Page 81 of Mob Knight

Seamus grimaces before he chimes in. “Yeah, our family owns up to our transgressions. We don’t wallow in hypocrisy. Maybe you haven’t fecked over any women recently, but your nephews sure have. So, don’t play as though your family is any better than the rest of ours.”

That leaves Enrique quiet for a moment because, unless he’s going to deny the truth in that or lie, there’s nothing he can say to refute my brother. We know how much it irritates the other families when we say feck instead of fuck, so we throw it in for extra measure. They may taunt us about it, but that just means our provocation works.

“Look, Cormac, I’d talk to her about her family because it seems like there’s still plenty for you to learn. But in the meantime, I’d ask Niko what he’s been up to lately.”

“Niko? Why him?”

“From what I understand, your little scheme in court last week cost him two million dollars, so I’d say he’s probably pretty pissed right now.”

“Do you think he’d take his anger out on my girlfriend?”

“I think they’re not as perfect as they want everybody to believe.”

“That’s true. But I have a hard time believing two million dollars is enough for them to break their cardinal rule since they’re the only family who hasn’t targeted women and children outright. They may have disturbed the peace and caused some fights, but they’ve never endangered any of the women.”

“Okay,niño, if you say so.”

I can practically hear Enrique rolling his eyes. I can picture the disdainful look on his face without even seeing him. I’ve witnessed it enough times over the past three decades.

“If I find out you’re lying, Enrique, and your nephews have anything to do with this, you’ll discover why everybody believes I have the worst temper in the family.”

It’s not true. None of us really have a bad temper, but because Seamus and I have always been so much bigger than everyone else and grew taller than most of the kids in our class by second grade, it was easy for us to cultivate a reputation for having the shortest fuse. That, coupled with our size, means people leave us alone when, in fact, we’re really the shyest of the family and don’t want people picking on us for it.

That reputation stuck with us thanks to our role in the boss’s family. Neither Seamus nor I intend to change it anytime soon, so I play upon it to my benefit.

“Simmer down,niño. Make your call and speak to Niko, then speak to Jocelyn.”

It’s one of the few times I’ve heard anybody say her full name with a Spanish accent yet. The huh sound rather than the juh, and the long vowels sounds seems so fitting when I think of her. Soft to start, but strong to the end. I love her accent. Even though she speaks perfect English, and it’s pretty neutral, it’s still noticeably there. Pablo and his cousin Alejandro have the New York Spanish speakers’ accent, butTres J’s—Javier, Joaquin, and Jorge—and Enrique have a similar accent to Joey’s.

All four men and Joey grew up speaking Spanish before speaking English somewhere besides America, and the few times I’ve heard Joey speak Spanish are about the sexiest things I’ve ever heard. The way she rolls her r’s makes me think of what her tongue does when she’s sucking me off. That’s hardly the direction my mind needs to go in right now.

Dillan hangs up with Enrique, and I sit back in my seat. He asks what everyone’s probably thinking.

“Are you going to go talk to her right now?”

“No, not yet. Tonight, when we’re at home.”

“Home?” Shane’s smirk makes me want to slap it right off of his face.

“Don’t even give me any shite about this. I was the last man standing until a month ago. How all the mighty have fallen. You’ve all said and done the exact same things, so don’t give me grief when I learned from the rest of you.”

I point to each of them as I speak. All five guys grin at me and nod.

“Should we call Niko?”

Shane speaks up, bringing us back to the subject. I noticed him glancing at his watch a few times. Something must be going on with Carys that’s making him want to leave because normally he’s not so impatient.

“Do you need to go somewhere?”

“Not yet, but I want to be home when Carrie gets back. She got called in for another interview. I think they’re going to try to make her testify, even though she gave up her badge.”

My cousin-in-law was a former federal agent who had to give up her job in order to be with Shane, considering her agency’s sole mission is to crack down on people like us since they run drug interdiction. Things didn’t go smoothly when she was leaving her position, but every once in a while she’s still getting called back into the office. She goes willingly rather than have a judge compel her to show up. Shane likes to be home when she gets there after days like that because he knows that just like us, she won’t show her feelings, but those meetings always upset her.

“Okay, let’s call him now and get this over with.”

I pull out my phone, but Dillan shakes his head.

“No, we’ll call from mine again.”

---