Chapter Thirty

Eamon

Patrick sat in his usual spot behind his desk with his hands folded neatly, his eyes inscrutable. “And how exactly do you know this girl, son?” he asked me.

I nodded at him to buy some time as I gathered my thoughts. Shae, Rourke and Patrick all looked at me expectantly. “She is someone I spend time with on occasion.”

It wasn’t the whole truth and the skeptical look on Patrick’s face said he knew it.

“She’s also the daughter of Peter Michaels.” I added.

“Goddammit Eamon!” My father shouted, slapping his hand on his desk. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, when will you ever learn?”

“I know, I know. But she has nothing to do with the business. Hell, she’s not even my girlfriend.” I knew I had to walk a fine line between downplaying our relationship while also encouraging the family to help me save her.

Rourke pushed off the wall and stood beside me with both arms crossed over his chest. “If she’s not special to you, why are we even talking about her?”

Shae glared at our cousin, who had a lot more of Patrick in him than anyone wanted to admit. “I can’t believe you just said that shit. You want to let an innocent woman die for what, to show the fucking Milanos that we’re not afraid of them?”

Shae shook his head, anger transforming his boyish features to the man he was on his way to becoming. “Fuck that noise. We ought to take this opportunity to end those motherfuckers once and for all.”

Patrick rocked slowly in his chair, his movements as deliberate as his silence. “I agree with Shae but we have to be smart. This is the perfect opportunity to make an example of them.”

I agreed, but all I could think about was Layla getting caught up in the middle of our shit.

“That’s great but they’re not taking Layla to The Kinky Elephant, which is where I’m supposed to meet Rico.”

“You’re not showing up for that meeting.” Patrick’s expression was ruthless, and I didn’t argue.

“We need to find out where they’re keeping the girl,” Rourke offered quietly. “If we get her while they’re waiting on you, then we get the advantage. They’ll still think they have leverage, but we’ll know better.”

Patrick grinned his proud grin and nodded. “Exactly. How do we find out where she is?”

Shae leaned over and held his hand out to me. “Give me your phone. I have a guy who can do this for us.”

“You do? Since when does my kid brother have connections I know nothing about?”

“Hell, yeah. Can’t run an organization like ours without a couple tech geniuses in the back pocket.” I handed him the phone with a heavy sigh.

“We’ll have a hit on her location in less than five minutes,” Shae said and left the room with a whistle.

“It makes me happy to see you three boys working as a team,” Patrick said, cracking the first warm smile of the meeting. “It’s my greatest dream for the future of this family.”

His gaze swung from me to Rourke and back to me. “In the future Eamon, keep a closer eye on your women.”

“Who in the hell knew the Milanos were ready to make a move? Last I heard, they’d just set up a few gaming lounges. Recently.”

“You should always expect a little cockroach to try and become a bigger cockroach by taking out the biggest of the bunch. It is the nature of cockroaches. They want more than they deserve. More than they are capable of handling.”

Rourke nodded his agreement. “This has the younger Milanos written all over it, Uncle. They took his woman …”

“Not my woman,” I corrected unnecessarily because Rourke ignored me.

“And they didn’t even ask for terms other than a meeting. Fucking amateurs.”

“It doesn’t matter which Milano the threat comes from,” Patrick assured us. “Now they will all pay for their hubris.”

Shae strode back in with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Good news. Your girl or at least her phone is at a shitty by the hour motel about two miles away from The Kinky Elephant.”

“That was fast,” Patrick commented, sounding impressed with his youngest boy.

“The dumbass left the phone on, which made our job easy as hell. We need to keep your phone on Eamon, so we can check in to make sure it’s not on the move.”

I snapped my head and looked around the room at my family. The three men closest to me who hadn’t hesitated to jump in and help me play the hero.

“Got it. Now, does anyone have any ideas how we get these bastards?”

Patrick cleared his throat and we all turned to him. “The goal here is two-fold. We get the girl first and then we end the Milano family. We end them,” he reiterated. “Got it?”

“Got it,” we all said at the same time

“Good. Now I expect you three to come up with a plan to save the girl and put this Milano headache to rest.”

Patrick’s heavy gaze landed on each of us, the weight of his expectation heavy on our shoulders. “Come back when you have a plan that can work.”

We had our orders and left Patrick alone in his office and ended up in our favorite room in the house, the game room, to plan. We all headed straight for the felt-covered pool table, where I racked the balls while Rourke and Shae prepared their sticks. It had been the same since we were kids who didn’t have the strength to put a ball into a pocket.

Shae spoke up first. “Hear me out before you say no,” he said with caution. Before saying anything else, he bent over the pool table and hit the cue ball with a deafening crack. “I’ll go in and get, what’s her name?”

“Layla,” I offered reluctantly because the thought of anyone else putting their hands on Layla, rescuing her, left a bad taste in my mouth.

“Right. I’ll go in and get Layla while E-money meets with Rico as though nothing is wrong. We’ll have a few guys in place as backup for you because there is no fucking way in hell there won’t be a Milano or two hanging around.”

I glanced at my watch. Ten fifteen, which meant we had a little more than an hour to get our shit together. Rourke sighed. “And what the hell am I supposed to do, Shae? Stay here and work on some spreadsheets?”

Shae barked out a laugh and easily sank his final green ball and then the black one before he rolled his pool stick onto the table and crossed his arms. “Not unless you have some quarterly reports or some shit to take care of. I was thinking you’d be our logistics guy. Watch the motel from a strategic angle and let us know what’s going on so we can act accordingly.”

“Shit, that’s brilliant,” I said. Relief poured out of me in a loud exhale. “Let’s work it out now and then take it to Patrick.” With a plan in place, my anxiety had abated. Some.