Rage (17 page)

She collapsed on me, and we laid like that, for how long, I don’t know.

We would’ve laid like that longer if the damn MC would’ve left us alone.  Instead we were interrupted by a hard knock.

“If you’re done fucking, we need you both in the conference room.  Now,” Bones barked, and he didn’t sound happy.

At least I got that out of it, because I knew he was going to ream out both our asses.

***

We walked into the conference room, both of us dressed, she wore a pair of pants from her duffel, and one of my shirts from my room, and me in jeans, a tee, and my cut.

Her hair was still wet, and her lips still puffy as hell from kissing her.

And I had to say, I felt like the fucking cock of the walk.

“Shit, you two done trying to get a noise violation on us?” Thrash looked a little jealous but lighthearted. 

“Highly doubt they give a shit,” I said, taking a seat and pulling her down onto my lap.

I wanted her close.

“I see while I was here taking care of shit, you got us in with the biggest heroin suppliers on the fuckin’ East Coast.” Bones glared hard at me, his face unreadable.

Here it comes. 
So I looked into his eyes and said, “You were the one who told me bringing her was a good idea.”

“You’re right, and it was.  We might not be into drugs, but this opens some new damn doors for us, doesn’t it? With Snake and Strike.  Good work.”

I wasn’t expecting that.  Not from the Bones I’d come to know.  What happened to his “No drugs, no bullshit,” policy?

“What?!” I asked, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.  “We’re fucking working with the mob’s exiled son.  You’re happy?”

That motherfucker just smiled.

“The mob we work for, remember?”

“Look, it wasn’t like you had much of a choice,” Mick said, explaining to the group as much as he was saying it to me.  And he was right.  Layla made that choice up for me.

“That was all Layla’s doing.  And yours.” I pointed my finger at Mick.  “You were the one who had to stick your fat face in it and get her involved in the first place.”

“Regardless, she is involved, and that’s why she is allowed at the table.  This once,” Bones said.

But I didn’t want to be congratulated for this shit.  It fell on me.  It was my bad decision.  My problem.

Why the fuck were all these assholes celebrating?

“We got a man we got to put into the ground, and a bunch of assholes taking fucking pot shots at us every time we turn our backs, and you are glad I got us involved with major fucking drug dealers?” I asked again.  “You are happy that Layla, the girl you swore to protect, is going into their den, like a fucking chicken walking into a fox hole?” I couldn’t believe this shit.

Bones’ smile evaporated.  “Look, you impatient fuck, we have a fucking war we are trying to wage.  Part of it starts at suppliers.  The other part ends at guns.  If we are going to exterminate those motherfuckers, we have to get in with a better gun supplier than we got.  Which we can do, through Strike.  Besides, he’s one of us, a stupid Irish bastard, and like you said, we already work for his father.  When you have to protect large quantities of uncut heroine, you have to have access to some premium shit.  We’re small time, but if we wanna grow, we need these connections.”

“Fine.  I get it, Bones.” He wanted more, ever the ambitious little fucker.  I should’ve been onto his game.

It was almost like he planned this shit, the way he was grinning, his fucking eyes all lit up.  He was going to have access to smack, guns, all that shit.

But he couldn’t have planned it, could he?

I looked at him, for the first time in ages.  Really looked at him.

He was thin, but the kind of thin that men in their fifties are, with a little damn pot belly that stuck out just enough to know he wasn’t the man he used to be.  His eyes were lined with wrinkles, from riding in the harsh wind and the sun, and his shit-eating grin was all too clear.

Motherfucker.  I ran my hand through my hair as I considered all the possibilities.  He was scheming.  Had been scheming.  It was like for the first time in a long time I saw who he really was.  What he really was.

What the fuck was he really up to?

“We need this shit.  You got it, Rage?”

Oh, I got it.  “Yes, boss.  I got it.”

“Good, now take our little bookkeeper home.  She’s got a job in Wheeling tomorrow.  We got our shit to do and she has hers.”

I nodded.

I needed to know more about what he was really up to, and I wasn’t going to get to the bottom of it by showing any of my suspicions.  Something wasn’t right about this, and Bones acted like it was all part of his plan.  Or like it was an unexpected surprise.  He was too confident.  And that worried me.

I had to be slick, not let my emotions get the best of me.  I had to know exactly where his head was.  He liked me—hell, he trusted me, as much as you could trust anyone—but it wasn’t enough.  I needed to start digging around in his shit, and I needed to do it smart.

It was going to take time.

Chapter 11

Layla

“
I’ve
concluded that this shit is a total mess.” I looked out over the small group of men in the room, trying not to let their scowls intimidate me.

It was me, my two “body guards,” Strike, and his main assistant, Hale.

I’d spent just under a week going through all their files, their tax returns, every little piece of information they ever provided, and it was clear.

“Aren’t you too important to be here, doing this?”

“Normally I would be, but the last asshole who did the books fucked them up.  So now I want you to explain it all to me.  Daily briefings.  My fucking neck depends on it.”

It was obvious they were embezzling and laundering money from their business.  Hell, I could see it right away, and I was no legal accountant.

I relayed everything I saw to the four of them, laying out the discrepancies, showing all the places where they could get caught up.

For thieves and mass suppliers, they were acting pretty foolhardy.

“You have to be shitting me.” Strike pushed his hand through his silky black hair and then looked up into my eyes.

The lust was still there, but there was something else, now.  A bit of respect.

“I assure you, Mr.  O’Grady, I am not shitting you.” I said it stiffly, formally, like I never swore.  Like I was the paragon of innocence.  I wanted to appear that way.  Untouchable.

After all, if anyone touched me, Cullen would live up to his name and there would be a second war on the club’s hands.

One they could not win.

Better I stay clearly unavailable.

“Fuck this shit.” Strike leaned over and smacked Vince on the head.  “You send me Gary, and this is the motherfucking shit he does? You don’t fucking hire your halfwit brother, you idiot.”

He was a big man, Vince, and he was pissed, but he wasn’t going to fight back.  No, that wasn’t in him.  He was muscle, but he was afraid of Strike.  No flashes of rebellion in his eyes.

“Motherfucker,” Strike mumbled, looking over unhappily at the numbers.

“Can we fix it?” he asked.  Somehow I knew it wasn’t a request.  It was more of a demand.

“You’ve gotten along this well without needing to fix it, and my guess is that you have enough people paid off that it wouldn’t raise red flags.  Besides, at a cursory glance, these looked just fine.  It wasn’t until I knew what I was looking for that I found any mismanagement of funds.  That’s what you want.  So there is some good news.  But you need a new accountant.  Someone good.  I’m an expert, but I’m going to need help.  We need someone you can fully trust, full-time.  Someone I can train.”

I eyed him.  Even if I hadn’t known, it was obvious that they were the Irish mob.  Organized fucking crime.  Didn’t they have people for this?

“Don’t you have connections that could do a better job than me?” I asked.  I wanted to smack these two numbskulls, but I needed their help if I was going to fix this mess.  And I’d noticed over the years that sometimes a well-placed suggestion got me further than demands. 

Strike told me, “My father cut me off a few years ago.  Gave me this ‘project’ and told me I had to handle it all myself.  Wanted to see how I would do on my own before he let me back in.  I work with what I have.”

“Why would your family cast you out?” It was out before I could cover my mouth.  Shit.  I knew he was exiled, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.

Strike looked sour.  “It was my own project.  I thought it was a promotion.  I was a fucking idiot.”

Somehow, I suspected that whatever Strike had done, he had sincerely earned his punishment, temporary though it may be.  And he was lucky.  Exile was better than what most of them got.

Vince spoke up then.  “His help only extends so far, so it is a lot of us young guys trying to impress the bosses.  Trying to show that we can handle it.  Our laundering, and our heroin trade will get us back into the club, and big.  If we do this right, we’ll take over an empire.”

“Yeah, but if we do this wrong, we’re dead.” The look on Strike’s face was grim.  “We want to avoid a nasty problem, send off a percentage of our profit from the heroin trade to them.  Is that delineated anywhere?”

“Not in any of the official documents, your previous accountant did a good job of hiding that.  It is honestly the only money that looks well-laundered.  If you would’ve kept those documents from me, I never would’ve figured it out.  The rest? It was easy to see, easy to find.  Not very good management, Strike.”

He just nodded.  “I think, boys, it is best if I speak to lovely Layla alone now.”

He motioned for everyone to leave, but my prospect guards stayed stone still.

“It’s okay, he isn’t going to hurt me with you right there,” I said.  They looked at each other, then me, and then slowly moved toward the door.

It wasn’t the meeting that Strike wanted to have, and I knew it.

“So, you are telling me, if the government felt the need to audit us, like, tomorrow, they would find everything.” Shit, I’d said the wrong thing.  His eyes were blazing with irritation, the vein in his throat throbbing.  For a moment I wished I made my bodyguards stay. 

I was honestly scared.

“Honestly? Yes.  Even if I hide it all now, there is a good chance that if they go deep enough, they’ll find other stuff.  This is, well, it was poorly done.  I’m damn good, I can fix your problems.”

Strike looked pale.  It was clear that his father was providing some protection, even though he claimed it was all Strike’s project, but did he have that much protection?

“The good news is that I can get most of these records shored up and looking legitimate, at least easily able to fool cursory glances.  With that and your connections, it should be fine.”

His blood was boiling.  “I ought to have that ass and his brother boiled alive.”

I could tell by the look in his eyes that he meant it.  He was a killer, the kind that felt no remorse for what he did.  That saw it as a necessity.  That saw people as animals ready for the slaughter.

I saw it in my father’s eyes when I was just a teen, and I witnessed it in those handsome young eyes now.

Strike was the kind of man I feared the most, because they were charming.  That is, until they didn’t get exactly what they wanted.

“So you can fix the books? You can make all this shit look good?” He cursed, thickening both the Pittsburgh accent and the trace of his Irish ancestry.  ,

“I can fix what’s been done, but you have to ensure that you trust who you hire after me.  And you have to trust me.” This was the uncomfortable part.  I could point out the obvious discrepancies and be on my way, or I could alter the books.

I’d already seen their books.  I was already in their shit.  Why? Because they trusted me to do this.  All based on a connection I had with Fire and Steel.  I wasn’t in the Irish Mob, and I wasn’t anyone they knew, so why were they trusting me with all of this?

For all they knew I could run right to the Feds tomorrow.

“Your father was legendary.  Good Catholic man, always there for what any Irish boy needed.  Besides, you know what happens if you cross me, don’t you?”

“I have a pretty good idea.” I’d heard stories about what my own club did, let alone someone like the Irish mob.

I wasn’t afraid, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to cross any of them.

I knew better than that.

And he knew it.  I had no one else.  I had no way to cross any of them, so there was no way in hell I was even going to try.

“So, what do I need?” He asked, looking me right in the eyes.

“You need to hire someone.  She needs to be smart, young, someone who you trust to do these books with me.  Someone who doesn’t have ambition to get ahead, or a way to climb the ranks of the family.”

“She, huh? What you are saying is that I should be bringing a woman into the business?”

I looked up at the handsome son of the mob boss, and smiled.  That was exactly what I was saying.  It was a good plan.  Perfect.

“You’re absolutely insane, do you know that?” Strike ran a hand through his thick raven hair and then grinned, the type of smile that made me think he was the unstable one.

“How so?”

“You fucking got out of this life,” he said.  “I know you left after your dad died.”

“My family was never in the mob.” I called it what it was.  The mob.  The Irish Mob was a well-known organization in the Northeast, and anywhere we settled, they were there.

“No, but pretty damn close, and you know it.  We do shit like this all the time, trading jobs, helping each other out.  The shit your MC gets into, it is small time, normally, but dealing with drug suppliers and getting involved in a turf war? Come on, you know that it is dangerous as hell.”

“What do you know of my life?”

“More than you know.  I asked around about you.  Fallen princess with a dead brother and a hot head for a man.” He was uncomfortably close to me as he said that, his breath close enough to feel, but I remained stone-faced.  “No to mention your ‘rage’ problem.”

“You know, then, that men of power are not something I could ever fear.  Why did you force Fire and Steel to meet you in the first place? Why didn’t you just agree to their terms?”

“I worked with them a few times, but that was almost ten years ago, when I was just a kid, and a run around for my dad.  I wanted to see who I was working with now.  Besides, Hound’s Breath are good customers, or were, and I didn’t want to just drop them because not all of them could claim the same heritage.  Or old connections.”

“You gotten shit since you dropped them?” I asked, trying to find a way to know more.  Any information could be useful.

He eyed me for a moment, trying to decide if he could trust me, finally he said, “Haven’t heard from them.  Not one call.  Not from them, not from their parent organization.”

“Parent organization?”

“Princess, you have a lot to learn about this world.  Anyways, I’ve already said enough.  You’ll get your girl, and I’ll get my books looking the way they should.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some brothers to deal with.”

I didn’t want to know what he meant about that, I just watched him walk out of my office, letting my two “bodyguards” back in.

“Come on, Lala.  We gotta get you back to the club or Rage will be pissed.”

Strike and Rage.  They were so similar in so many ways; it made me wonder about Cullen.

Was I really as safe with him as I thought I was, or were they simply mirrors of each other?