Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Patrick wasn’t kidding. Several of the vehicles were smashed up. Broken windows, cracked lights, dented doors and hoods. John Bowman is a big man, broad and heavyset, and he’s pacing around his lot like he wants to get a gun and start killing folks.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on with your damn family, but you owe me for this mess.” Bowman glares at me, hands on his hips, and the asshole must be furious to dare talking to me that way. He’s been a loyal associate for decades, always paying his dues when needed, never shy about asking for favors, and I’d say our relationship has been a good one. But he’s pushing it.
“Careful,” I say, keeping very calm. That one word seems to put a little cold water on Bowman’s rage.
“You’re right. I apologize, Ronan, but I’m mad. You can tell I’m mad.”
“Tell me what happened.”
He gives us the story: two trucks’ worth of young Irish kids pulled up, started breaking shit, and gave him some wild threat. They said that if Bowman kept up his relationship with the Hayes Group, then they’d come back and would do even more damage. “They told me to spread the fucking word,” Bowman says, finishing by throwing his hands in the air. “Aren’t they your own boys, Ronan?”
“They’re mine,” Ronan confirms. “But we have some disagreements right now.” He steered the angry man away from the mess of his vehicles. “The Group will pay for all this damage and post a guy or two to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Assuming you can stay calm and keep this to yourself.”
“It’s a mess. You know it’s a mess. Whatever’s happening, it can’t spill over into the business community, you know that.”
“I understand. I totally understand.” We step into his office. Bowman sits behind his desk, shaking his head.
“This sort of thing never happened with your father,” he says, and that pisses me off more than anything else. “They said one other thing. I was too embarrassed to say it out there.”
“What’d they say?”
“They said you needed to step down.” Bowman has the good manners to look ashamed as he says it.
I want to shout. I want to slam this big fuck’s face onto the floor and make him lick my goddamn boots. Instead, I smile and make nice, because that’s my best option at this point, but a deep unease settles in my guts.
Cormac’s putting on the pressure. This is all part of the game. He’s going to keep this little terror campaign up until I’ve got a shitstorm to deal with. All the business owners in my pocket are going to get targeted, and he’s going to make my life a living hell until I’m too busy putting out fires to fight him.
Which means I have to end this now, before Cormac can make another mess.
Chapter 44
Ronan
Niall doesn’t say much on the drive out to the suburbs. He stares pensively out the window, and I can tell there’s something on his mind that he’s not sharing. I let him stew for a while—we have another half hour to go—since I know that’s the best way to draw him out.
I’ve known Niall a long time. We were friends before I became the boss, but our relationship only accelerated after I took control of the family. He proved himself to be competent and trustworthy, but he doesn’t always agree with everything I do. We’ve established long rhythms together, and this is one of our little routines: he gets all quiet and thoughtful before finally telling me how he thinks I’m fucking up.
“I never liked Julien, you know.” He says it almost as if we had been having a conversation all this time instead of driving in total silence.
“Oh, yeah? I’m really shocked.”
He gives me a look. “You put too much trust in him.”
“Maybe,” I concede. “But we need him right now.”
“Are you sure about that?”
So that’s what this is about. He doesn’t want to get involved with Julien, and it’s not like I can blame him. Julien comes off as this unserious small-time gangster, but the truth is he has an enormous network of people working for him, mostly overseas. He’s deeply connected to some very shadowy, very shady European businessmen and major banking conglomerates, and his operation is a part of a much wider network of interconnected crime syndicates.
Julien runs deep, much deeper than he appears, and Niall doesn’t like it. We’re a local family and Chicago runs through our veins, while Julien doesn’t care about this place beyond using it as an easy port to bring through his product.
That’s the type of businessman that’ll throw us under the bus the first chance he gets.
“I understand your reservations. I share them too. Julien’s unpredictable sometimes, and this stuff with wanting to marry into our family—” I shake my head, revulsion running down my spine. “There’s something he’s not telling us.”