Chapter 13 Colby #2
As I walk behind him through the gardens I’ve barely had time to see, we pass a big house and see men milling around, so my guess is that’s where the guards stay, but we walk past it.
I see the big wall that surrounds the property behind the house, but there’s a good sized gap of grass between them, and then in front of us there are a lot of trees. Big trees.
Rory, Duffy, Mac, and Blake all look like they know exactly where we’re going, but I don’t, until about fifteen feet in there’s yet another house. This one’s a lot smaller, more like a cabin, and if it has two rooms, I’ll be very surprised.
Eian walks in without knocking and I see a rustic but cosy open space. A small but practical kitchen, a living room with only one couch. At the far end, there are two doors only, and Eian opens one.
“Wait here,” he murmurs, then walks down . . . stairs leading to a basement? He leaves the door open, so I can hear when he opens another door then speaks again. “Everyone’s here.” I hear a murmured answer but can’t make out any words. “Yes, Colby as well. It’s time, Seamus.”
Wait, he’s here? This whole time I could’ve just walked over to talk to him? That’s . . . weird.
Okay, so maybe that only makes me like Seamus a tiny bit more, and now I’m even more eager to meet him.
“This is happening,” Eian snaps louder, and clearly out of patience. Part of me feels sorry for Seamus, but then again, it’s not like we have a lot of time. “Be grateful I didn’t bring everyone down with me at the same time. You can come down now.” He says that last part for all of us obviously.
Rory goes straight down with Blake, and I find it oddly touching how Mac gestures for me to pass before Duffy and him.
There’s a huge room downstairs with a large couch, bigger TV, and some sort of mechanical system that I have no idea what it’s for. There are three different doors, one where Eian is standing and the other two closed—bathroom and closet?
Instead of going over to Eian, Rory and Blake walk straight to the couch and sit. As I take the last step down, I see a whiteboard nailed to the wall under the stairs, and when I look it seems to be some kind of investigation board.
Pictures of Lucian, his younger sister Cecilia, Lorenzo Di Leo, all the heads of the Italian families, and a map with different locations marked with red dots.
All it’s missing is some red string and it would look ready for a movie scene or something.
“Sit down, Colby,” Eian says, and he sounds like he’s trying to not lose his patience, so I hurry to sit next to Rory while Mac and Duffy stay standing by the board. Eian walks over to stand on its other side and then . . .
A young guy, with pure black hair, almost translucent skin, big hazel eyes that narrow with obvious trepidation . . . He’s bracing for the worst. Without even hearing him speak I know it’s gotta be Seamus, because that lack of trust in his voice is always very clear when he speaks.
He propels himself forward in his wheelchair, and I don’t react except with an up nod.
He seems to me like a guy who’s ready for a fight, and I’m not going to give him one, mostly because I don’t know what we would even fight about, but also, I don’t have the energy today.
“Colby, this is Seamus O’Malley.”
“Nice to finally meet you, Seamus.”
“Yeah, same,” he mumbles, and after a brief pause he pushes himself toward the whiteboard, then looks at Eian expectedly.
We all follow suit because . . . yeah, he’s up, and he doesn’t disappoint.
“There’s only one rule all the families in the city must follow for the others to allow them to exist. No human trafficking.”
His hard face seems like it’s made out of stone as he looks at each of us.
“Our issues with the Italians have always been about revenge, about simple hatred, but when Colby first heard about an organization peddling flesh in the city more than a year ago, the first leads he had led to me, to us. That was way before we found and freed the victims Duffy saw at the warehouse. Colby investigated further and found proof that it was actually the Italians, more specifically Lucian Venuti’s men who were involved.
When he told his boss he had proof it wasn’t us, he was fired.
“That same day, a woman went to the brothel in Queens and asked for a job. She’s one of the victims and was planted there by Venuti. Colby and I talked to her and she identified the other man who’s leading this organization. It’s the mayor,” he says after a long pause. “Carl Brent.”
Eian’s face remains impassive while everyone else reacts. Strongly, loudly, with a lot of cursing. When they finally stop, Eian stares at the most vocal—Duffy of course.
“Are you done?”
“For now,” he says, voice feral.
“Good, because there’s a lot more. Brent apparently goes to see her every week, like clockwork.
He was there two nights ago, so we have five days to take care of this, and we need to find a way to do it that doesn’t end up with Lucian claiming I’m the one who’s peddling flesh to the other families.
I’ve been thinking about it, and that has to be his escape plan, or maybe he just really wants to get rid of me, because if he blew the whistle to the Feds, then he’d lose the business. ”
“The mayor’s probably the one who’s making sure the Feds don’t come anywhere near this,” I say, following his logic.
“There’s no way to know unless we get one of them in a room,” Rory points out, and her way-too-eager smile tells me she’s not thinking this through.
“The second the mayor goes missing, we’re all but guaranteed to go to prison,” I say, because we have to be realistic. “There are too many cameras, and he has security. No matter how careful we were, we’d need months of planning and possibly infiltrating his security team to pull that off.”
“And we have less than five days before he realizes Luisa isn’t where he left her and starts coming for us,” Eian adds. “We don’t want him to know we know anything until we have some way to get rid of him.”
“And if he’s killed, he becomes a martyr,” Seamus pipes up, calmer now and looking thoughtfully at his murder board. “No matter how shady, all murdered politicians become martyrs.”
“Who gives a fuck?” Duffy demands. “If he’s dead, he can’t do shit anymore. That’s what we want, isn’t it?”
“We want to make sure their business disappears,” Eian corrects him. “Kidnapping him is out of the question, and killing him is a last resort.”
I say the one possibility I think will work.
“We have to find evidence and convince the right people to go after him.”
“But we get to deal with Lucian, right?” Rory demands, looking right at Eian, and to my surprise, he doesn’t answer right away.
“Cecilia said she’d deal with her brother on her own when Marco dies,” he says at last. “I’d need to speak with her, explain all of this, and I don’t trust her to not pick up where Lucian leaves off once she gets rid of him.”
“But she’d have to if she wants to join the circle with Aslanov, Chen, Di Leo, and Ricci.” Rory’s clearly thinking about the big picture here. “Do you trust them enough to tell them?”
“If I want to stop anyone from coming after us, then I’ll have to at least trust Aslanov and Chen.
” Finally, his tough guy facade breaks as he sighs heavily.
“I can ask them to meet tonight, and then they can weigh in, but Cecilia and the Di Leo bastard want to take over the three families, make one big organization. That’s a problem for after all of this is done. ” He waves that away with his hand.
“And we’d need Lucian to tell us everything about the operation so we can shut it down,” Seamus adds. “Do you think she’ll really give up her brother?”
Eian shrugs. “There’s no way to know for sure but I think so, yes.”
“What if . . .” I start, then trail off. I’m not sure if my idea’s stupid or not.
“Speak,” Eian commands sharply.
“The first thing you need to do is tell Cecilia she needs to deliver her brother, or give you enough information to get Lucian, then you go to Aslanov and Chen, tell them everything, get them on the same page. If you three force the Italians—all of them—to either give up Lucian or face you, then they’d have to bend, right? ”
“Yes.” He nods for me to go on.
“Cecilia can fight about her place in the families however she wants, but if you take out Lucian after you’ve done all that, then none of them can tell any of Lucian’s men.
They all have to know about Brent, or at least some of them.
If they go to him while you’re interrogating Lucian, then this all goes to shit anyway. ”
“What if we make Ricci and Di Leo take care of Lucian’s men? They would know who they are better than we do,” Rory throws out.
“Do you think you can find all the men who work for Lucian specifically?” Eian asks Seamus.
He shrugs in answer.
“It’s not like it’s a registered business, but I can trace phone calls once I have Lucian’s number.”
“Okay, do you have one of those burner phones you tweaked?”
“Yeah, I have a bag of them.” Seamus goes to what I assume is his office and comes back with an honest to god flip phone. “Here.”
“Mac, Duffy . . .” Eian offers them the phone. “Find Cecilia and put this in her purse without her noticing.”
“Yes, Boss.” Mac grabs the phone.
“I’ll go see if I can find where she is through her social media or something,” Seamus says absentmindedly, then all three of them leave the room. Mac and Duffy leave altogether I think.
“Blake, you’re driving Rory and me to the meeting tonight, but I need you to sweep the building before I even make the call.”
“Got it.” He nods and stands to leave as Eian turns to me.
“What am I going to do?” I want to do something.
“You can’t go to the meeting.” I reel back from the finality.
“But what if—”
“This isn’t up for debate, Colby. I don’t want Chen or Aslanov getting a good look at you, and if they find out I had a lookout, they’re gonna take that as an offense, so you’re sitting this one out.”
Rory stands and very awkwardly pats my back.
“I have a great memory. I’ll recite the meeting to you if you want.”
What I want is to argue, to demand they let me go with them, but I suspect that’s a battle I’m not going to win.
And honestly, I’m not a fan of the head of the Bratva or the head of the Triads knowing I exist, so I suppose it makes sense, and . . .
I know for a fact there’s gonna be a lot of battles with Eian I won’t want to sit back from, so I concede with a nod.
“Now tell me, what the hell is this place?” I turn, and once more have to be impressed with the sheer size of this basement. “It looks so little and innocent from the outside.”
“We had it built for Seamus. He has very special needs when it comes to his equipment, and he wanted a colder place, one story, so we had this built. It’s far enough from the house that intruders wouldn’t think to come looking here.
It has a built-in safe room too, and he can control all the doors from his office and his bedroom.
He also ordered some kind of super internet or some shit,” he sounds like an old man.
“That makes him untraceable, which is another way to keep him safe.”
If I’m not mistaken, there’s relief in Eian’s tone, and I don’t know what to think about that.
Should I have pushed to go?
I guess we’ll find out.
“Let’s go. We have a lot of work to do.”