Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Lochlan
There’s a saying I’ve always appreciated: don’t get mad, get even.
Except it’s only half right.
Getting even implies you stop once the scales are balanced. That you shake hands, walk away, and let bygones be bygones.
Fuck that.
I’m not interested in evening the score. I’m interested in burning the whole scoreboard to the ground and laughing as the ashes blow away in the wind.
Which is exactly why I’ve been doing what I have for the past week. I’ve launched the next phase of my plan to destroy everybody who wronged me.
Akio’s been having the time of his life with the Callahan accounts.
Nothing flashy or overly complicated—we’re not draining them completely dry or making any suspicious moves that would trigger fraud alerts.
Just transfers here and there, shifting money between accounts to cause confusion and sow distrust.
Enough to make Ronan start side-eyeing his own men, wondering who’s skimming what off the top.
Paranoia’s underrated. It’s one of the most effective weapons against your enemies.
It makes them question reality, and if you do it right, manipulates them into acting increasingly irrational and self-destructive.
Dear old dad starts to learn the hard way. He’s been having a rough few days since I’ve taken to calling him from an untraceable burner phone. The calls come in at odd hours: in the afternoon, halfway through dinner, right when he’s in deep sleep in the middle of the night.
He grows more irate each time as he answers and is forced to listen to nothing but silence. Nothing but somebody breathing on the other end.
“Listen here, you stupid cunt,” he growls into the phone at three a.m. “You ring me in the middle of the night and hang up again, and when I find out who you are, I’ll cut your fucking fingers off and ram them down your throat one by one.”
I hang up on him just the same, and he releases the howl of a man about to lose it.
He starts thinking about how other former high-ranking guys in the underworld have been offed after incidents like this.
Somebody somewhere starts sprinkling threats and dropping breadcrumbs and then bang.
Next thing they know, they’ve been shot in the head on Madison Avenue in broad daylight.
It’s the not knowing that’s the worst for Dad. He demands that Ronan and the buttonmen figure out who it is placing the calls. When they come up short, he grows even angrier. He flips the fuck out and accuses them of being incompetent.
Good. Let him sweat.
Ronan’s doing his best to hold it together. Between heading the clan, being a newlywed, searching far and wide for his wife’s missing best friend, and balancing fragile alliances like the one he has with Langston Defense Solutions, it’s no wonder he loses it when one of their shipments goes wrong.
It’s their biggest delivery yet. Enough firepower to arm a militia, all neatly scheduled and arranged through the family connection.
It never arrives.
My guys intercept the truck in Jersey, shoot the drivers in cold blood, and torch the whole thing in a field off the turnpike.
By the time anyone finds the wreckage, there’s nothing left but twisted metal and ash.
The destroyed LDS shipment isn’t even the worst of his problems.
There’s the wild goose chase I send him and his guys on.
I have Robby set up another fake ransom situation. Anonymous tip to the Callahans that a small-time Jersey crew has their precious Chantal and is willing to sell her back for the right price.
Killian leads the team to the meet-up location. They travel all the way to an abandoned warehouse in Newark ready to negotiate or shoot their way to a rescue.
Nobody shows.
The only thing waiting for them was a gift I left behind: Chantal’s green cocktail dress, torn and smeared with blood and dirt. The same dress she was wearing when I took her from the Maldives.
Simone recognizes it the moment they return to New York and she sees it. She helped her best friend pick out the dress at some fancy boutique before the vacation.
I pull up the surveillance feed from Callahan House in time to catch the aftermath.
Simone’s clutching the ruined fabric like it’s a corpse, tears glossed in her eyes. Ronan’s trying to comfort her but she brushes him off, so upset she’s inconsolable.
Friction. Beautiful, delicious friction.
But they’re not the only ones sweating—so is Senator Banks. Chantal’s father owes me ten mil in exchange for his captive daughter.
He recently begged for an extension, swearing he needed another week to liquidate some assets. I granted it to him, all the while aware of what a trap he and his daughter are in.
She’s never going to be set free; that’s the punchline he won’t see coming even after he does scrape up the ten million dollars.
None of them understand the suffering is the point.
Most of all my brother.
I lean back in Grandpa Finn’s creaky chair and grin watching his face darken on the surveillance feed. He knows something’s up but can’t quite prove it yet.
So instead he’s forced to watch his wife fall apart and the family scramble to put out the little fires I’ve set. Just like the senator’s scrambling to cough up the money he owes.
Too bad for them it’s only the beginning.
Don’t get mad, get even?
Nah. Get mad. Stay mad.
Then get creative.
Rosario’s hasn’t changed since the last time I set foot in here, which was probably fifteen years ago when I was still Seamus Callahan’s golden boy, running errands and learning the ropes of the family business.
The old-school Italian family restaurant has the same cracked red leather booths and black-and-white photos of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin on the wood-paneled walls.
Even the smell hasn’t changed—garlic, fresh bread in the oven, and Rosario’s secret tomato sauce laced in the air you breathe in from the moment you cross the threshold.
The back booth is where the real business happens, and that’s where Sal Montagna is waiting for me.
He’s a relic of the old-school Cosa Nostra, mid-fifties with a leathery face and voice that sounds like he gargles gravel every morning.
The chain smoker’s been smoking a pack a day, and he unironically swears it’s the reason he’s still alive.
It’s because he’s addicted to nicotine that he’s cheated death so many times.
Underboss for the Ferrera family for as long as I can remember, he’s survived three regime changes and lived to tell the tale.
He doesn’t smile when I walk in, nor does he stand to shake my hand. He simply takes a long drag of his cigarette and watches me with an assessing stare.
I respect that.
Marco and Robby flank me as I slide into the booth across from Sal. Two of his guys stand against the wall behind him, arms crossed, doing their best impression of Italian statues.
“Callahan,” Sal says. “Here I thought you was dead.”
“I was,” I answer. “I am.”
He grunts in place of a laugh. “I knew there was funny business about that prison riot.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about—the prison riot was real.”
A waiter comes by, nervous and finicky as he holds his notepad and pen to take our order. I wave him off and so does Sal.
The underboss puffs on his cigarette and blows smoke out sideways. “So what’s a dead man want with the Ferrera family?”
“Same thing you want.” I lean back, the leather seat creaking under me. “To see the downfall of the Callahan Clan. Give somebody else a chance to be on top for a change.”
Sal’s dark eyes flicker with interest as smoke floats around his weathered face.
“I’m listening.”
“They’ve gotten comfortable. Damn sure’ve gotten cocky. I’m thinking it’s time to teach them a lesson. Make it so that others—like your family—get a bigger piece of the pie.”
His lips twitch. “You talking about starting a war?”
“More like finishing one. The war’s already started. Your family just hasn’t realized you’re a part of it yet.”
“The Don’s not interested in making big moves right now,” he says. “He’s said we’ve gotta lay low. At least for a while. The feds have got a hard on for him the way they had one for you before they locked you up.”
“How’s Don Nico doing anyways?” Marco interjects suddenly. “He still having guys’ balls busted with metal bats? I’ll never forget what he did to Pauly D’Amato.”
“Your old boss,” Sal says with a nod.
“Yeah, before the D’Amatos were made defunct.”
“Nothing personal. But your family was competition.”
Marco shrugs. “None taken. I’ve got no loyalty for the D’Amato name after how they stiffed me in the end.”
I clear my throat to put an end to the detour in conversation and shoot Marco a warning glare. He’s a little too cozy with the Ferreras for my liking, but it’s not surprising considering he’s Italian and former Cosa Nostra himself.
“Back to the matter at hand,” I say. “We were thinking about… a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“What exactly are you offering?”
“Information. Shipment schedules, distribution routes, the locations of their stash houses,” I explain. “I already hit one of their weapons deliveries—torched a major shipment from LDS. The Callahan ship is already starting to sink. I’m just handing you the means to help them drown.”
“Yeah?” Sal says, puffing on his cigarette. “And what do you want in return?”
“Nothing.”
His brows rise a fraction of an inch. “What d’you mean nothing?”
“I mean exactly as it sounds—nothing. The Callahans going down is enough of a reward in my book. Let’s make it happen.”
“Monetary compensation would also be nice,” Robby pipes up suddenly.
My jaw clenches as I pause to glare at the knobby-throated cop. “Money is not a part of the deal.”
“I’m just saying, if we’re offering something, it could be a way to compensate us,” he explains. “I’ve got all those medical bills for my boy Mikey and—”
“Nobody gives a shit about your son and your money troubles,” I snarl. “Know your place and shut the fuck up.”
Robby presses his lips together, barely holding off a grimace. He doesn’t like the way I speak to him, and I couldn’t give less of a fuck.