Savage (Sins of the Banna #1)

Chapter One

Savage

W hen you think of the mafia, you probably think of glamor and violence. It’s fast-talking New Yorkers wearing shiny suits and making deals over smoky backroom poker games. Or stony-faced Russians eliminating their competition with brutal efficiency. Pablo Escobar surrounded by tigers and cocaine.

They’re all dropping the bodies of whoever gets in their way and looking sexy as fuck while they do it.

It’s what TV and books have been shoving down our throats for decades. I can walk into any Target right now and find books with some doll-faced heroine being swept off her feet by a gorgeous Armani-clad mafia prince with a BDSM habit and a secret heart of gold.

Well, I’m the mafia prince of Oklahoma.

If that’s not life kicking me in the balls, I don’t know what is.

There is no glamor in what I do. There are drug deals, and constant infighting, and an endless fucking stream of enemies that my father expects me to eliminate. Violence is messy. Dead bodies fucking stink. Hacking them up is the kind of workout that would make an Olympian pass out from exhaustion, and I’m really fucking sick of it.

I quit. I know the tattoos that cover my neck and face are supposed to mean blood in, blood out ; but for all the shitty things my father has done to me, I don’t believe he’ll kill me. Not if I do it right and go to him first. This job is eating me from the inside out, and if I keep going, I don’t think there will be much left of me to keep doing his dirty work.

I’ll kill anyone he wants. I’ll do any dirty job; whatever he asks for. I’ll fake my own fucking death. As long as he lets me go.

It’s bad enough I’m already pulling a Tony Soprano and seeing a shrink in secret, because I need the meds to survive. If anyone found that out, I’d be a laughingstock. A vulnerable one. Let’s not even contemplate how they’d react if they found out about any of my other embarrassing peccadillos.

Banna Lieutenants are supposed to be the cornerstones of our organization. We’re a brotherhood. Banna means bond in Irish, or band, as in band of brothers . It’s supposed to be unbreakable. Except I don’t think our ancestors accounted for many of us living past the age of twenty-one and having enough time for our demons to hook their claws into us.

Ironically, I looked the word up once when I was a teenager, and it has a couple other meanings as well. One of which is “hostage”.

“You alright, Savage?”

My second-in-command stares at me, probably because we’ve been sitting outside the courthouse for a couple of minutes, and I have yet to make any attempt to step out of the car.

Even my name sounds stupid. All the lieutenants are given these code names when they’re promoted. They’re supposed to sound bad-ass, I guess. Personally, I think that we probably just take too much meth. You know, for professional criminals who are supposed to be slick. It’s a stupid name, and I’m stuck with it for life.

Not only because the Banna is my entire life, but because no one can pronounce my given name. Tadhg. Like ‘tiger’, without the -er. Not hard, but how many people in Oklahoma City can wrap their heads around it?

My ignorant father was born here. I’m pretty sure we have as much Chickasaw blood in our family as Irish, but the man loves to play the part, and he thinks using the old-country names makes us look more legit. It’s the same reason his birth certificate reads ‘Patrick’ , but he’ll break a man’s nose for calling him anything other than Pádraig. The older he gets, the more he clings to this weird vanity about it.

I think it’s the fact that we murder anyone who gets in our way that keeps us in power. No one cares how Irish the Irish Mafia is but him, as long as we’re still supplying the region with guns and drugs.

“I’m fine, Colm. Let’s get this over with.”

He nods gruffly, but he doesn’t look convinced. His light eyes are still on me, but I can’t tell if it’s concern or suspicion he’s trying to mask. With any of my brothers-in-arms, either is possible. And out of all of us, Colm has a reputation for being the most enigmatic. He’s even-tempered, but also keeps everything close to the chest. In a gang of loud-mouths and violence junkies, he’s always the voice of caution, only killing when he absolutely needs to.

His fingers tap out a rhythm on the back of the passenger seat, where he’s twisted to look back at me. He has ink from his first knuckles up, just like me and all the other Banna soldiers. Except his face is bare, because he’s not a lieutenant. Plus, the letters across his fingers spell out “KNOW HOPE”, while mine say “SAVAGE”, followed by the Banna snake.

Because nothing’s cooler than having your own fake name tattooed across your hands.

“Let’s get this over with,” I repeat, reaching for the car door.

Today is the one rare day I’m actually wearing a suit. It’s ridiculously uncomfortable. Normally, I wear clothes with enough give that I can fight in them. I have no idea how all those mobsters in the sixties were out there kicking each other’s asses while wearing loafers; I swear to god. But today I have a court appearance I wasn’t able to wiggle out of.

The DA has pulled me in to testify against our biggest rival: the Aryan Brotherhood. I’m not going to say shit, of course. We’ve been blood rivals with the Brotherhood for as long as anyone can remember and nothing is going to change that, so there’s no point in getting the law involved. No one ever rats. I know it and she knows it, but I think she’s throwing me on the stand anyway, hoping I’ll cave at the last minute and, “Do the right thing, Mr. Moynihan.”

As if I’m physically capable. Father beat that ability out of me a long, long time ago.

I’ll go up there, swear in, say I saw nothing, and then move on with my life. The DA can rest easy knowing that justice will be served regardless of the verdict. Our way may be messier, but it’s much more to the point. The Aryan Brotherhood doesn’t get away with anything when they’re in our territory.

I step out of the car with a sigh, buttoning up my jacket as I move toward the entrance. It’s a drab, gray building that looks like it’s more suited to issuing parking citations than staunch justice. But what do I know?

As I walk—Colm hot on my heels, also dressed in an ill-fitting suit—I rehearse what I’m going to say to Father tonight. How I’m going to plead with him for my freedom. I have to imply that it’s a matter of life or death, which I’m beginning to feel like it is, without saying it outright. Letting him on to the truth of my mental state would be disastrous.

The man can scent weakness like a bloodhound, and he might be inclined to correct me. It’s something he hasn’t done since I grew taller than him and added about eighty more pounds of muscle to my frame, but the threat always exists. Lurking in the back of my mind and memories, even if it’s not real.

I’ll go up to him, stand strong, make my case for why I deserve to exit the organization with a little dignity, and then escape this exhausting life for good.

Fuck knows what I’m going to do after that, but that’s a problem for Future Savage.

I’m so in my head that I hear the commotion thirty seconds after everyone else does.

I’m trained to be on high alert at all times. It’s been instilled in me since I was a little boy protecting my stepbrother from Father’s rages, long before my formal training began. For as long as I can remember, it was instinct. But protecting Micah was a worthy cause. Probably the only worthy cause I ever had.

Nowadays, all the misery that I’ve been drowning in has left me sluggish, and saving my own hide isn’t enough motivation to switch that instinct back on. This thirty-second delay is a prime example of that. As soon as I clock it, I realize it’s probably about to cost me my life. I’ve become slow and vulnerable, and the Aryan Brotherhood must have sensed it.

I reach for my Glock, but it’s not there. The courthouse. I had to leave it in the car for the metal detectors.

Fuck.

Four men with their faces covered in dirty bandanas charge up the steps. The courthouse security guards are moving at the speed that only fat courthouse rent-a-cops would. They look like they’d rather run for their lives than put themselves in between two groups of criminals about to battle it out on their doorstep.

The wall of sound hits me first. Then the acrid smell of blood and gunpowder fills my nose, and I find myself face down on the rough cement steps without any awareness of how I got there. My shoulder throbs and so does my stomach, so I must have been hit.

Each gasping breath of air I try to take is thick with dirt and dust. My lips graze the rough ground, and I wonder if the last sensation I’ll experience in life is tasting the boot prints of everyone who’s gone up and down these steps before me.

Fuck this. I wasn’t even going to say anything. I was going to keep my mouth shut and then get out. And now I’m surrounded by nothing but yelling and bright, gripping pain. I see Colm at an awkward angle, but it looks like unlike me, he was still carrying when they attacked. He’s firing at someone now, so maybe there’s a chance of us getting out of here alive. Or at least him.

I hope Colm doesn’t die. I don’t have any friends in this business, but if I did, he might be it.

In a flash of clarity, I wish it had been Father here to go down with me instead of anyone else. He’s the one who deserves this kind of undignified end.

Well, I deserve it too. After everything he’s made me do.

Right before the world goes black, I have one final thought. I hope at least I don’t have to see him when we both make it to Hell.