Page 37 of Irish Reign

At the end of the day, though, the effect is clear. I’m short nearly half my feckin’ take.

I call Seamus as I’m driving home. I go with a burner, because I’m pretty sure we’ll say things that shouldn’t be overheard. When I report my haul, he says, “That’s worse than it has been.”

“I need to get Patrick home from Boston.”

“You can do that. But it won’t change the take. This is about Russo. This is about planning a war.”

“Are we ready to fight that?”

“Financially? You don’t want to hear this, Boss. But the answer is no.”

He’s right. I don’t want to hear it. But I grunt so he’ll go on.

“It’s not just the drop in income. We started the year short because of that container that went missing. And your outlay of cash in the past six months has been…extreme.” As if I didn’t know. But he’s my quartermaster, so he doesn’t stop there. “The property for the Hare, building out the new place, tipping staff…” That’s the inspectors we’ve paid off, the commissioner we’ve bought. “Holing up at the Rittenhouse wasn’t cheap, but compared to buying the new house… And underwriting that church’s building fund…”

“I’m a billionaire,” I remind him, same as I reminded Samantha. “I can buy a new house.”

“You are. And you can. But it’s my job to warn you. I’m already managing some cash flow challenges. And if you and Russo shift to open warfare, those challenges will turn into full-scale obstacles.”

He doesn’t know the half of it. Ever since the Diamond Ring went golfing at Augusta, I’ve been toying with the idea of makinga run at the Union. I want to be own boss. I want to be the General.

But dreams like that cost money. And time. And energy. All things that Russo threatens, just by being alive.

So I focus on first steps, getting the Fishtown Boys out of debt. I ask Seamus, “What do you need to make things right?”

“Honestly? Twenty-five mill would fill all the holes and leave us with a little room to breathe.”

Twenty-five million dollars. He says it like he expects me to empty my pockets and count up loose change. But Seamus Campbell knows better than most what he’s asking. And he’s got a Harvard Business School degree to back him up.

“Let me think about it,” I say. I break the burner when I get to the next traffic light. Half goes in a storm drain. The other half flies out my window once I’m on the motorway, heading back to Ardmore.

My pockets won’t yield any twenty-five million dollars. A lifetime of counting up envelopes like the ones I collected today wouldn’t get me to that number. I could wait five years or longer for another shipment like the cocaine Russo boosted a few months ago. Gambling and cigarettes and producing porno movies—the profits dropped out of all those schemes years back.

But I’ve got one extraordinary asset sitting in my gallery at Diamond Freeport. It’s an illustrated medieval manuscript that Patrick smuggled out of Ireland for me, a few months back. There’s a limited market for art treasures without a proper provenance, a record of prior ownership. But that market isn’t nonexistent.

The freeport gives a built-in advantage if the seller is already a client. Or willing to become a client, to keep their new-found treasure on the premises. The sale will be tax-free, just pure profit going to the seller. To me.

When I get to my home office, I check for a message from Samantha. It’s only half past one, though. Her hearing’s barely begun.

So I sit at my desk and pull up photographs of the book I looted from Ireland. Samantha’s already briefed me on the legal consequences of bringing the Book of Skreen to auction. Alix Key, the freeport’s auctioneer, has advised me to wait until November, when the most valuable rare objects are usually brought to market.

I can’t wait until November.

Not anymore.

I place a call to Alix at the freeport. “Braiden!” she answers. She has a gift for making every client feel as if they’re the tax haven’s premier client. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“The illustrated manuscript that we talked about a few months ago…”

“The one we’re taking to auction in November?”

“I’ve had a change of plans. I want to sell it now.”

“Bynow, you mean?”

“No later than the end of this month.”

She’s so quiet, I wonder if the line has dropped.

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