9. The Plan, the Crew & the Bestie
Chapter nine
The Plan, the Crew & the Bestie
WRAITH
Even though it's after eleven, Mick picks up on the second ring. "Yeah?"
"The timing doesn't work." I don't think my boss will mind the delay as long as how I handle things keeps Kenneth in the dark about how much we know.
"Explain."
"Her mom won't believe it."
"I assume you have a workaround."
"Vegas."
"You want to elope to Las Vegas?" Mick muses. "That's not a bad idea. It gets you out of town. But what about the girls?"
"We're taking her mom and the girls this Friday. We'll get married spontaneously while we're there." It's easier to talk to Mick because he's my boss and I've been trained to give all necessary details on a mission.
Maybe I need to apply that training to my relationship with áine. Not sure she'd like thinking of our life as a mission though. Women are funny like that.
Even if this marriage is a strategy to protect her, she'll want to see it as something more. And after that kiss earlier? That won't be so hard to do.
It's going to be marriage and sex.
That's more.
And maybe friendship.
The idea of being friends with an outsider is odd. I haven't had friends outside of the service or the mob in nearly two decades. But she's not really an outsider, is she?
She was married to a mobster. I force down the rumble of annoyance that thought brings. And working for Kenneth, knowing what she does, áine is part of the mob already. Whatever she thinks.
"Get your crew working on the assignment I gave you this morning before you leave."
"Copy that." I'll text them right after I call Brice, give him a sit rep and clear my time out of New York with him.
O'dark thirty the next morning, I've got my crew together at the Bunker and read them into our assignment.
"I knew Kenneth Shaughnessy was an arsehole, but I didn't realize he was thick as a ditch too," Dagda says, a slight Irish lilt to his voice.
A Shaughnessy Mob legacy, his da grew up in Queens, but his ma is from Ireland. And Dagda spent summers with her family over there until his da died and he moved there to live full time with his ma.
At twenty-six, he's eight years younger than me, but Dagda served like I did. Only in the Irish Defense Forces. He was a Ranger too in their Army Ranger Wing, but served on a UN peacekeeping mission in Mali while I did two tours in the sandbox.
His time in Mali was every bit as blood tainted and dangerous as my time in the sandbox though.
When he mustered out, he moved back to New York and took his place in the Shaughnessy Mob with no detour to an alphabet agency or freelance work like me. Said being a soldier in the mob was less dangerous.
"I've heard a couple of guys talkin' smack about Mick becoming the next boss, but I thought it was just jealous bitching." Noah chews on the ever-present toothpick sticking out the side of his mouth. "Ain't nobody going to take over from Brogan but him."
"Who?" I immediately ask.
He names two of the men he plays basketball with and I curse.
Thomas scowls. "Both of those idjits are on a crew under Rory. He'd knock their blocks clear off their necks and into the next borough if he heard them talking shit like that."
Thomas is a legacy through his da like Dagda, but his ma is Nigerian. A doctor who works in a syndicate sponsored clinic in Queens, she was wicked pissed when her youngest son refused to go to college.
To hear Thomas tell it, his ma made his da sleep in the guest room for two weeks after he sponsored Thomas for induction.
But Thomas doesn't like school and never has. He's got focus and dedication all right, but it's directed toward other things. He's been training in Krav Maga since he was a kid and is already working on his Nidan.
I don't test for belts, but he's a damn good sparring partner and that means he knows how to fight dirty, not just the Krav Maga way.
Neither Thomas, nor Dagda have heard any rumblings like Noah. Is that because people think they can talk more freely around a recruit without family ties in the mob?
I haven't heard anything either, but everyone knows I'm Mick's man, even if my lieutenant is Brice.
"What did you do when they started saying shite?" Torch, our resident explosives expert, asks Noah.
"Elbowed one in the stomach while blocking him and told him to shut the fuck up. Tripped the other guy so he landed face first on the court. Broke his nose on the concrete. Don't think anyone is going to repeat that shit around me," Noah says to me with an apologetic look.
"How did the other players react?" Thomas asks.
Noah stops and thinks before he answers, like I taught him.
"When Sean spouted off, the only other player who could hear was Patrick and he acted like he hadn't.
But he was the one who brought up that shit a couple of weeks later.
That time, we were all leaving after the game.
I got some fist bumps after I tripped him and Liam asked if Patrick had a death wish. No one agreed with him."
"Not even Sean?"
"No. In fact, he was one of the guys who fist bumped me."
"Either your elbow to the midsection knocked some sense into him—" Thomas says.
And McLaren finishes, "Or he learned his lesson and didn't want you telling anyone he's not as loyal to the underboss as he should be."
I nod my agreement to that.
The crew calls Ellie, one of the best hackers on the dark web, McLaren because her fingers move across the keyboard faster than a McLaren Speedtail.
"A lot of the players go to O'Mally's after we're done playing," Noah says. "I don't usually go because there's a lot of shit talk about me not having fake I.D. so I can drink a beer with them. Or them having to sit in the dining area instead of at the bar because I'm with them."
Dagda smacks Noah's shoulder. "Don't let it get to you, boyo. O'Mally would kill you dead if he caught you using fake I.D. in his bar and he knows our boys well enough to know who's of age and who isn't."
"Yeah, I got a lot of ribbing about that shit too before I turned twenty-one." Thomas rolls his eyes. "But maami would have done worse than kill me if I got caught drinking at O'Mally's."
"Being sober while the others are downing shots and pitchers of beer might work for you though," Dagda says musingly. "You could even drop some talk juice in the pitcher. Enough to loosen tongues, not knock anyone out."
Talk juice is what we call the special benzo compound developed by a Chinese triad we do business with. They've improved on it over the years, but it's essentially the same stuff Mick used on me back in the day.
We don't use it on our own men.
Which is what Thomas says with his next breath.
Dagda narrows his eyes. "We've got a cancer growing in our ranks. We use whatever we need to eradicate it."
"Better that than the Shaughnessy Mob going to war with itself," Ethan adds quietly.
"True dat," Torch agrees.
I nod, telling my team that I approve the use of the talk juice for this assignment.
Brice recruited Ethan into the mob ten years ago after Ethan won a string of off-the-books sharp shooting competitions sponsored by the mob. Ethan would be considered one of the world's top snipers if he had ever been in the military.
As it is, he's not on any government or law enforcement database but he's known on the dark web as Raptor and he's made millions for the mob as an assassin.
He's also damn good at surveillance. Which is the assignment I give him. "Work with McLaren to set up digital surveillance too."
Both Ethan and McLaren nod their acquiescence.
"If he knew the feds pulled áine in for an interview, maybe he's working with one of them already," McLaren says with disgust. "Do we know the names of the agents that told her about her husband's connection to the mob?"
There's a quality to McLaren's voice I don't get. It's like she's pissed off personally about what happened to áine. She doesn't usually stir herself on behalf of others.
"I'll have her text them to you," I say. I should have gotten it from her yesterday.
McLaren puts something into her phone and then mine dings with a notification. She sent me a reminder text. I don't bother bitching about not needing one.
That's just McLaren.
For every word I don't speak, she says ten. When she's not on her computer. Then, she barely talks and doesn't listen at all. You can have a conversation with her and she won't remember a word of it later.
Better to just leave her to it when her hands are on the keyboard.
"I'll cross reference phone records and locations services for the cell phones involved," she tells me.
But I bet that's in the text too.
Once she meets my crew, áine is going to love McLaren's excessive reminders and tendency to over explain.
The rest of them brainstorm additional mission maneuvers while I search for a flight to Vegas for me and my new family.
"That okay with you, Wraith?" Thomas asks.
I replay their conversation in my head before I nod approval for their plans.
"Whatcha doin'?" Noah asks me.
"Trying to find six first class seats on a flight to Vegas for Friday."
"This Friday?" Dagda asks.
I give a jerk of my head in the affirmative.
"Good luck with that," Torch says.
I need more than luck because so far, I haven't found more than two first class seats available for a flight. I'm not putting my family in coach. It's crowded and nearly impossible to guarantee security.
"Who's going to Vegas?" McLaren asks.
"Me and my new family."
"New family?" Thomas asks. "When did you start dating and who is she?"
Crunch time. Do I share the real reason for my marriage? I wasn't blowing smoke up áine's skirt when I told her the more people who know, the bigger the chance the secret gets out.
Even when they're people you know you can trust.
Besides, I don't want my crew looking at áine like she's a mission for me because whatever the reason for us getting married, she'll be my wife.
'Til death do us part.