Chapter 12 Eian
EIAN
Killing the mayor isn’t impossible, it’s just going to make our lives—my men’s lives—a lot harder. It could land me in jail after decades of avoiding that. It could prompt the police to go on a hunt for any person associated with me, with Colby. Those are only two of the less dire possibilities.
Also, he might be the leader of the organization—we can’t know that for sure yet—but there’s no guarantee that if we take him and Lucian out it would dismantle that shit.
“Does he always come here exactly one week apart?” Colby’s urgent question gives me even more stress. What if he doesn’t? What if—
“Yes.” Luisa nods rapidly, and I make a decision then and there.
“All right.” I walk around the desk again and open the door. “Sara, Cillian, get in here.” When they do and the door is closed again, I nod down at Luisa. “She stops working today, but you have to keep her safe. I’ll be back in less than five days to take her somewhere else, understood?”
“Yes sir,” Cillian says, brow furrowed in confusion. I shake my head once, silently telling him not to ask.
“Luisa, don’t say a word of what we talked about to anyone, got it?”
“Y-yes, but you will be back for me, yes?”
“We will,” Colby reassures her and I let him. He’s better at that. “We will make sure you’re safe, Luisa.”
I nod at Sara to take her away, and once they’re out of earshot I walk closer to Cillian and make sure he understands how important this is.
“There’s a man who comes to see Luisa every week. He came two days ago, at night. You need to find out everything you can about him. How is he paying? What’s his name? Anything and everything you find, send it to me, got it?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Good. Colby, let’s go.”
He keeps his cool until we’re about a block away from the brothel.
“Holy motherfucking shit, Eian,” he shouts.
“What the fuck are we going to do? How can we protect her—no, how can we protect anyone in the city from him?” I can tell he’s just getting started, so I let him rant for as long as he needs.
“If we kill him or kidnap him it’s going to be a nightmare to get the police off our backs.
” The we gives me a thrill, the thought of Colby believing he’s part of my family .
. . but now isn’t the time to think about that.
“And I know the commissioner, he always took my research seriously, but we don’t have proof except Luisa’s word against his.
You know how that story goes. No one’s gonna believe a sex worker, an immigrant, hell, a woman over the fucking mayor. ”
“I know,” I grumble. It’s fucking infuriating that only the word of another man—“Venuti,” I say the second that idea pops into my mind.
“Do you really think Lucian’s gonna sit in a courtroom and confess to everything he’s done?
” By his tone, it’s clear Colby doesn’t.
“Also, it’s so obvious they’re trying to incriminate you—Luca going to your casino, planting one of the human trafficking victims in your brothel.
The second they think someone’s onto them they’re gonna blow the whistle on you and spin this into some kind of huge victory where they finally take down the great fucking Eian Dempsey. We can’t do anything to—”
“Stop,” I shout at him when he starts to screech, and I curse my idea to drive today because I need to keep my eyes on the road.
Colby’s working himself up into a panic attack, and that’s not only not going to help but will also just make me lose my fucking mind.
“We’re almost at the garage. Just breathe until we get there, and once we’re home we can get everyone together and we’ll figure it out,” I stress, because I won’t accept any other option.
“Talking helps,” he mumbles. “Talking about anything else. Like . . .” It takes him ten long seconds, but he jumps in his seat when he comes up with a different topic. “What was that dude’s fucking deal?” he demands, outrage clear in his voice.
I play stupid. “Cillian?” I frown harder to sell it.
“You know damn well I mean that wannabe Abercrombie model who was stripping you naked with his eyes.” I don’t have any idea how I’m supposed to tackle this subject, and Colby’s all out of patience.
“You could’ve warned me, you know? It fucking sucks that I just had to stand there while he was salivating all over you, and you did nothing but—”
“I didn’t like how Daniel looked at me either, but you have to understand, all it ever was with him was a business transaction. It was just sex. I needed to release some tension now and then, so I came here. I don’t really know anything about him and barely said a word to him,” I defend myself.
“I don’t care what you said,” he counters. “I care about what you didn’t say.”
Discussing Colby’s jealousy is better than thinking about how fucked up our city is and that I can probably do nothing to those bastards without endangering myself and my family. Speaking of . . .
As I turn the car into the garage, I hold up a finger at Colby. “Pause for a second.”
Colby’s mouth drops open in outrage, but thankfully he doesn’t gather himself fast enough to bite my head off before I take out my phone and dial Bran.
“Hey, Da, I was just about to—”
“Here with Colby,” I let him know so he doesn’t say anything we can’t discuss in front of him. “I need you to pack a bag, and prepare to be gone for some time. I’m sorry,” I say to the sudden deafening silence. “I know finals are coming up, and—”
“You know someone will take care of that,” he says with meaning.
“Yes, someone will, but you need to be ready. I think the first blows will come tonight.” I park next to the SUV and nod at Blake. When he gets out the driver’s door, he stands there and scans the garage, making sure there’s no one around.
“Please be safe, Dad.”
“I will. You know your ma always has my back.”
“And you hers,” he mumbles.
“She doesn’t need it.” He gives it a good try by snickering, but I know my attempt at humor wasn’t my best.
“I really am sorry, and I’ll let you know the second it’s safe to come back, all right?”
“I know, don’t worry about me.”
“Not possible. Call Nan and I’ll—”
“Call someone,” he finishes for me.
“Exactly.”
“Love you.”
“Love you more.”
I hang up and turn to look at Colby. His face transforms from one emotion to the next. He’s clearly having issues settling on just one.
“I hate that I can’t smack you for pausing a discussion because you were being all caring dad and cute.”
“Cute?” I mumble to myself. Whatever, it’s good info on how to get out of trouble in the future. I’ll just use Bran or Maggie as shields. “Get in the car.” I nod toward Blake and the SUV. “I need to make a call you can’t hear.”
“Whatever.” He scoffs and gets out. I have a great idea of how to punish him for that as well as how we’re going to finish the Daniel discussion, but that’s going to have to wait for a bit longer.
As I take out my burner phone and dial, I watch Colby greet Blake then get into the back seat. Only when his door is closed do I focus back on the call, and it takes a few rings but finally it connects.
“This better be important because I was in the middle of a board meeting.”
“So early in the morning?” Am I stalling? Well yes, I am.
“Some of us have normal jobs,” Harry deadpans, and I have to snort.
“Controlling markets isn’t a normal job, Harry. Don’t kid yourself.”
“What do you want, Eian?” He’s clearly done with my bullshit.
“Bran’s calling Nan. I need them away from the city.”
“Fuck,” he hisses. “For how long?”
“I don’t know. I think shit’s gonna get real tonight, but I can’t be sure and I . . .”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know yet. We have to get a plan together, but I’m either going to do something very stupid, or do nothing and a lot of people will suffer.”
“Eian, what aren’t you telling me? Is this about what you told us the other day? About the human trafficking operation?”
“Yes,” I say with a sigh.
“You can’t ask the commissioner for help on this?” He sounds almost desperate, which means that he’s borderline panicking—he’s really good at masking his emotions, especially on the phone.
I debate for a second on what to say, and I decide that I’m sure as shit not telling Harry it’s the mayor, not yet.
Mostly because I know he actually has to deal with the mayor on an almost daily basis, and if he knows, he might act differently and could get hurt.
Carl Brent could actually do some real damage to Harry, and I’m damned if I’m going to let that happen.
“It’s above his pay grade,” I settle on.
Harry’s a very busy man, so I’m hoping that by the time he’s had enough spare seconds to dissect my words, it’ll all probably be over anyway.
We have to act quickly, we have to—like Colby said, we have to find proof, and that’s where the really stupid idea comes in.
“I don’t want you to worry about this. I’ll find a way to deal with it, but I need you to get Bran and Nan out of here, and then I need you to make sure Bran doesn’t fail any of his classes or gets kicked out of law school because he’ll be away, okay? ”
“Yeah,” he says, like making a few calls—and probably a sizable donation to the law department—is just another minor task on his to-do list.
“Thank you,” I breathe out, one hurdle down, about a million to go.
“Check in regularly, okay? I’m going to convince Theo to go watch the Kings’ game in Atlanta this weekend with me, and maybe even have Iris join us.”
That’s not fast enough, since it’s Thursday, but if they make a weekend out of it . . . and maybe Mike stays with a friend . . .
“Yes, that’s a good idea. Leave as soon as you can. Tonight if possible, but tomorrow would work too. Tell Theo I’m the one telling him to do that if he says anything about needing to work, okay? He’ll know it’s for the best if you do.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that if I need to.”
“I have to go.”
“Okay, yes, fine. Fuck,” he hisses. “Don’t do the stupid thing,” he demands before I can end the call. “Just don’t, okay?”