Chapter 5
FIVE
“You took your sweet-ass time, Kiernan.” Seamus tilts his head back, leaning slightly in his chair as I approach, sensing my heavy footsteps against the worn wooden floor.
We’ve been trained since we were young to always be on alert.
To look. Listen. Feel. Honing the senses that could easily save our lives.
And they have.
“Got a beer for you.” He is sitting at one of the small tables near the bar, my father casually sitting across from him.
It’s still early, nearly seven in the morning.
We spent the entire evening cleaning up the mess in the alley.
We didn’t get back to the bar until nearly five.
They both have towels draped over one shoulder, their shirts dotted with wetness.
They’ve been hard at work. Lucky for us, the bar is closed tonight.
We never open on Sundays unless it’s for family.
One thing our father instilled in us growing up is the reward of family and hard work. And the understanding that a leader doesn’t just watch from the sidelines while his people do the work. He gets his hands dirty. He digs in.
“If you humble yourself to your people, they will be more apt to follow you when trouble brews. Our community is our family, and we treat family with honor and respect. We don’t demand respect like other families might. It is earned, and you must earn it from those who have your back.”
“We have a problem,” I mumble, taking the empty seat next to my brother. Seamus and my father frown, waiting for me to continue. I gulp down half my beer and lean back in my chair, a ragged sigh escaping me.
Fuck.
“Do leave us in suspense, brother,” Seamus drawls dramatically.
I run a hand down my face, groaning as I think about how I plan to word the shitshow we’ve gotten ourselves into.
“I don’t think the girl is lying about being stranded,” I start. “Patrick confirmed her car did indeed stall. But from the looks of it, it was tampered with.”
“Tampered with or meant to look like it had been?” my father asks.
“I honestly believe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I tell him. “From what I can make out from her text messages, she caught her fiancé cheating on her, drove somewhere to get away, stalled in our parking lot, and drank her weight in whiskey.”
“That the bad news?” Seamus arches his brow.
“Bridgett gave me her background details.” Shit. Father is going to murder us. “Bailey Jameson is the adopted daughter of Senator Richard Crowe.”
My father snarls at the senator’s name.
It isn’t a secret in the underground that Senator Richard Crowe has a hard-on for trying to send my father to jail—him and the rest of the mafiosos in the city. He fancies himself a white knight, a Harvey Dent, but he is no better than any of us.
In some ways, he is much worse.
The only difference between the criminal empire and him is that he presents himself like a fucking king. Royalty. Untouchable. The dark truth of who he is hidden behind the facade of the wealthy businessman. His hands are only clean because he pays others to do his dirty work.
“We need to come up with a plan,” my father murmurs. “Find out how close she is to her father. What she knows. Maybe we can use her as a bargaining chip.”
“You think she knows anything?” Seamus asks. “She may be his daughter, but there is no guarantee she knows anything useful. Hell, we didn’t even know he had a second daughter.”
Seamus has a point. How the hell do we miss that Crowe has another daughter, or that there is a union between him and Knight? It doesn’t feel right.
“She has to know something,” I interject. “From what I gather, her stepmother is pissed at her for leaving her fiancé. Apparently, their marriage is a large opportunity for him.”
“Do we know why?” Father questions.
“Not the particulars,” I admit with a small shrug. “But we know who. That’s the other bad news.”
“Just what we need,” Seamus mutters, polishing off the rest of his beer.
I take a deep breath. “Her fiancé, Drew Knight, is the son of Magnus Knight.”
“Well, shit.” Seamus whistles.
“That definitely changes some things,” my father muses, stroking his two-day stubble. “One thing is for sure, though.” He looks up at me with an amused smirk. “You’re going to have to work on your makeup game with that shiner you’re sporting. I suggest heavy concealer.”
Seamus, the fucker, howls with laughter at my father’s dig. I shoot him a glare, my hand coming out to smack the back of his head.
Little shithead.
“The little siren got in a lucky shot,” I growl angrily. “Better than Seamus. She nailed him right in the bollocks. He’ll be lucky if anything down there still works.”
That shuts my twin up.
My father, however, lights up at my statement.
He is a cheerful one. That is something I’ve always loved about him.
He never takes life too seriously. Most fathers in his position are known for being stern and controlling.
They weigh their heirs down with unrealistic expectations. Bars that can never be reached.
Liam Kavanaugh is not that kind of father.
When we were growing up, he never set the bar farther than we could reach. When we touch it, he moves it just a bit farther. His goals for us are never unattainable. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect, and he never encourages us to follow directly in his footsteps.
“You’ll find your own footsteps,” he told us when we first learned the truth about the empire we would one day inherit. “Follow your own paths. Lean on each other, and everything will work itself out.”
His words have yet to fail us.
“We need to come up with a plan.” I let out a long sigh. “One that won’t have us going to war against the senator.”
“Kill her.”
The three of us turn to find my mother approaching us from behind the bar. She put her cell phone down long enough to listen in on our conversation. Eavesdropping is the only time she manages to lift her eyes away from it.
“We don’t kill the innocent, Marianne,” Father growls. His patience with her has been thinning since her obvious rebuke of Ava. My half-sister’s role in our family has become a point of contention between the two of them. “You know this.”
Mother snorts derisively. “She is the daughter of one of the dirtiest senators in the country. How innocent do you really think she is?” she asks, eyes narrowed at my father.
The tension between them coils tighter, the air around them thickening.
You’d think she would be happy to have her best friend’s daughter in her life.
But this is my mother.
Selfish.
Shallow.
Out for her own regard.
Ava is a threat to her standing in the family.
I learned early in life that my mother does nothing that doesn’t benefit her.
She is a viper in the tall grass. A chameleon.
And someone who is more than willing to stab you in the back with one of her Louboutins if it means she’ll climb the hierarchy ladder.
I have a bet with Seamus that Father only married her because she got pregnant with us. Another calculated move on her part and a “moment of weakness” from what my father drunkenly mumbled one night. It doesn’t sting when he says it. I know he wouldn’t trade my siblings or me for the world.
“That may be,” Father continues calmly. I can see his green eyes darkening dangerously. “But it still stands. We don’t kill women and children. Especially if they don’t cause any harm to us.”
“Any harm?” My mother sneers, her hands coming down on the tabletop roughly as she leans toward my father, her face pinched in an ugly scowl. “She witnessed your sons murder someone. She’s a reporter. One who could bring this entire family to ruin with just pen and paper.”
Mother isn’t wrong. If given the opportunity, Bailey could deliver a large blow to us if she reported on what she saw.
She’ll be the only witness, but her status as an investigative journalist gives her credibility.
She can easily sink our organization to its knees if she has both Magnus Knight and her father backing her.
If given the opportunity.
“We’re not killing her, Mother.” Seamus frowns at her. “Kiernan and I will take care of Bailey our way. It’s our mess. We should have cleared the alley before taking care of Jimmy.”
“Yes,” she hisses, turning her cold eyes on him.
“You should have. The two of you are set to be the next leaders of this family. You can’t afford mistakes.
By not killing her, you are showing how weak you are.
How soft you are. I’m disappointed in the two of you.
I thought I raised you better. Neither of you ever thinks. You both just—”
“Enough,” I roar at her, losing my patience.
I watch Seamus pale as she berates him. We might both be hardened men, but that doesn’t mean our mother belittling us doesn’t have any effect.
Seamus is more sensitive when it comes to our mother.
He always wanted her attention when we were little.
He did just about anything to garner the one thing she never gave us.
He simply wanted to talk with her. To have her smile at him. Appreciate him.
She never did. Not unless there was something in it for her.
We might be twins, but I saw our mother’s duplicitous nature long before my brother. She isn’t worthy of the title. There are those out there who love their mothers, even when they are cruel and cold. They might even shed a tear if they die.
I am not one of those people.
Neither is Seamus.
Not anymore.
My mother’s eyes widen at my outburst. She takes a step back from the table, her mouth open in shock.
“You’re done here, Mother,” I growl. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.
Seamus and I are handling the situation as we see fit.
We made a mistake, and we will rectify it.
Our way. That doesn’t mean we are incapable.
It makes us human. Sparing her life doesn’t make us weak or soft.
It makes us men who know where to draw the line. ”
Her face turns a mottled, angry red, lips thinning as her shock morphs into a venomous glare. “How dare you—”
“Leave, Marianne.” My father glares at her, “Before I lose my temper.”
My mother doesn’t need to be told twice. She scurries away from the table without a second glance. There aren’t many people she is afraid of. My father is one of the few. And rightly so.
“Now…” My father leans forward, his elbows resting on the table as his gaze travels between my twin and me. “You made a mistake, and that’s all right, sons. Let’s discuss how we can rectify it.”
Seamus visibly swallows, his jaw clenching tightly as he struggles to rein in the tumultuous sea of emotions threatening to bubble to the surface.
“I might have an idea.”