8. Get It Handled
Chapter eight
Get It Handled
Eoghan
“ G o home, boyo ,” I said to the driver. I brought my phone out, and waved him out of the driver’s seat.
Kieran O’Malley was a young man, of deep Irish roots that had just come back from a stint in the Army.
“Go find yourself a warm place to stay tonight,” I said with a slight chuckle. He was a young man, and I knew what some of my soldiers could get up to at night.
O’Malley smirked, giving me a nod as I ordered him a cab on my phone.
“Thank you, Mr. Green,” he said planting his hands in his pocket, raising his shoulders against the brisk winter air. The boy had an American accent, but put a few pints in him, his Da’s Derry accent would come out loud and proud.
I went into my wallet and pulled out three hundred dollar bills and handed them to him.
“Have yourself a drink, lad,” I said, even though I knew he wasn’t much younger than me.
Everyone just felt younger, when I knew that their life would be in my hands, one day.
“Thanks, boss!” He waved the bills in the air, smiling at me, as a black car pulled up.
It was one of our Irish services, because I wouldn’t trust an ordinary Uber to take my boys around. We also paid better, and that was important. I considered it investing in the Irish community.
That left me with the black Mercedes-Maybach, and balls as blue as the arctic ocean.
I stared up at her window, wishing I was inside with her.
Had I brought a driver because I intended to be joining her in her small apartment tonight? Yes. Had I looked at where she lived, to find out exactly which window was hers? Yes.
Was my change of plan for the evening a disappointment? I wasn’t sure.
There was something sweet about the chase.
She was gorgeous. Her skin smelled like flowers that I couldn’t identify; other than the fact they weren’t roses. She was more elegant than the common rose, and I had been hard the entire time I escorted her through the gallery.
I pulled a pack of Dunhill cigarettes from my pocket and leaned back on my car.
The brisk air was like a cold shower, helping me forget the ache in my cock. I tapped the box before opening the fresh pack and lighting the first one.
The first cigarette of a new pack was like hitting the road with a full tank of gas. There’s just something about it that makes you feel like you could take life by the horns.
I would conquer her - this Goddess called Kira Kekoa. I would take her like the Sabine women and convert her to my cause, to be my legal, loving wife and partner in all things. As my father had been with my mother, until her demise.
But unlike my mum, Kira would never leave my sight. I’d never leave her unguarded.
The word “mine” kept rolling around in my head again and again. She was mine, and I would hold her close. I would keep her close until the end of fucking time.
Was it mad? Yes. Was I obsessed? Undeniably so.
I felt no need to refute that.
From the moment I saw her long limbs walking down the gallery, leading a crowd like a siren, I knew she was something. She spoke out of her arse, keeping everyone riveted with every word. She was a liar, that was for sure.
Normally, I’d take lying as an insult. But not from her.
There was something about her lies that didn’t barb my skin. It was like she wove a picture of beauty.
That nonsense about the artist, Vasali, was pure bullocks. She did it for a purpose - to drive up the cost of art.
The first sign of intelligence is the ability to deceive, and my Kira was a fucking genius.
But then there was that honest moment, when she saw my painting. A moment of true admiration crossed her deceptive little face. I realized that she wore a mask, like me. I wanted to strip her bare, to see the true and tender flesh beneath the facade. I wanted more from her than I could have. It was unbearable.
But I was a patient man. I had to be, with my background. So, I’d take down the barriers erected between us one by one.
Cosima Durante was, most definitely, one of the obstacles between me and my Juliet.
The Italian heiress had no right to be so… judgmental.
We were both the only children of two ruthless men who clashed like stags chasing after a single doe. It had been glorious, taking the Italian containers that they had kept on their long ships, and sinking them to the bottom of the ocean. All the legitimate wares, and pounds and pounds of cocaine harmlessly drifting down to the ocean floor.
Fuck you Eugenio Durante…
When I finished the cigarette, I dropped it to the pavement and crushed it under my boot.
I walked down the road, to the Irish bar called Four Green Fields. It was a hole-in-the-wall owned by an associate, Rowan. I had protected his family business when the Russians stormed into his place demanding “protection money”. Now, it was our favorite spot.
The door swung open and closed. The crowd hushed.
“Keith,” I said, looking at one of the Green Fields Enterprises - the family LLC - guards. “I have a task for you.”
Keith smirked, his eyes darting around.
He leaned towards me. “What do you need, boss?”
His strong Irish accent was like mine. He had come over when he was young, and living in the society we did, the Irish was something we could put on at will. And we laid it on thick. It was good for the boys. It let everyone know, without a doubt, that our blood ran emerald green even if we had blue passports and waved the stars and stripes.
“Cosima Durante,” I said, taking a drink of the Vermouth in front of me. “I need you to follow her. I need to know who she is, who she talks to. I want to know her opinions on everything from the Middle East conflict to the right length for a hemline.”
“To what purpose, boss?” Keith asked, his brow lifting. “It’ll be easier to know what to look for, if I know what you’re after.”
I shrugged, leaning back in the booth. “It's just time that we get to know this generation of Mafia, isn’t it?”
I didn’t trust Keith. Not as far as I could throw him.
I had known him since we were kids. He had been engaged to a girl who lived within our clan. The Flanagan girl, Sinead. The girl had been a favorite of my mum’s before her untimely death. The daughter my mum had always wanted.
They were arranged to be married on her eighteenth birthday, and young Sinead had been eager for the match. But on that fateful day, when there should have been wedding bells ringing, and blood spilt in a handfast, the bride went missing.
What had Keith done to our little Sinead to make her disappear? I wasn’t sure. But I didn’t trust him.
He was a competent soldier, though. And a more than competent spy.
“A’right, boss,” he said, with a grin, as a woman walked into the bar in shorts so small, you could see the bottom crease of her arse.
Keith bit his bottom lip as he stared at her with lustful intent. The girl flipped her hair, looking over her shoulder at him in clear invitation.
I had lost the man’s attention.
Like me, he had an Irish accent that made the American girls swoon, and he had no problem taking advantage of it.
Since his engagement, and hell, since even before it, he was a consummate man-whore. It was probably best that Sinead had left him at the church with his dick in his hands.
I suppose that was none of my business, at the end of the day.
“I’ll get it handled,” Keith said, as he leapt from the chair to see the girl, leaving me alone in the corner booth.
I looked up at the cracks on the ceiling of the bar.
The crown molding had the faintest hint of four-leaf clovers. Four leaves, four green fields… four, four, four. For the four provinces of Ireland.
Christ, I missed my homeland. I missed it and resented it all the same. Where I was born was occupied by the British, still under the crown that despised us. So, we carved a place for ourselves here, in this “New” York.
But we were more than Irish, weren’t we? We brought our own brand of evangelical pride, as dictated by my father who had a flare for the insanely dramatic. An insanity that had served a purpose, when my mother was around to soften his edges. Now, unchecked, he was just an old bastard who was chomping at the shadows where his tired, gray eyes couldn’t see.
Black is the color of my true love's hair…
Why did those words flash through my mind now? I pursed my lips, thinking of my Muse.
My mother had loved that song, even though she and my father had golden hair. I wondered if my mother sang it to me because she knew that my love would be a raven-haired thing, with eyes as dark as coal.
In many ways, Isla Green had always been close to death. If not because of the Irish mob, then for the delicateness of her physical form. She was ailed by headaches, pains, and fevers. A thing no one could ever diagnose.
My birth had been a miracle, as every other one before and after me ended in a miscarriage. I was the only one that made it past the first trimester.
Her frailty gave her insight into the afterlife, I was sure of it. It was like she straddled this world and the next. She must have known that Kira would be the one for me.