My Irish Mafia King

Chapter 24

Twenty-Four

KILLIAN

I sit in the car at the end of the lane, looking at the large estate in the middle of nowhere. It was a three-hour drive just to get here. Forest borders it on all sides, and the walls are tall. The gate is thick metal. No way is this car going to ram through it.

“Do you trust this guy?” I ask Colm, speaking about his contact, who’s working as a guard for my uncle and Owen.

“Nobody wants to be tied to Frank and Owen when the dust settles,” Colm replies. “He knows he’s got a better chance at a future in the Family if he works with us.”

“What’s the mood like with the other men? The few Frank and Owen have clung onto?”

Owen moves one tattooed hand over the other, thinking. My mind tries to drag me back to the city, to Lucy. Leaving her in bed was one of the most difficult things I’ve done. All I wanted was to fall beside her, wrap her in my arms, sink close to her warmth, and forget about all this crap.

“Uneasy,” Owen says after a pause. “I can’t say they’re ready to abandon them, but they’re not loyal, either, not like our men.”

Our men are waiting in the surrounding forest, tooled up to the eyeballs, ready for a gunfight, ready to do what’s necessary to topple the murderous bastards and set this city on a decent course.

“Owen killed my grandfather and my father,” I growl. “You heard the tape; you heard what he said to my woman… what?”

Colm’s smile wavers. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” I grunt.

“I know we need to focus on this job, but I can’t lie. Hearing you call her your woman is a damn fine thing. I can’t wait to tell Ronan about it. He’ll be so happy. He’ll probably spring up from bed and forget all about his wounds.”

I laugh gruffly. “I can’t exactly deny it now, can I? She was my woman the first day I walked into that bakery, and for half a year, I’ve been trying to lie to myself. But I can’t. She’s my woman; she’s my queen. It’s an unfair burden to put on her, but it’s the only way to be together.”

“I heard that tape, Killian,” Colm says. “She’s stronger than most women in this life. If anybody’s capable of being queen, it’s her.”

I’m grateful for his words, but I need to focus. “I’m going with Plan C,” I tell him.

He flinches. “Boss…”

I need to get used to people calling me ‘boss’ outside restaurants. “I know. It could mean a bullet between the eyes, but if I can avoid a gunfight, I need to take that risk.”

“The men are ready to fight,” Colm says.

“I know they are. But how many will die if his men and ours go at it? How many wives will lose husbands, fathers will lose children? Frank and Owen would send the men in without giving a single fuck about that. But that’s why I’m doing this. Things are going to change. From now on, we will not shake down women trying to make an innocent living, we’re not trafficking, and we will not be goddamn cowards. Tell your man to open the gate when I approach. I’ll do the rest.”

“If they shoot, we’re coming in, and we’re coming in hot, boss.”

“Fair enough,” I say, climbing from the car and going to the trunk.

I take off my shirt and put on the bulletproof vest, then throw my shirt back on, with a jacket over it. I grab the megaphone and approach the estate, knowing that at any moment, somebody could take a potshot from a second-story window.

With each step, I’m thinking about my woman, my treasure, with her honey-colored eyes and her wild red hair and the never-quit spirit burning in her heart. She’d hate it if she knew I was doing this. I’m risking our future together, risking everything, but I have to think of the Family.

When I’m about halfway to the estate, our inside man proves himself useful. The gate whirrs mechanically as it opens.

Nerves grip me when I walk onto the estate, staring at the large mansion, rifle barrels sticking from several of the windows. More men crouched behind the fountain with their guns resting on the stone surface.

I bring the loudspeaker to my face. “I’m sure Owen and Frank have promised you a lot, fellas. Money once this has all settled down; a better place in the Family. But they lied to you. You’re surrounded by twice as many men, men loyal to me, the real king of this Family .” My voice booms across to the estate. “If you take me down now, the men will surge in, and there will be all-out war. If you ignore what I have to say… the men will come in, and we’ll massacre you.”

I pause for effect, noticing the men at the fountain looking at each other uneasily.

“But if you listen, there’s a chance for all of you. I know you’re doing this out of fear. But you’ve made a mistake… you should be more afraid of me than them. They were never truly in charge of this Family. They were merely holding the crown until I was ready to pick it up.” I smack myself in the chest. “ Me , the true king, heir to Patrick and Declan Callahan. By now, you’ve all heard the recording. You all heard Owen admitting to orchestrating those men’s deaths. He cut my father’s brakes, and I can only assume that lowlife poisoned my grandfather.”

I smack my chest again. “You have one chance to put down your weapons and walk out of this estate. If you do that, I’ll forget you ever made this mistake. I’ll forget you ever chose these cockroaches. You’ll still have a place within the Family… except for the men who attacked the bakery and wounded Ronan. If those men are with you, execute them and bring their bloody corpses out here. You have two minutes to make your decision, or I promise you, I’ll paint this place red.”

I drop the loudspeaker and hold my hands out to my sides, staring at the house, knowing that any second, this could be the end. It wouldn’t take much. They’ve got rifles, not pistols; aiming at this distance would be easy.

A minute passes with no activity, but then I hear bang-bang-bang . A pause, and then more gunshots. The men at the fountain exchange another look.

They leap to their feet when there’s a crash and two bodies fall from an upper window. Not long after, men walk out the front door.

“No weapons,” I growl into the loudspeaker.

This gives them some pause, but they drop their rifles. The men at the fountain do the same. They walk toward me, their gazes bowed.

“Don Callahan,” the first one mutters, and that gets them all going. “Don Callahan, Don Callahan…” Each of them paying their respects as they leave the estate.

“Where are they?” I growl.

“There’s a safe room at the rear of the property, disguised as a pantry,” one man replies.

I take out my cell and call Colm. “Rear of the property, the pantry. I’m going in.”

I draw my gun from its holster and jog toward the estate, aware that Colm would advise waiting for backup. As I pass the corpses of the two men who attacked the bakery, I resist the urge to fire bullets into their lifeless bodies.

My blood pumps hotly, my head swirling with tension, danger, and all that could go wrong. Lucy screams at me in my mind, urging me to stop, but I can't shake the recording from my head: Owen's threats to my treasure, the names he called her.

I rush into the kitchen and open the pantry door. A narrow corridor leads to a barricaded room at the end. Frank and Owen aim rifles down the corridor, poking through the wooden barricade made of broken tables and chairs stacked together.

"This is the end of the line," I snarl, taking cover behind the doorframe. "Your men have abandoned you. You're nothing now but two old, pathetic men, with nobody to back you, no future in the Family."

"Those traitors ," Frank snaps. "I told you, Owen, I told you."

"Just be quiet," Owen snaps.

"I told you we should've been happy with what we had," Uncle Frank rants. "We had control, money, power. But no, you needed the goddamn title. Don Doyle . Why couldn't you let it go?"

"Just shut up ," Owen snarls. "This isn't over until I say it's over."

"You're a coward, Frank," I yell. "You let him poison Grandad. You let him murder your own brother... and for what? So you could pretend to be Don while he really ran things."

Colm jogs into the room with six of our armed men.

I hold up my hand for them to wait. This is about more than ending these two scumbags. The legend of this is at hand. This is about making myself into a myth so that nobody ever dreams of betraying me. The legend of this day will spread, and everyone will know not to mess with the king.

"Don't be so na?ve," Frank whines. "This is how the Family works."

"The Family is built on loyalty," I snap, then lower my voice. "Get me a flashbang and a regular grenade, Colm."

He looks uncertainly at me.

"Now," I tell him.

He turns and whispers with one of our men, then places the grenades on the counter near me.

"We're loyal to our blood. We're loyal to our men. You were never real Family men. You were never worthy of the crown. But fine, if you want it like that, I'll do it your way. I'll kill you to claim what's rightfully mine."

I take the flashbang, unpin it, then toss it down the hallway. A moment later, I toss the frag grenade. The two pop noises follow each other, dust and shrapnel kicking up, and then I charge down the hallway.

Colm roars at me to stop, but there's no way. Not after Owen threatened my woman, not after the fire, not after what they would've done if I wasn't there to stop them.

I leap over what's left of the barricade, aiming my gun. I glimpse Uncle Frank's torn neck, blood spewing, before taking a bullet to the chest. I gasp as agony spreads across my ribs, then I spin, aiming my gun.

Owen lies on the floor, shrapnel sticking out of his chest, struggling to hold his gun. I shoot him in the head. Not once, not twice. I shoot until my clip is empty, the recording, the threats replaying in my head as my ears ring with the gunshots.

"Nobody threatens my woman," I roar, dropping my gun, hammering my chest like a wild man, like the person I've never wanted to be. But this is who I need to become to keep my woman safe, our future family, the city, everyone.

"Nobody threatens my Family," I roar, kicking the bastard even though he's dead.

"Nobody, nobody, nobody."

I hit myself in the chest again, my ribs aching, my body pulsing with pain. But I barely feel it. All I feel is the intense desire to be with my lucky charm.