Lorenzo #2
"I want more information on the Delaney household," I say. "Not his business dealings, I have all of that. I want information internally. I want to know what the family dynamics are. What Quinn's actual history in that house looks like. Any incidents or patterns."
"Marco," he says. "Quietly."
"Very quietly."
He nods once and I know it’ll be done.
I enter my office, the brown envelope in my hands, and anxiousness running through my veins.
Tempest has information for me. It took him only a few days, but he found something.
And in true Tempest form, he didn’t deliver it to me.
No, he made a whole song and dance about it.
He texted me from a burner phone with the location of a safety deposit box and how to locate it.
Of course, I had to get the key, which was in a different location first. I swear the man is more paranoid than I am, and that’s saying something.
I sink into my chair, rip open the envelope, and start to read. Fuck, it's not good.
The logistics contract we've been working toward for three months is gone.
Taken by a company that had no business knowing it was available.
Tempest's contact spent two days getting beneath the surface of it, but they haven’t been able to figure out the owner of the shell corporation that Mistiant Holdings belongs to.
But even without knowing who is doing this, I know what it means.
This isn't someone selling information for cash, no.
This is someone using what they're pulling from the Syndicate to build something for themselves. A parallel operation, one that’s running adjacent to ours, using our intelligence to stay ahead, undercutting us in our own territory with information that could only have come from inside.
This is not a leak, but an entire operation.
I put the paper through the shredder. We had this before, a different scale with different families involved, but with the same underlying principle.
The Harringtons started small, too. Building quietly, staying underneath the radar, using the access that came with being trusted members of the Syndicate to position themselves for something bigger. By the time anyone understood the full scope of what they were doing, it was too late.
I push that thought down. It's not the same situation. Not yet. The scale is different, the intent might be different, but I don't have enough information to draw that conclusion. So, I have to sit and wait for more concrete information before I can move forward.
I send a message to Tempest, letting him know to keep digging into the company, to find who's behind the money. I don't want him to move on this yet. Don't alert anyone about what we’re looking into, just find the information and report back the same way.
There’s a knock at the door and in walks Ciro, a grim look on his face and I tense.
"Marco found something," he says as he takes a seat opposite me. "Not much yet, but something."
I wait, knowing whatever the hell he’s found isn’t going to be good.
"Quinn had a fractured wrist two years ago, she was sixteen years old. The family doctor handled it. It never went to a hospital." He pauses, running a hand through his hair. "Before that, she had a dislocated shoulder. She was fourteen, and the same doctor treated her."
I don't say anything for a moment.
"Marco's still digging," Ciro says. "But that's the early picture."
Fourteen and sixteen, two years between the two, but what’s happened between those that didn’t need her to seek medical attention?
"Keep going," I say. "I want the full picture, not just the incidents. I want to know what her day-to-day actually looks like in that house. Who she talks to, where she spends her time, who she trusts."
He nods. "There's something else." He shifts in his chair slightly. "There's a name that keeps coming up around the Delaney household. A man named Tony Geraghty. Ronan's right-hand man. He’s been with Ronan for decades."
"I know who Geraghty is."
"The name came up in connection with something that happened a few years back," Ciro says. "Unclear exactly what. Marco's contact wasn't specific, but said there was an incident that the family buried. A girl died, and from what the rumors are Quinn was involved somehow. It's vague."
"Find out what it was."
"I'll try. It's old and it's buried deep, so it might take a while."
"Then take a while." I sit forward. "But quietly, Ciro. If anyone in the Delaney household gets wind that we're looking into this, it creates problems we don't need five weeks before the wedding."
He nods and leaves my office. I can’t help but think there’s so much more that we’ve yet to uncover. I'll take everything Ciro has uncovered to my father before the day is over. He trusts my instincts, but he expects to be informed of every move I make.
The engagement party is in four days, I doubt I’ll have the full scope of things before then.
I've been through the security rotation twice already.
The event's at the Delaney Estate, which means we're on their ground with the full family present. My father and Vittoria, along with my siblings are going to be in attendance, along with the majority of the Syndicate men and women. The East Street Kings are sending some of their men as security, the Morozov’s too.
It's a significant gathering on territory that isn't ours, and the fact that we're five weeks out from a wedding that the entire Syndicate knows replaced the original arrangement means every person in that room is going to be watching for cracks.
There can't be any cracks.
I've spoken to Daithí Delaney about the security arrangement twice now.
He's professional, thorough, and takes the responsibility seriously.
That much I respect. He runs a tight operation, doesn't cut corners, and he's got good instincts for where the pressure points are.
More useful to me than his father, frankly, in terms of getting things actually done.
He's also clearly protective of Quinn. I've watched him at Syndicate events over the years, watched how he moves through rooms, where his attention goes. It doesn't usually go to Quinn, but since this arrangement was announced, it does.
Something shifted for him when she became mine to deal with. I keep that information in the back of my mind. It’ll be useful later, no doubt.
My mind is whirling with information and I can’t shut my brain off.
The rat is still out there, trying to build something as they try stealing from us. The picture is forming but it's not complete yet, and I'm not moving until it is. Moving too early with the wrong name does more damage than waiting.
Marco is digging into Quinn's history in the Delaney household. There’s so much about that family and their dynamics that doesn’t make sense.
Not to mention, the buried incident involving Geraghty and a girl that we uncovered today.
And there's an engagement party in four days where I'm going to have to stand next to Quinn Delaney in front of the entire Syndicate and present this as a settled, functional alliance while running the separate investigations in the background.
Fine. I've managed worse.
I reach for the investigator I use for this kind of work.
My father has used her for years. These days, she's one of the few contacts he's entrusted entirely to me.
She moves through the Delaney social network without creating ripples, an old contact, someone whose discretion I've tested personally over several years.
I want what Marco can't get from the outside.
The internal version. What people who know the household say privately about the Delaney daughters, about Bridget, about the way that family actually operates behind the performance of it.
I send the request and close the laptop for the night.
The office is quiet.
I think about Quinn and the fact that she still hasn't asked for anything. She came into my house, negotiated nothing, demanded nothing, and asked one question, and that question was what I needed from her, not what she could get from me. That still doesn’t sit right with me.
In my world, everyone is calculating their angle. Everyone wants something and the question is just how far they're willing to go to get it. Quinn Delaney came in and asked how to make things easier for me.
Either she genuinely doesn't have an angle, or she has one I haven't found yet.
Then there's the bruise. She had it at the dinner and she has it nearly a week later.
She didn't mention it. She didn't look at me like she was waiting for me to notice so she could say something.
She just covered it and moved through the room and handled everything that needed handling without once reaching for what she had.
In my world, information is currency. A bruise caused by her own father, documented and shown to the right person at the right time, could have been leverage. She's smart enough to know that. She didn't touch it.
I don't know what to do with that. I don't tolerate unknowns, not in my business, and not in my house. If Quinn Delaney is hiding something, I'm going to find out what it is.
But if she's not hiding something, if this is simply who she is, then I'm bringing something into my house that I haven't seen enough of in this world to immediately know how to account for it.
I stand, button my jacket, and kill the light.
I'll figure it out, I always do.
Sitting behind my desk, I'm trying to focus on the reports and the problems that need solving. There's a cold, half-empty cup of coffee beside me and a stack of paperwork that should have my full attention.
Instead, my mind keeps drifting to Quinn, it's annoying.
I've got enough on my plate without wasting time thinking about a woman I'm due to marry in five weeks: The rat is still out there, the leak still needs plugging, the situation with Geraghty and the dead girl is raising more questions than answers.