What can I say? Declan had an idea, and I decided to run with it. Nothin’ like exercising a little muscle.
“Why are you bothering me and cleaning up my bodily fluids, Bridget?”
“Because you’re a disgusting pig and I know you won’t do it yourself. A ‘thank you’ would be nice, you jerk. You coulda woke up with your cum stuck to your cheek.” I chuckled into my pillow. “Daddy wants you. He’s in his office. Get up, and for fuck’s sake, wash your hands…Jesus.”
The plastic trash can clunked to the floor and she stomped out, slamming the door behind her. Damn, I’m tired. And my arms and back muscles are tight. I need to be better about working out. I’m slacking, and if all it took to realize that was the body I shouldn’t have had to hide…then that’s my cue to fix the issue. I’ll need that extra pep when I start the light recon I’m planning with my girl…among other things. I threw on a t-shirt and walked barefoot to Pop’s office, not surprised to see him on the phone when his little doorman let me in. He held up a finger, a clear“shut the fuck up”indicator, and I shrugged and helped myself to his whiskey on the little bar by the window.
“Well, see that you do. I’ll be waitin’ to hear back from you.” He huffed and I heard the phone drop to the desk, not bothering to look over my shoulder as I poured up to the rim and started drinking. “Where the hell are ‘yer shoes, Malek?”
I swallowed the liquor, savoring the burn and sucked through my teeth, finally turning to go plop down into the leather chair across from him. “Next to my bed…where I was happily existing. Bridge said you needed to see me?”
“Where were you last night?”
I made myself comfortable and slung a leg over the arm of the seat. “Here. Went to bed late. Thought I’d sleep in a little. You didn’t have a job that needed doin’, so I took the night off.”
Pop rolled his eyes and leaned over the desk on his palms. “You might not have had a hit, but youdidhave a job. How do you think it looked at the merge with the O’Dell’s when the right hand that spilled the blood wasn't next to me?”
“I couldn’t care less what they think, and you alreadyknowwhy. Not really sure why we’re even havin’ this conversation, Pop. Especially when Nolan handed Braughton over to us on his own.” Part of me wondered then if my father would ever do that to me. Doubtful. Bridget doesn’t have the capacity to lead this pack of wild dogs. He sure looked at me right now like he could, though. Not an ounce of pity was left in his eyes from when he handed me Braughton’s head on a silver platter the other night.
“I need to know you can maintain this shite, Malek. I’m not gonna live forever. The mess with Shavonn was unfortunate and tragic…but it was necessary, and you got your vengeance. You can’t fuck this up.”
“These guns aren’t gonna be enough to hold this alliance and you know it.” I took a heavy swallow from my glass. “The drugs are an added bonus, but that’s not gonna stick for long, either. What’s your plan for breaking even with Nolan? And you better not say what I think you’re about to say.”
“She’ll have a choice.”
“Mallacht air go léir go hifreann.”
Bridget might drive me insane, and she’s a murderous little harlot…but that’s my fucking sister. And she’s not gonna suffer a fate like Shavonn’s. I’ll never let this shit happen. It’ll be a cold day in Hell, with flying swines and pouring rain.
“You can’t possibly mean that. Tell me that wasn’t the price you paid for me to gut that son of a bitch.” The grip on my glass bleached my knuckles. Any harder and I might shatter it with the rage boiling up in me.
“Bridget might not know all the details, but she scoped out the other three brothers last night.”
I grit my teeth hard enough to crack a molar and slowly raised outta my chair, well and truly livid now. One of my tells? If I’m moving with the predatory grace of a mountain lion…you should be more worried than if I’m lunging for you like a quarterback. I could tell Pop was weighing that in his mind while I finished off the last two swallows of my whiskey and crossed the room for more.
“I’m not servin’ her on toast. I’ll have no fuckin’ part of that.” The rush of liquid into the glass was the only sound that stretched in that tense silence between us. “Besides. She’ll tear the O’Dell’s apart from the inside out as soon as she gets bored with whatever little prick you marry her off to. And we’ll be right back where we started when she has me pickin’ ‘em off for her. It’ll be a blood war all over again.”
“That’s not gonna happen. She’s got a responsibility. Same as you.”
I felt the burn down my throat as deep as I felt it on my face and the tips of my ears. It probly made my hair twice as red as I gulped down that entire glass. The crystal slammed down on the tray, and I stalked to the door to his office, turning my back on one of the most dangerous men in the world.
“You’re just as bad as he is. And that’s sayin’ somethin’…coming from your own son and hit man.” I jerked the handle, swinging the door open and he called out from behind me.
“Where is Conor? He never made it to the merge last night.”
I shrugged and didn’t bother looking back at him as I strode out the door. “Don’t know, don’t care. That was a problem I told you shoulda been fixed a long time ago. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s feedin’ intel to your newfound friends.”
“Malek…”
I ignored him and kept walking, smirking to myself when I heard an impressive line of expletives in Irish. Bridget found me halfway to my room and jogged to catch up to me in my angry gait.
“What was that about? Did he put a foot in your ass over the merge?”
I stopped in the middle of the hallway, my bedroom door beckoning me from a few feet away. My head snapped toward her and her snarky grin fell when she saw the pure malice in my eyes. She knows that look, and evenshecowers under it.
“I better not find out that you go anywhere near the O’Dell’s again. You understand me? I don’t give a fuck what he says, stay away from them.”
“Malek, they’re—”
