CHAPTER ONE
Declan
Could this weekend start any worse?
I scrubbed my hand over my day-long stubble, unsure if I wanted to rewind or fast forward time. It was nearing midnight, and I’d left my penthouse office hours ago, ready to relax until Monday. That wasn’t going to happen now.
The problem with being a legitimate businessman in this part of Boston was dealing with the more unsavory characters that came with my line of work. If my father, the great Patrick Casey, had still been in charge, he would’ve probably sent a couple thugs with a Glock or two to deal with this shit, then pay off someone at the docks to get rid of the evidence.
That was how he built the family business. He and his iron fist had run it right up until the day he died of a heart attack five years ago.
Everyone expected me and my brothers to run things the same way, violent and ruthless, but we had other plans. Instead of making reputations, we were interested in making money. And it was hard to make a lot of money when you were either in jail or constantly worried about being put there. Or six feet under.
“We’re still waiting to hear, boss,” my driver said over his shoulder, and I forced my impatiently drumming fingers to stop. I shouldn’t waste my time with situations like this, but I had to know that the “situation” was handled before I would be able to relax, even just a little.
There were rumors that one of our recent purchases — a run-down shopping center that was set to make a big impact on the local neighborhood when we finished with it — had been vandalized. And by vandalized, I meant some assholes had tried to torch the place to the ground.
A few development companies had been interested in the lot, but we’d muscled our way in, convincing the old man who owned it that we’d make sure the center was a source of pride to the neighborhood instead of a drug deal mecca and hooker hangout it would otherwise become. That, and we’d offered the old coot a pile of money that the other buyers hadn’t been willing to cough up.
Money was something that I possessed by the shitload, thanks to my father’s connections to the street. I knew which properties were worthy and which ones were busts, and over the past five years, I’d built a fortune that made me nearly untouchable.
I wasn’t exactly a philanthropist, but I had pride in the old South Boston neighborhoods I was raised in, and the last thing I wanted to see was them razed to the ground for franchises or to leave them in ruins for the petty criminals to overrun.
Petty criminals like the ones who’d tried to torch the shopping center weren’t just an annoyance to me, they’d recently become a bit of a hobby. I wasn’t some sort of Dorchester Robin Hood or vigilante dosing out justice because it made me feel good, but I did like to make examples of thugs who touched what was mine.
And the neighborhoods of South Boston belonged to the Caseys.
“They’re ready for you, boss,” my driver finally said, and I gave Ray a tight nod. It was time to make my thoughts known to these assholes.
We’d driven across town while we waited for word from my second-in-command, Brennan Drake. Brennan and I went back to middle school, and we’d been inseparable since thirteen. He was the muscle, I was the brains. It’d always been that way, and it was the reason we were so powerful together. We knew, and played, our roles well.
Ray exited the car and pulled open my door, and I gave him a nod of thanks as I stepped out. We were in the warehouse district, parked directly in front of one of the many buildings Casey Holdings owned, and I passed through a side door that was being held open for me by one of my dark-suited employees. I didn’t know his name. I knew few of them, but I was very aware of what they were good at.
Intimidation.
The warehouse had once been a fish processing plant, and the place still reeked of fish guts. I breathed through my mouth and adjusted my suit jacket out of habit as I moved toward the center of the giant, open space. Most of the lights had been broken out, but two swung overhead and cast a dim circle around a bloodied man currently tied to a chair.
He was already plenty beat up, thanks to whatever enforcers got their hands on him first, and he looked just on this side of conscious.
As I approached, Brennan stepped out of the shadows while he wiped his hands on a handkerchief, making it clear who’d done the bloodying of the man in question. I nodded to my friend. Brennan was damn good at what he did, and he managed to operate within my thin line of decency.
I was a decent man, but I never claimed to be a good one. I made money fairly, bottom line. And any unsavory obstacles to that goal often found themselves on the losing end of encounters they had with me — physical or business.
Brennan greeted me with a silent nod and walked to stand in front of me.
“He and his buddies put up a good fight,” Brennan reported, and I looked past his shoulder to reexamine the man in the chair.
Good fight? I raised an eyebrow at Brennan, who just smirked.
“Okay. Maybe not a good one, but they put up a fight,” he corrected. “Who was I to deny them?”
Indeed.
I just shook my head and stepped around my lieutenant.
Old crime families like ours used to fix horse races, used to launder drug money for the Cubans, used to push drugs through the streets of the same neighborhoods they lived in. But more than anything, they’d seemed obsessed with fighting amongst themselves and with other crime families.
It was my old man’s favorite pastime, ordering the beatings — sometimes worse — of rivals and enemies, but it didn’t interest my three younger brothers or myself. In fact, I detested moments like these, hated that agreements couldn’t be more civilized. But these thugs knew nothing else, and although it sickened me to revert to violence, we had no choice but to speak the language they understood. Or else our community would be ruined by their drugs and criminal behavior. If someone didn’t fight back for our community, it would all go to hell.
I couldn’t let that happen. Wouldn’t let that happen. The people of this community deserved better.
My father wouldn’t have hesitated to make an example of this thug, but my old man hadn’t been able to see past his fist. My siblings and I were the first generation to finish high school, to go to college and get degrees, to take our education and combine it with the street smarts we’d picked up watching our old man and uncles get their hands dirty trying to make a few bucks.
My father had zero interest in protecting the same streets he wandered as a kid and ruled over as a grown man. He was more interested in using people. Me? I learned at an early age that people could be fickle, changing their alliances on the whim of a dollar. But real estate? The sky was the limit with land and the businesses that needed it. And real estate didn’t disappoint you. Didn’t break your heart. Didn’t break you.
“Any idea who hired them yet?”
Brennan shook his head.
I frowned. I didn’t figure the thug would crack just yet. He would eventually, as Brennan never missed a mark. But I wasn’t all that interested in waiting the stupid bastard out while he still clung to his pride and his misplaced loyalty.
Did he really think we would let it go? That we’d send him on his merry way back to his handlers? No, the guy had to be smarter than that.
We might not kill him, my men were under strict orders not to, but we’d leave him with a reminder or two that messing with the Casey family and their property came with steep consequences. And the victims of their violence deserved justice. Justice our legal system wouldn’t hand out.
Walking around the massive frame of my second, I stood in front of our prisoner, so that even though he was looking at the floor, my expensive suit and shoes were all he could see. Like I knew they would, his eyes blinked up and met mine.
“You made a big mistake. You know that at this point, though, don’t you?”
There was still a measure of defiance in his gaze.
“You know someone got hurt in that fire you set, don’t you?” An innocent Hispanic lady in her sixties had stayed behind to help her daughter close up their Mexican food joint and was now fighting for her life from severe smoke inhalation.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The man was trying to sound defiant, but he looked pitiful with his puffy eyes and busted lip. There was no more defying us. There was only breaking and submission.
“Sure you do.” My voice was deceptively calm and smooth. “Now, you’re going to make it right and tell my men here who sent you. It’s nonnegotiable, my friend. You’ll see soon enough.”
“Fuck you,” the guy hissed, suddenly coming to life. I cracked a grin, looking down at him as I scratched the back of my neck.
“Well, at least you’ve got potential to make it interesting for my guys.” I shrugged. “Nobody likes a coward.”
That seemed to spur the man on, and he raised his head for the first time since I walked in.
“Enjoy the last few days, Casey,” the man sneered, hatred evident in his eyes. “Your days are numbered, and your properties are marked. You’ll have nothing by the time they’re through with you.”
I raised an eyebrow in amusement. “That a fact?”
The guy just grumbled and looked away, obviously trying to dismiss me.
My hand shot out and grabbed his pudgy chin between my thumb and forefinger, and I wrenched his face back to me. His eyes widened a fraction, and I grinned, knowing I had his full attention.
“You make sure that when we let you hobble out of here on busted knees, you tell your bosses that it’s been so long since I’ve had a good challenge that I welcome them to try to take anything from me.” My voice was low, near a growl. “You tell them I look forward to destroying them.”
With a jerk, I dropped his face and strode away, giving Brennan the unspoken signal that would allow him to proceed. While I preferred to best my opponents mentally, I knew Brennan had other ideas.
The man would survive to see the morning, but not before giving up the name of who he was working for and who was gunning for my empire. While Brennan wouldn’t give him a fatal wound — it just wasn’t my way — the man would wish he did by the time he finally gave us the information we needed. After that, we’d send him back to his people with a clear message that they were no longer operating in the shadows. That we knew who they were, and we’d make their lives miserable for trying to take me down.
Striding toward the black sedan, Ray was out and had my door open before I reached him.
I only had the energy for one word. “Home.”
The driver nodded and closed the door behind me. The drive was quiet, and my mind had already switched back to the waterfront deal we were working on.
Somewhere in the back of my thoughts, though, there was a hint of unease. I’d had the strangest suspicion that something in the air around me was changing, though I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. I wasn’t one to put much stock into feelings or superstitions, but whatever I was feeling wasn’t going away.
With a grumble, I pulled my phone from my pocket and did a final check of my messages before calling it a night.
Whatever was on the horizon that was coming for me better have done its homework. I wasn’t some easy victim, and I sure as hell didn’t fight fair.