2. Brady
Brady
I shoulder my way into the pub and stalk past the bar. Some drunk wobbles out of his seat, ready to stumble into me. I grab the back of his neck so hard he cries out, then he sees who I am and shuts up. I shove the eejit back onto his stool.
Everyone else gets out of my way.
In the hallway to the back room, Seamus stands guard for the evening. He gives me a respectful nod, and I go in without knocking.
Da sits at the head of the table. He’s the ideal O’Sullivan leader, powerful and stern.
Behind him hangs our family’s tricolor, his da’s flag from the old country.
Mam sits on his right, and my older brother, Liam, stands to the side.
His arms are crossed as he scowls toward the man who’s sitting on Da’s left like a guest.
The stranger’s face is a bloodied mess. Two black eyes, a split lip, and a large cut above his eyebrow.
Our younger brother Finn hovers over him, looking ready to add more bruises to his recently mashed cheek.
“Brady,” Mam greets me in her soft lilt.
“Meet Connor Muloney.” She gestures to the not-so-honored guest. I raise my eyebrows at the name of the biggest crime family in Boston, our rivals from halfway across the country.
With their international seaport, they have significantly greater access to smuggling routes than we do.
Crucial in our line of work. It means greater access to money and power.
“You’re far from home,” I say.
“Far from home and acting the maggot,” Finn adds, because Finn always has something to add. He flicks Connor Muloney on the ear. The man winces.
No. The kid, I realize.
Beneath all his bruises and swelling, he’s no older than his mid-twenties. At least a decade younger than me. His hair was probably brown this morning, but now it’s mostly black with sweat. His swollen eyes look blue, pale like the kind dogs sometimes have. But it’s hard to tell.
“He tried to make a deal with the Vanleusens,” Da says. “Wants to help Seven expand his territory into our turf.”
I clench my fists at the bastard’s name.
The Vanleusens’ crime activity had been dormant for generations.
Then this Mortimer Vanleusen the Seventh got it into his head he wanted to be more than some overstuffed posh boy.
He didn’t want to sit back on his trust fund like his father and grandfather before him.
He wanted to play gangster.
So Mortimer Vanleusen the Seventh became known as Seven in the underground world.
And for the past several years, he’s been aggressively rebuilding his family’s criminal empire.
He’s got money. Connections. Influence. And most dangerous of all, outright contempt for the moral code that underwrites our mafia way of life.
He thinks he can play our game without rules.
If this shit stain sitting next to Da tried to make a deal with Seven, then he’s our enemy.
“Why the fuck is he still alive?” I demand.
“He’s a Muloney,” Mam says calmly. She leaves out the obvious. We can’t risk open war with the family that runs Boston. They’re too powerful. We’ve already got our own war to fight against Seven right here at home.
To take on both the Vanleusens and the Muloneys would wipe us out.
And that’s exactly why this kid is in our city.
“So the Muloneys are seeking an alliance with the Vanleusens,” I say. Fuck, is all I can think. Muloneys plus Vanleusens equals us fucked.
The Muloney boy shakes his head violently. Blood flings from his nose.
“He claims not,” Mam says. “And the Muloneys claim he was acting on his own.”
“And you believe them?” I scoff.
“He got caught,” Da says. As if it’s a full explanation. He turns to the Muloney boy. “How’d you end up in the clink, lad?”
“Got picked up.” The kid hangs his head. He’s ashamed. Rightfully so. Getting picked up is sloppy.
Sometimes it means you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Most of the time it means you trusted the wrong person.
“Who’d you see before you got picked up?” Da folds his hands on the table. A deliberate show of patience. “We already know you made contact with the Vanleusens. Which one of ’em did you meet with, then?”
“A man named Kenniman. Andrew, I think,” the kid says. Finn bursts out laughing.
“The dumb fuck met with Andy the Auctioneer!” Finn slaps the Muloney boy upside the head. Da sighs with something like pity.
“Do you know why they call him the Auctioneer, lad?” Da asks.
The kid shakes his head.
“Because he’ll sell your ass to the highest bidder!” Finn cackles.
The Muloney boy closes his eyes. Tears leak down his cheeks. More shame at his own stupidity. That’s when I start to consider he may be telling the truth.
The Auctioneer is associated with the Vanleusens. But he’s associated with everyone in the criminal underbelly of this city. Including us. On very rare and detestable occasions.
Point is, he’s not one of Seven’s own.
Da knows this as well as I do. He turns back to me with his measured reasoning.
“If the Auctioneer was the point of contact for a Muloney-Vanleusen deal, then Cormac Muloney was poorly informed. That doesn’t sound like Cormac Muloney.”
Muloney’s boy Connor nods in desperate agreement.
“Why’d you go behind your family’s back, then?” I ask him. By breaking with them, the kid broke the first and foremost rule of this life. You never go against your family.
“Wanted to impress my father,” he mumbles. “Prove that I’m ready to lead.”
“Ah, well. You’re not,” I say. It’s a hard lesson. Learning your place.
As the second son, I learned it early. Helps that Liam’s not a giant prick about being the firstborn.
And that I have a talent he doesn’t—running the legal side of the family business.
I’m in charge of the real estate. The developments, the hotels, the restaurants.
The general public knows us as an American Irish family that achieved our massive success in the hospitality sector.
What they don’t know is our mafia side.
If they dug back a generation, they’d find it.
But only if they knew where to look. Da’s from the family that ran Galway for most of the twentieth century.
He’s the fifth son of his generation, deemed useful but unimportant.
When he found out Mam was pregnant, the two of them moved stateside.
Da wanted to make his own name and a better life. A ruthless life.
From what I recall, the Muloneys have a similar history. They’re also a generation away from the old country’s organized crime, but they’re more explicit about their current mafia dealings than we are. The Muloneys’ underground empire is Boston’s open secret.
And no.
This kid is not ready to take over any of it.
“We’ve come to a deal with the Muloneys,” Da says. “We let the boy live in exchange for an alliance.”
I don’t like it. But it’s the wise move. War is coming, one way or another. Having a powerful ally would tip the scales in our favor.
But it has to be the right ally.
And the right alliance.
“An alliance sealed with a marriage,” Mam says. Just as I predicted.
Liam doesn’t react. As heir to Da’s empire, he’s kept in the know. Finn, on the other hand, explodes.
“You want Sloane to marry this piece of shite?” He cuffs the kid on the back of the head. For once I agree with Finn.
Connor fucking crossed us.
Just thinking of him near our sister makes my blood boil.
“Not your sister,” Mam says to Finn. She points to the Muloney boy. “His.”
“You want him to marry his sister?” Finn sneers in confusion.
Liam drops his head, trying not to laugh. Da pinches the bridge of his nose. For one happy moment, I enjoy Finn’s idiocy as I’m relieved for Sloane’s sake.
But only for a moment.
We’re talking about the marriage between a Muloney daughter and an O’Sullivan son. But it won’t be the O’Sullivan son. They won’t waste firstborn Liam on a long-distance alliance. Cold reality grips me, but I am steel. I’ve always known my marriage would be arranged for the good of our family.
Mam fixes her eyes on mine.
I clench my jaw and nod once.
I know my duty.
“Cora Muloney has been in Chicago for the past ten years,” Mam tells me. “Living under the name Samantha Greene since leaving Boston.”
“Why the identity change?” I ask her brother. But Connor doesn’t meet my eye.
“It’s just a pseudonym according to our intel,” Mam says.
“She’s still legally Cora Muloney. Regardless, she’s Cormac’s daughter, which is what matters.
As for why she uses a pseudonym—safety. Why else?
Her family must’ve coordinated it, given she’s living in a city that’s not under their influence. ”
“But why our city?” I ask. This time there’s silence until Connor finally answers me.
“School,” he says. “Loyola.”
I get the sense he’s skirting the full truth. But I can read between the lines.
Mafia princess asked daddy if she could go away for school.
Of course he indulged her. She’s still a good Catholic girl, choosing Loyola of all places.
A good Catholic girl, a classic mafia princess, someone who was raised in the life and understands what’s expected of her.
Someone who knows her place: pliant and submissive. The perfect mafia wife.