Page 47 of Iron Blade

Dairo groaned, placing his head in his hand. Then he looked at me with his baby-blues, as if he really did not want to share this information.

“What? How bad could it be?” I leaned forward, feeling the effect of the drink on my body, as I swayed on my elbow. “Bollocks Bodyguards? Fuck the Fenian Security?”

Dairo tapped his finger on the table, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Caledonia Security.”

I scoffed. “Really? You’re going with the Scots now?”

He rolled his eyes and leaned back on the fake leather back of the booth, as he rubbed his fingers against this forehead. “I knew you’d make a thing of it.”

I threw up my hands and laughed.

“I’m just saying, you’re not Scottish, not as far as I’ve ever seen–”

Like brothers, we spoke over each other with complete reckless abandon.

“Look, I have no wish to get back into the life of crime–”

“Green Fields Enterprises is a legitimate enterprise. We’re legal. I’ve got the paperwork to prove it!” It was all bloody true, too. I had signed up for the LLC myself. We had a Tax ID, and lawyers. We were incorporated.

We offered construction equipment and solutions throughout the tri-state area, and sometimes as far north as Vermont.

The money was clean. Well, at least most of it was….

Okay, some of it.

“It will be,” Dairo said, leaning forward. His blue eyes bored into me. “It will be a legitimate organization, one day.”

He wiped his face, leaning back into his seat. I let his words sink in. He knew more than anyone what it was that I wanted for myself, for my children. For the family I had yet to have.

“I have absolute faith in that, cousin. I do. You will bring our family from the shadows and into the light but…”

“We are in the light,” I insisted, slamming my hand down. “Four Green Fields does nothing against the law.”

At least nothing we could be prosecuted for, so it was legal. We hadn’t done anything illegal in years.

Sure, I was raising an army to wipe out Eugenio Durante and his cronies. I was ready to fight a war with the Bratva. But until that first bullet was fired, every person was hired with a W-2, as a security guard. The weapons were legally obtained, and the permits were cleared.

“Really? Nothing against the law?” Dairo raised one quizzical brow. “You think that this… thing… with the Durante’s is completely legal? Using due process and all that?”

I clamped my mouth shut.

I had forgotten about the bodies I dumped in the Hudson. When you killed as many people as I had, they tended to blend into one forgettable mass.

“I just find it curious that an Irishman–”

“Half Irish,” Dairo corrected. “My mum’s British.”

“... Would decide to place his name with a Scottish company. Do you forget that they lost their war?” I pounded my chest, where I knew my heart beat Emerald Isle green. “We won ours.”

“For fuck’s sake.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “This is ancient history –”

“The Good Friday Agreement was in 1998, lad, not 1798.”

“– why must everything be politics with you?”

“Because they’re still occupying Ireland! They’re still in Derry, man!”

Dairo started to laugh, his chest bubbling with his oh-so-British humor. You’d never know he was only half British on his mother’s side. His father had been my uncle, by blood. Uncle Cormac Green was a proud member of Green Fields Enterprises, and a member of the bloody IRA. Here was Dairo, turning his back on the whole thing.

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