Page 45 of Iron Blade

I don’t know what kind of relationship our organization had to the Russians. I wasn’t supposed to know, in case I was ever caught and interrogated. We kept ourselves disconnected to keep the information safe.

“We can’t arrest or kill them all, but with Eoghan at the helm, he’d be able to make a lot of these guys legit.”

That was the goal of our program - a Paradigm shift away from crime for some of the most dangerous criminal families. The mafia and the Irish Mob weren’t like the ones of yesteryear. Now, they were incorporated, with law firms in their back pockets and politicians on their payroll. They paid lobbyists and campaigns. That’s what made them so untouchable.

Paradigm was created to disrupt them without taking the entire institution down. A small paradigm shift could have had an immense impact for people like me and my father. People who had nowhere else to go but to these creeps and loan sharks who had a boot on our neck.

Blink stepped away from the painting, giving a satisfied nod.

“Cultivate it, Picasso.” I hated that he used my call sign. In this situation, he was better off using my real name. But he was using it to make a point. “People are more reliably controlled with love, than with blackmail, ideology, or hate.”

He clasped his hands behind his back.

“It wouldn’t be the worst way to control the Irish,” he said, tilting his head to the side. “You’d also become a very powerful woman.”

I knew Blink pretty well, by now. He was a good man. But there was something unsettling about his general lack of expression. There was something reptilian about him - the way his smile never reached his eyes, and his face was always such a cool mask of serenity. He was a man in complete and total control, always.

“I think I’ll take this one,” he said with a smirk. “Who do I talk to?”

Our straight talk was over, and we were back to our cover.

“Did the others approve this,” I whispered through my teeth, stopping Blink in his tracks.

Paradigm wasn’t a linear, top-down organization. It was a loose collective, and decisions were made together, in backrooms. But we all operated independently, like a loose association that somehow worked. It was a balance.

“No,” he said with a small shake of his head. “Our Russian friend was vehemently against it, but he’s biased. Our Irish liaison, on the other hand, was for it. So, it was two-to-one.”

I heard a set of footsteps behind us, and I straightened. I loudly gave Andrius “Blink” Lutkus the information on how to put in his bid for this piece of art, and he walked away.

Before he was out of earshot, he mumbled, “Don’t forget why we’re here.”

Chapter sixteen

Dairo

Eoghan

“Flying commercial, are we, Dairo?” I greeted across the terminal when my cousin finally made his appearance. “How far you’ve fallen, boyo.”

He stopped in front of me, his duffel bag over his shoulder. He eyed me up and down, with a stern face that matched my own. It was like looking in a fucking mirror. The only difference was that instead of deep, dark black eyes, Dairo had baby blues - in that way we were opposites.

That, and our overall personality.

I was far more charming.

He dumped his bag on the ground with a loud thud, as the crowd around us gave us a wide berth.

Even if they didn’t know why, most people had the animalistic instinct to understand that the two of us radiated danger. We were a live wire, that no one wanted to be anywhere near.

Dairo’s stern scowl suddenly turned into a smile, as he pulled me in for a loud, clapped embrace.

“For fuck’s sake,” he said in that crisp, annoying British accent. “You’ve been in America for almost thirty years and you still insist on that lilting little Leprechaun accent.”

“And I’m damn proud of it.” I purposely made my voice thicker, for his benefit. “The ladies like it more than yours.”

I pretend to sip invisible tea with a snobby frown, making fun of the British. Then I made a gagging sound, as Dairo rolled his eyes.

“Come here, you eejit,” he said, as he clapped me in another embrace.

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