Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Patrick
I’m surprised to find Cormac in the living room with Charlotte’s son when I head downstairs early the next morning. Lukas—Lucky—whatever his name is, has a huge bin of blocks that I didn’t see Charlotte carry out to her vehicle last night.
“Good morning,” I say, taking a seat on the couch near where the two are seated on the floor. “I see the two of you have met.”
“Gorman comes to the libe-berry at story time,” Lucky says.
“Gorman?” I snort.
I can only assume the libe-berry is the library, but I truly have no idea who Gorman is.
“That’s how he says my name,” Cormac says, shoving his glasses up with his middle finger.
“So, you guys know each other from the library?” I ask as the wheels in my head start turning.
“Yep!” the kid says, shoving a yellow block on top of his tower. “Mommy takes me at story time.”
“Is that right?” I ask, chuckling. “And what does Gorman do at the library?”
“Who’s that?” Lucky asks, his little nose wrinkling.
“Ahh, my dear brother Cormac,” I say, quirking an eyebrow at the shady fucker in question. It’s also probably in poor taste to make fun of the way a child speaks.
“Oh, Cormac,” the boy says, pointing at my brother. It once again sounds like Gorman, and I barely hold back a laugh.
Children are excellent tattletales.
And I find it quite humorous.
Cormac’s cheeks turn pink, and he shrugs. “I like the library.”
“Bullshit,” I say with a snort.
We have a full library on the second floor, and he could order anything that we don’t have on hand. We inherited many contacts from our fathers, including an antiques and rare books guy.
“Hey, watch the language,” Cormac says, nodding to the kid.
I blanch.
Yeah, that probably wasn’t a good look.
“Whatcha building, little man?” I ask, falling to a knee on the blanket Cormac must have laid out for Lucky to build on.
“This my tower,” he says, planting another three-prong block on top of the one-prong under it. “The dinosaur lives here. He’s gonna find the princess and take her back.”
“Is that right?” I ask, chuckling.
“Yep! Gonna save her from the bad guys.”
“And here I thought it was dragons who rescued princesses from their tower.” I laugh, grabbing several of the longer blocks. “If we swap this one out for a two- or three- prong, it’ll make it more stable.”
“Don’t know what that means,” he replies, his nose scrunching. “I guess…”
Ahh, it seems like he got the gist after all.
I take his words as permission, swapping out the blocks to help it keep from toppling over.
“You did it!” he squeals, nodding frantically. “Good job.”
“Thanks, but you did all the hard work.”
God.
He’s cute.
He has short blondish-brown hair that falls over his forehead and big blue eyes that are almost too big for his face. Not to mention, the adorable smattering of freckles on his cheeks. He looks a lot like Charlotte, but there are some features that must have come from his father.
My gaze moves to my brother.
What the hell has he been up to? Charlotte is beautiful, but I’m worried he might have fixated on her.
The two of us need to talk, but that can’t be hashed out when little ears are around. Although, it does make significantly more sense why he spent hours decorating the house for Christmas.
His sorry ass could have been with me staking out her apartment. If they know each other, I bet our introduction last night could have gone a fuck of a lot more smoothly. At the very least, I probably wouldn’t have gotten shot.
My phone rings, and I frown as I pull it from my pocket.
Emory Moretti…
Why the fuck is he calling me?
“Emory,” I say, answering the call as I kick the door to the downstairs office closed.
“Patrick,” he says, chuckling. “Long time no speak.”
Yes, that’s by design.
Unfortunately, when dealing with the other Boston Syndicate families, I have to maintain a friendly baseline. It’s easier to play nice with the assholes so I don’t always have to be on alert.
“Agreed. It has been a while. Care to tell me why you’re calling so early?”
Emory chuckles. “How are things with Vanessa? Is she still giving you trouble?”
My teeth grind together, and I briefly consider whether Emory and Vanessa have a romantic relationship going on behind the scenes.
Malachy mentioned the way she looked at Emory. If they do, it would make our lives a thousand times easier. Moretti has more than enough money to pay the penalty to break the contract.
However, I don’t see him settling down anytime soon.
The man singularly inherited both the Russian and Italian families, which consolidated one of the smaller, lesser powerful groups into one of the major founding families.
His biological father ran the Russians, who despite their attempts, never managed to get a foothold in Boston, while his mother and one of her favorite guards came from the Italians.
Some family packs take one of the alpha’s last names while others take the omega’s.
Their family pack chose to keep his mother’s last name, which is why there’s no Russian influence.
Hell, perhaps he has a Russian middle name.
All I know is that it was quite the tidbit of juicy gossip when his father dropped his last name to take his omega’s.
While it’s common in the rest of the world for packs to mutually decide on their pack last name, other packs have members that keep their surname.
That’s how the mafia tends to run. I’m not sure I’d ever be willing to give up O’Connor, but I also wouldn’t expect my wife to change her name if she preferred to keep her own.
A pack name is required for the legal paperwork, though nothing legally says that all members must change their last name to match it.
“I’m sure you’ve heard. We’re all waiting to see what the Chapmans decide to do,” I say, keeping things as vague as possible. “Is that why you’re calling? Do you have plans to throw Vanessa and Malachy an engagement party?”
I’d hate to have to be the one to tell him, but we already have a party planned for New Year’s Eve. Well, unless we break down and cancel the whole damn thing. I’m sure Vanessa would be quite content if we got tired of the back-and-forth and caved.
“Hardly.” He laughs, the sound grating on my nerves. “Out of everyone, you’re closest with Pierce, no?” Moretti speaks three or four languages, and his voice takes on a more Russian tone. Even that’s not enough to distract me.
Why the fuck is he asking about Wilder? Does he think we’re using our friendship to get preferential treatment in the negotiations? If we were, we certainly wouldn’t have waited so long to fulfill the contract, now would we?
“We grew up together, but I’d hardly call him a friend,” I lie. “Why?”
“Do you happen to know how attached he is to his second?” Moretti asks.
My head tilts, and I pace my office floor.
Again…
Why the fuck is he asking me this?
“Grim isn’t just Wilder’s second. He’s a longtime friend,” I say, wondering if I’m walking us into a trap.
“Hmm,” Moretti says, drawing the word out obnoxiously. “That could be a problem. I was approached for a job, but I’m not sure my original number would cover the trouble it would cause.”
“A job involving Grim?” I ask as my mind races through what that means.
“I can’t disclose the details of a contract, but I’d say he went and pissed someone off real good.” Moretti laughs. “Then again, I’ve seen him in the ring. Anyone who steps up to him is clearly lacking in brain cells.”
Wilder inherited the fight rings from his fathers, and Grim often fills in when fighters back out at the last minute.
Grim killed three unknown assholes two nights ago, and Wilder seemed convinced they had some affiliation somewhere, even if he couldn’t determine who they belonged to at the time.
Now Moretti has been approached to…what?
Take Grim out?
I don’t believe in coincidences, so I’m going to guess the two things are related.
“Still, whether they’re idiots or not, the money spends the same,” he says when I don’t speak.
“You have an understanding of how the Pierce family runs things,” I tell him. “Wilder looks at Grim as family. If you attack Grim, you attack Wilder. He has at least three families that would go to war to back him up…”
“Yeah, you all seem to love to suck up to the supposedly neutral third party.” He laughs. “But we all know the Pierce family has rarely managed to stay truly objective.”
I laugh.
If I don’t, I’m going to say some shit that I can’t take back, but we surely wouldn’t have spent so long hashing this shit out with the Chapmans if Wilder held any type of sway in forcing compliance.
I’m pretty sure Wilder is going gray from having to put up with all of us.
He complains constantly about wanting to retire.
“When the old-timers pitched it, wasn’t the Pierce family supposed to make our lives easier?
” he asks in a condescending tone. “Find crooked cops to buy off, fix messes before they could spill over into the general public realizing organized crime is still alive and well in Boston. Find us quality lawyers to cover our asses. That type of thing?”
“You think he doesn’t clean up our messes on a regular basis?” I counter.
I’m starting to become annoyed by where this conversation is headed.
Moretti loves to act like he’s a class above the rest of us, but if he had the resources to wipe us out, he would have done it by now.
“You can do what you’d like,” I say because I already know that he’s going to, no matter what I have to say.
If I push him too hard, he’ll likely act out of spite.
“But I wouldn’t start shit with Wilder over an outsider.
It’s not like you’re strapped for cash. Unless your circumstances have changed, and I failed to notice. ”
Moretti laughs. “I forgot what a dick you are when you want to be. Anyway, thanks for your time, Patrick.”
And with that, he hangs up.