Page 18 of Duncan (Irish Mob of Boston #1)

Duncan

“Got a hit on one of those numbers,” Cian said as he walked into my office. He held his tablet out for me to look at.

Holding his tablet in my hand, I leaned back in my chair. I didn’t know what the hell I was looking at. I eyed Cian. “Why do you do this shit? You know you don’t want me learning what you do, so why can’t you ever just give me the fuckin’ information?”

“I see your mood hasn’t improved.”

No, it had gotten worse. The longer I went without Freyja, the more miserable I got. It had been three weeks since I’d seen her in person, the day we left the Soulless Sinners’ clubhouse. Time was supposed to heal fucking wounds, not make them worse.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Shut the fuck up!

“Why don’t you just call her?”

I glared at my friend, tossing the tablet back on my desk. Moving to the counter on the side of the room, I poured a glass of whiskey and drank it in one gulp. Letting the familiar burn wash down my throat. The warmth settled in my chest and I embraced it.

Looking at my busted knuckles, I flexed my hand. I’d become a cold dead shell, and it made zero fucking sense. It was one goddamn night with her. But her rejection had broken something inside me.

Oscar complained about me stepping on his shoes. His duties as interrogator were on hold because I had shit to work out in my head. And the best way to do that was beating the hell out of someone.

“She wanted someone else. I’m not chasing her down.” Pouring another glass, I sat back down and waited for Cian to explain about the number. Instead, he chose to give me shit.

“She’s not married,” he reminded me.

“She doesn’t fuckin’ want me,” I snarled. “Whose number is it?” I asked, changing the subject back to work.

Cian wisely let it go and explained what he had found. “The phone turned on and it pinged in Boston.

“Where?” I asked, rubbing my hands over my face. He didn’t need to tell me it was one of ours. I’d already figured that shit out. We just needed to know who.

“The pub.”

My eyes snapped to his. “The fuckin’ pub?” I stood from my chair and snatched the tablet back. My eyes roamed over the words, willing my brain to make sense of what I was looking at. “Does Sal know?”

“Not yet. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to tell him before or after we found him.”

“FUCK!”

I walked to the windows. Looking down over the city we ran usually had a calming effect for all of us. But faced with someone in our own organization that was helping the enemy, had me looking at Boston with contempt.

There was no way of knowing how deep this went. How long Tyran had been working with Kelley to betray Sal? How many men he had convinced to turn on the family?

“Sal will kill him.”

“That’s why I came to you first,” he said. “What do you want to do?”

“Fuck if I know.” I looked at Cian. The truth was there in his eyes before I asked the question. “Are we sure it’s him? Is there any way it could be someone else? A customer maybe?”

“I pinged the phone at ten in the morning. No customers there at that time of day.”

“Get Mac in here. We need to decide how to handle this.”

Cian left, and I leaned my head against the cold glass. I had called off the search for my sister. We were wasting too much time chasing leads. We needed to focus our efforts on Tyran and Kelley.

Maybe if we found Ty, he could give me the information I needed. I would enjoy beating it out of him. That was if Sal didn’t kill him first.

Mac and Cian returned, and Cian closed the door after they entered. The three of us had a mostly open-door policy. Issues that arose were brought to us first. But this discussion required discretion.

“Cian filled me in. How do you wanna handle it?”

“I want to shoot the fucker in the head. That’s how.”

“Not a wise solution before we get answers,” Cian added.

Sean O’Malley ran Mulligan’s. The pub owned by the O’Malley Family. He was Eamon’s cousin, and Sal saw him as an uncle. Hell, we all did. He was the last person we would have expected to betray us.

“We have to tell him,” Mac said. “He can’t go in there blind.”

A knock on the door made the decision for us. Sal pushed his way in and looked at each of us.

“Something I need to know about?”

“Yea, boss. Have a seat.”

Cian went to the bar and poured Sal a whiskey, handing it to him. “Drink it.”

Sal took the glass but turned his hard eyes to me. “Just fuckin’ tell me.”

With a deep breath, I began, “Cian traced one of the burner numbers we got from Garritt’s call logs. It turned on this morning and pinged here in Boston.”

Sal looked at Cian. “Who?”

“Sean.”

Sal closed his eyes, and I watched as his breathing picked up. Something was going on with him. He wasn’t blowing up like he normally did. His lips moved and I swear he was counting.

“You seeing a shrink?”

His eyes snapped to mine. “No, I’m not seeing a shrink.”

“Then what the fuck is going on with you?”

“My fuckin’ son.” Sal stood and downed the whiskey. “One of his guys is fuckin’ a shrink, and he’s making me talk to her.”

I pulled my lips between my teeth, trying not to laugh, when Mac said, “So you are seeing a shrink.”

Sal glared at him. He ignored Mac and looked at Cian. “Are we sure it’s him?”

“The phone turned on at ten in the morning. No customers that early.”

“Worker maybe? Someone outside the building stopped to make a call? Any of that possible?”

Shit, I hadn’t thought of that.

“It’s possible. But...”

“But what?” Sal asked, waiting for Cian to finish.

“Not probable,” Cian finished.

“Then we give Sean the benefit of the doubt until we’re sure.”

I looked at Cian and then at Mac. We all knew the likelihood of it being someone unrelated was slim. But Sal was right. Innocent until proven guilty or some shit. We couldn’t just kill someone without being sure. Especially someone like Sean.

When Sal killed his father, Sean backed him up. Despite how close he’d been with Eamon, his involvement in the Trick Pony had sealed his fate. Shit like that would not be tolerated.

It wasn’t until Eamon lay dying that he told us about Eduardo being his son. Most people assumed that was the reason Sal killed him. And we let them believe the fallacy.

When we came back from Nebraska, after Tyran had disappeared, we went through his office. Turned out Eamon had been taking Ty with him on those trips. Ty had been fifteen the first time Eamon took him down there.

We’d known Eamon was a bastard. We just didn’t understand how depraved the son of a bitch was. Ty wasn’t any better, but he’d hidden it well for twenty years.

Knowing what we knew about Ty, it didn’t make sense that Sean would help him. Even if we hadn’t made it clear as fucking crystal what Ty was involved in and what would happen to anyone found helping him.

We thought Sean was solid. So maybe giving him the benefit of the doubt and letting him explain was a good idea.

“Ok, let’s go talk to him then.”

Sal knocked on the back door of the pub. When the door opened, it wasn’t Sean that stood there. It was his granddaughter, Bellamy.

“What do you want?” she asked, eyeing us warily.

“Where’s Sean?”

“He’s not here.” She stepped forward, trying to close the door behind her, effectively keeping us from moving inside.

Mac stepped between Sal and Bellamy and put his hand on the door before it closed. He pushed it back and she went with it.

“You can’t just barge in here.”

“Like fuck I can’t. I own the goddamn thing.” Sal stormed past her into the bar. “SEAN!”

“I told you, he’s not here.”

A phone ringing on the bar top caught my attention. When I moved closer, Bellamy slid between me and the bar, grabbing the phone and holding it to her chest.

Suddenly Sal’s assumption that it was someone other than Sean rang true, and I glared at Bellamy.

“Who’s calling you?”

“I-I don’t know.”

Bellamy stood there, paralyzed in fear. It was clear she knew who was calling.

“Answer it,” Mac growled.

Bellamy swallowed down her fear and looked Mac in the eye as she lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

She looked at Sal and held the phone out. “He wants to talk to you.”

Mac took the phone and put it on speaker.

“You finally figured it out, huh?”

“Where’s Sean?” Sal asked, his voice tight but even, giving away nothing.

“Good old Sean. Well, see, he can’t come to the phone right now. He’s a little tied up.”

I looked over at Bellamy, and her hands twisted in front of her. She looked scared, but I didn’t think it was us she was afraid of.

“What’s your plan here, Ty? What’s the endgame?”

“If I told you that, it would take away all my fun.”

“You have no endgame. Your floundering, Ty. Just come home. We’ll work this out.”

Tyran’s bold laughter rang through the phone. “You know, Sal, I think that’s the first time you’ve ever lied to me. So goddamn trusting.”

“Too bad I can’t say the same,” Sal replied. “How long, Ty?”

“You have to be a bit more specific than that.”

Sal ground his teeth. His hands clenched at his sides. He took a deep breath before asking his next question.

“How long have you been working for Kelley?”

“I don’t work for that pussy. He works for me.”

Sal and I looked at each other. Tyran wasn’t smart enough to run the show. Which meant someone else was pulling his strings. If not Kelley, then who?

“How long has Kelley been working for you?”

Ty laughed again. “You think you’re so fuckin’ smart? All of you. Who do you think brought Kelley in? He wasn’t too keen on your sister, but with a little encouragement, he saw the benefit of fuckin’ her.”

Cian moved toward the phone, and Mac stopped him by holding a finger over his mouth. Cian stomped away, his hands grabbing at his hair.

“How does it feel, Ci?” Mac dropped his head, knowing Cian would never stay silent now. “Knowing you could have prevented all this shit. If you had just grown a pair of balls and took what you wanted. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

“I’ll fuckin’ kill you, you bastard,” Cian snarled. He knew we were here. No point in keeping quiet.

“And you, Dunc.” My head snapped up. “Find your sister yet? Baby brother did. Too bad he was too late. That was Duane, though. Always a day late and a dollar short.”

“Where is she?” I asked through clenched teeth. My jaw would hurt tomorrow, but it was the only thing reining me in at the moment.

“Oh, she’s gone. Died out in California seven years ago. Died all alone too, seeing as her kid got himself killed.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Mac looked at Cian and mouthed, You get it?

He answered back, Not yet!

That was when I noticed Cian was watching his phone.

“Sorry, boys, that’s all we have for today. By the time you figure out where I am, I’ll be gone. But if you hurry, Sean might still be alive. And, Bellamy? I’ll see you soon!”