Page 51 of Mob Princess

Chapter Ten

Sean

I hated leaving Lina behind this afternoon. Yeah, I would have loved to have sex several more times before dawn. But I wanted to talk too, and not about why Ewan sent her or the encryption I still haven’t cracked. I like how she texts me questions. I like that she’s curious about me. I like that she’s letting me get to know her too. It would have been preferable to do that side by side or looking at each other.

Now, I’m on the family jet to Baltimore to observe Ewan. I’m certain Lina doesn’t know he’s outside New York. I didn’t know until Finn called. A CI there called to tell him about Ewan. My brother could have gone, but no one expects him to go out of town right now.

He’s a newlywed. So’s Dillan. Ally felt horrible that Dillan intended to go on Finn’s and her honeymoon. Not because it was someone joining them. They had five other someones joining them. She didn’t want him to leave Mair behind. It was my cousin-in-law who convinced my sister-in-law that it’s best to have all of us to guard the most vulnerable.

I look out the window, but there’re only clouds to see. White puffy, peaceful looking clouds. I used to think heaven was just above these clouds. I didn’t have an explanation for where heaven went when it wasn’t cloudy. But when I was five, it made sense.

I spend this time thinking about what I know so far about Ewan’s trip to Baltimore. He came down here to sell some product. You have to pass New York to get to Baltimore from Boston. He’s a long way from home to sell drugs. What he’s off-loading isn’t going to street hustles. This is headed to Germany. They have one of the largest medical marijuana markets in the world. But this isn’t the stuff meant to alleviate chronic pain or nausea during chemo. This is recreational. Now that possession is legal in Germany, that market’s expanded too.

Ewan wants in. He wants to bump us out to make room for himself. He’s tallying up a long list of sins he’s going to have to account for. It won’t be St. Peter at the gates of heaven. It’s about to be St. Dillan at the gates of hell. Actually, if he doesn’t get shot before we can get him to the Bronx, we’ll take him to our abandoned railway station where we handle the unsavory—messy—side of this world.

If anyone told me to spy on Ewan three days ago, I would have happily put a bullet in him for convenience’s sake. It’s not so simple now. I didn’t pull the trigger that killed Rowan. Finn didn’t either. But Finn arranged for someone to carry out the hit on Lina’s dad. Our hands are more dusty than dirty, but we’re eyeballs deep in the shite. I don’t want to be the one who puts a bullet through Ewan’s skull. For being such a douche to his sister when he should protect her—value her—I should put it through his heart. Problem is, it would pass through an empty space.

The landing’s smooth, so I look at Shane. The guy’s out. He’s practically snoring. It must have been a late night at one of his clubs. We’re all silent investors in every BDSM club worth mentioning in the tri-state area. It pays to be kept off the letterhead but to have access to the member list. We know where everyone worth paying attention goes to spank or be spanked.

If we didn’t hate each other, we’d probably all be friends. The other men in the syndicates aren’t that different from one another. Our work is identical, and the men we become to do that work are the same. We have the exact same values, which means our family and organization come before and above everything else.

It also means we share similar proclivities. We are men who crave control because that’s the key to staying alive. BDSM ensures we have it constructively. The submission offered to us isn’t coerced through fear and pain—the kind that leads to death. Perhaps it’s our redemption of some sort. All the things we do outside the clubs are evil. When we do some of it with consenting partners, we remind ourselves we aren’t always monsters.

“Wake up, sunshine.” I shake Shane’s shoulder as I walk past to get my bag.

“Five more minutes, Mom.” Shane grumbles as he straightens from his slumped position.

John, Luke, Nate, and Peter are with us. They’re the same guys who went on the mission with Finn that clued us in to the O’Malleys’ recent activities. They’re among the best guys we have. Peter’s the senior most of the four, and I can’t stand him outside of work. But he’s good at what he does, so I respect and trust him. He bitches about everything. The good thing about jobs like this is none of us talks much.

I sign off on the fake manifest and records before going to the hold where the other guys are gathering our weapons. There’re two SUVs waiting for us. Kelly—a man’s name in Ireland for centuries—waits next to the lead vehicle. He’s our CI. He’ll ride with Shane and me to brief us. The other guys will follow. They’re on a need to know, so they won’t know anything we don’t need them to.

Shane and I load our personal luggage, tactical gear, and bags of weapons in the trunk before we climb in. Kelly’s driving. I take the front passenger seat, and Shane climbs into the middle seat in the second row. Both SUVs have burlap sacks with the stuff we’ll use to replace the weed we steal.

“He’ll be at a warehouse north of downtown, but he’ll have to go to Locust Point if he wants to see the cargo off.” Kelly starts the engine.

I know exactly where he’s talking about. It’s an industrial area that hasn’t been fully gentrified yet. There’s still industry there, but residential neighborhoods keep creeping closer. Baltimore’s running out of good places to hide in plain sight. Locust Point has water access that Ewan can use to smuggle the shipment out to larger freight ships just past the harbor. I know all of this because I’ve been to both places plenty of times. He’ll have to cross the city to get from the industrial park to Locust Point. Plenty of room for us to operate.

The cargo will be in a truck since there’s way too much to pack into a car, SUV, or van. This is a big haul. It’s like we found where our parents hid the Christmas presents. We’re going to shake a few boxes, maybe open them a little. If we like what we find, we’re going to play with them before slipping something back into the box. Unlike our parents, the O’Malleys will be clueless.

One year, Shane and I discovered our parents got us new bikes. They hid them in a storage room in our basement they assumed we had no reason to go in. The house we grew up in is enormous, even by most mansion standards. It’s eight bedrooms in the main house with a three-bedroom pool house. Yeah, there were only three sons living there, but between two other couples, there were four more kids.

Dillan’s sister, Colleen, had her own room. It’s not a shrine to her, but no one in our immediate family stays in that room. My parents only use it when they have enough guests that they need it—usually Christmas and Easter. My aunts and uncles’ homes are like that too. Big enough for everyone with open-door policies. They’re just not open-fridge anymore.

I glance over at Kelly before going back to looking out the window. “When’d he get in?”

“This morning around ten.”

Motherfucker. This is why Lina flew commercial. She might have wanted to blend in, but it was because her shitbag brother used their jet to fly down here. He made sure she was already in NYC before he touched down. I left her at the hotel today, but she won’t get back until midmorning tomorrow. He’ll make sure he slithers into his place with time to spare. I fucking hate him.

Shane leans forward between the front seats. “Who’s he seen so far?”

“He went straight to Ellie’s.”

Ellie Muñez. They were together through high school and college. Her dad’s around the same age as mine, so about fifteen years older than Rowan was. Rowan’s mom used to babysit Scott Muñez, so he’s known the family for decades. Rowan’s dad, Desmond, welcomed him into the fold as a messenger boy in middle school. Scott’s worked for the O’Malleys ever since. When his wife got sick, they moved closer to her family twelve years ago. It was touch and go, but she recovered. They went back to Boston, but Ellie stayed.

“Isn’t she married now?” Disgust drips from Shane’s words. Kelly just glances at him through the rearview mirror.

“How long was he there?” I want to get an accurate timeline.

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