Page 16 of Arranged Control

“Real ugly,” I agree. I’m the one that found the poor fuck. His throat cut ear to ear, nice and clean, actually. Fergus was only twenty-six, a quick-rising dealer on a popular corner.

“None of the families have copped to his killing,” Cormac says, tilting his head toward me. “Can’t say I’m shocked though.”

“Think it really was one of them?” Finn looks between us. “Seems stupid to go after our muscle right now. What if it was just some random junkie?”

I glance at Cormac. He frowns back at me.

“Killing was too clean to be an amateur.” I drink my beer, shaking my head, and dig into my meal. I wasn’t hungry, but life changes fast. Here one second, a new red grin carved into your throat the next. Poor fucking Fergus.

“Maybe they got lucky?” Finn shrugs slightly.

Cormac shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows as well as I do. Junkies don’t have steady hands. They don’t have sharp blades. Whoever killed Fergus knew what they were doing.

The real question is why would someone fucking bother?

Fergus was good at slinging dope, no doubt about it.

But he was just some street rat nothing.

Now I’ve got to preside over his fucking funeral and pat the back of his sobbing family.

All for what?

A dozen boys will happily step into his shoes.

Makes no damn sense.

“Please, can we talk about something else?” Mom’s always good at sensing the wind too. Only she can bend it her way. I never did get much good at that. “Cormac, how’s preparing for the baby going?”

That makes me think of Alina, and I go quiet, my appetite all ruined, as my older brother and his wife talk about their happy little family.

After everyone’s finished, I offer to help Mom in the kitchen. The men disappear for whiskey and more business chat.

“You sit your pregnant ass down, alright?” I steer Bianca to the biggest, coziest chair in the den. “I’ll get you a soda water. You kick your feet up and relax.”

“I’d complain about you commenting on my ass, but—” She sighs, closing her eyes with a smile. “I am so fucking pregnant.”

“Happens to the best of us.”

“Oh, yeah? It’ll happen to you?”

“If only I could be so lucky.”

“You get swollen ankles, and you tell me how lucky you feel,” she grumbles.

I pat her shoulder and leave her be. She could use some quiet. Cormac hovers around her obsessively, making sure she’s safe and comfortable. That works for them most of the time, but I can tell every once in a while she likes the silence.

“How are you holding up?” Mom asks when I’m back on dishes duty.

“Like a stump in a storm.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“You know. Sturdy. Unbreakable.”

“You made that up.”

“Yep, sure did.”