”

“Lunch?” Though we usually ate family dinner on Sundays unless work kept us busy, it was rare for all four of us to sit down to a meal any other time. “What’s up?”

Patrick stood to his full height, so we were almost eye-to-eye. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

And I knew that was that. Patrick didn’t reveal any information any sooner than he deemed it necessary. It was a damn frustrating part of working with my father that no one ever told me, his weird little eccentricities that weren’t a huge problem at the breakfast table could make life irritating as hell as an adult. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”

“We all have secrets, son. Just make sure they’re not the kind that get you a desert grave.” And with that he entered the kitchen with me behind him wondering what kind of trouble was about to fall on our heads because nothing but family matters would get Patrick riled up.

And he was riled up. It was the stiff set of his broad, square shoulders, those tiny lines of tension around his mouth as he took the head of the table and I took the spot to his right. “I taught you boys well if you didn’t devour everything in sight.”

“I had breakfast at Ma’s,” Rourke said by way of explanation for his empty plate.

“I had some leftovers in the kitchen.” Shae smiled, looking relaxed as always in his seat beside me.

“Well fill up your plates, we have business to discuss.” Business could mean anything from some guy harassing Aunt Fiona to one of our businesses being audited by the tax man.

The dining room fell silent as it always did for the first few minutes of any family meal while Patrick gave thanks and then we all grabbed a little bit of everything from potatoes to bacon and cabbage, roast chicken, bread, spiced beef and my favorite, colcannon.

“Such a huge feast on a Saturday, what’s up, Uncle?” Rourke asked before he took a bite of bread.

“Bad news,” Patrick began and stopped with a dramatic pause while he took a sip of whiskey. “The Milano brothers have been seen around Rocket.”

“Which brothers?”

“Does it matter?” Patrick’s eyebrows arched in question, baiting me to tell him what I thought.

“You know it does. Gio and Frank are kids, doing stupid shit that draws too much fucking heat.” It mattered because the younger Milano twins, Lorenzo’s grandsons, were barely twenty and they were crazy as fuck. Reckless.

“And …?” Patrick taunted, always testing and teasing.

“And Daniel knows how to handle his business. Angelo is all right. A little crazy, but he cleans up good. If Lorenzo sent the twins, then he’s just swinging his little dick, but if he sent his older sons, he’s making a real play.”

It was simple fucking business and I’d do the exact same thing if I had to.

“Maybe they came to steal some of our ideas for their new gaming lounge?” Shae offered, protective of the project he’d been handed with a neat little bow tied around it.

“What if I told you it was Gio and Angelo?” Patrick’s silence to my question spoke more than his words could have. Or should have.

“Damn. That motherfucking Lorenzo is trying to train the fuck out of Angelo,” Rourke offered between bites.

“Probably both of them. And considering how reckless they are, he probably hopes one of them straightens up before they both wind up dead. I’m surprised we haven’t seen Daniel. That motherfucker is the one he should be training. He’s smarter and more level headed than Angelo.”

I was also surprised they hadn’t landed themselves in the morgue yet. Then again, maybe they were waiting on me to put them there.

“I want eyes on them until they get the fuck out of Rocket.”

Patrick’s expression was serious, and I pulled my phone out, connecting with a couple of my guys who handled security for the family.

“Rascal and his men will let me know as soon as they have eyes on the Milano brothers.”

Rascal was the best finder around. If someone was lost, taken, or voluntarily fell off the grid, Rascal and his men could find them. WitSec, CIA, and the Feds all around the world feared him, which was exactly why we kept him on the payroll.

“Good.” He nodded and dug into his plate with the energy of a man half his age. “I want to know every fucking thing they do in town, where they’re staying and exactly when they leave my city.”

“You got it.” My phone was never turned off, which meant as soon as Rascal’s call came in, I’d know it. “Consider it taken care of.”

“I have,” he said simply and returned to his meal just like the rest of us, soaking up the peace and quiet that could only be found when a group of men got together for a delicious meal.

“That was good, Uncle Patrick. I hate to eat and run but I promised Ma I’d help her around the house today.”

Patrick smiled. “You’re a good man, Rourke. Always looking after your ma the way you do. Tell Fiona I look forward to her lamb tomorrow.”

“It’s already marinating in the fridge.”

“You should all have a sister like mine,” he proclaimed with a satisfied smile. Patrick finished his food and stood. “I have a visitor coming in exactly one hour, so I expect you all gone in the next thirty minutes.”

The thought of what the old man was up to was enough to get us all on our feet and heading toward the door in under a minute.

That was just fine by me since I needed to get things ready for my last night with Layla.