Page 3 of Coal
“Jesus, you’re a dick,” she mutters, but walks away to a group of her friends that are near the doors. Copper sits down next to me, nudging my shoulder. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, tapping the bar. Blue puts a whiskey down in front of me, “Thanks, brother.”
“No problem, Pres,” he replies, moving on andserving someone else.
“Do you ever tire of random pussy?” I ask Copper. Out of all my brothers, Copper and I are the closest, more than likely because we aren’t that far apart in age, and we’ve spent a lot of our time wrangling our younger siblings.
“Yep,” Copper nods, “I’d rather spend time with my hand than put up with that shit.” He nods towards the girl I’d taken to the back room; she looks pissed and is throwing death glares at me.
I sigh, telling him, “I warned her.”
“They don’t always listen, brother,” Copper replies, downing his beer.
My phone goes off and I take it out of my pocket, surprised at the name showing; we’d not heard from them for weeks. “Cahir,” I answer as I get off my stool and walk towards my office with Copper following me.
“Happy New Year, Coal,” Cahir replies.
“Thanks,” I reply, then continue, “can you give me a minute until I’m in my office?”
“Of course,” he replies. Adding the code into the lock on my door, I open it up and walk towards my desk, knowing that Copper will close and secure the door behind us.
Sitting down in my chair, I put the phone on speaker just as Copper sits down opposite me.
“Okay,” I tell Cahir, “I’ve put you on speaker. I have Copper in here with me.”
“That’s good. I wanted to update you and let you know that things will be heating up and what you need to have in place for the next few months. First, I want you to know that we’ve arranged for someone to be undercover in an organisation that we think is part of one of the biggest rings in the country. I want Copper to work with her and be her backup. I’ll send her details through as soon as I’m done. She’s been training for the last six months and is ready to infiltrate. We’ve managed to get her hired as their accountant.
“That’s the first part. The second part is that you need weapons that are untraceable. I’m going to send you contact details, but I have to warn you, this guy isn’t trustworthy, and he’s an arsehole. He’ll try to manipulate you, but I think you can handle him. His weapons are completely untraceable, and he can also talk you through modifications on your sleds to add hidden compartments. I’d also recommend that you get some of your vehicles modified now that the garage is up and running.
“For the third part, you need to get your men trained and working as a team. You have a few ex-military members; have them work with you and set up a regime. Build a gym if you have to; we’ll fund it. I know you all keep fit and attend a gym in town, but I want you to have one at your home-base because you are basically going to be put through what is essentially boot camp. I’m going to have Carly Masterson from Crawan Gym get in touch with you. She’s a trainer and will get you and your men to peak fitness. I know you have a bit of land; have your ex-military brothers scout out some place that’s far from prying eyes and set up a training ground. They’ll know what is needed.
“And last, we’ve purchased the land to the right of you and applied for permission to build a paintball centre. I’ll send you the paperwork as well as the funds to build it up. It’s in the club's name, so there won’t be any issues with who owns it. Not only will it bring in extra income, but it will also mask any noise that needs to be hidden, although if Kelly builds his guns correctly, they’ll be noiseless.
“Now I know that’s a lot to offload on you at once, but we’ll be out of comms for a little while and things are going to start getting interestingpretty soon. If you need us, leave a message on this number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Do you have any questions?”
Copper and I share a look before I answer, “We have many questions. But I’m assuming that you can’t tell us the answers because things have to work out in a natural way. Thank you for the paintball idea and centre. We’ll start working on that immediately. We’ll get in touch with all the people you’ve recommended, and I’ll get the boys on to training us as soon as possible. We’ve already scouted out a bit of land for training, and Brass, Iron, Cross, and Blue have started to set it out for us. We start to train next week, but I’ll contact Carly too. I know who she is. Reaper introduced us to her and his son the last time we met up.”
“Excellent. We’ll catch up in a few weeks,” Cahir replies.
“Will do, and stay safe out there,” I tell him, same as I’d have said to any of my brothers who were going into a dangerous situation. Because I had no doubt whatever situation he was going into would be dangerous.
He’s quiet for a bit as if surprised at my words before he replies, “We’ll be safe,” he assures me before saying goodbye and ending the call.
“Fuck,” Copper rubs a hand across his mouth. “It’s getting real now.”
“It is,” I agree as my phone buzzes and information comes through. The name of the man who we’d get our weapons from is Alfred Kelly; there’s a picture of him attached as well as information, and I’m not liking what I’m reading, but I understand that sometimes in the underground you have to rub shoulders with people that you don’t like to get the tools for the job that need doing. It looks like we’d be going to Ireland for this one.
I had no idea how much that one trip would change my life.
CHAPTER 2
THEA
“Don’t fuck up, Thea. Remember what I can do if you do,” Alfred barks out. He was my da, but as he didn’t deserve that name, I never referred to him as such. I’d stopped calling him that at the age of eight when he killed my ma. Oh, there was no proof, but all who knew him knew he’d done it. My hatred for him went deep. It was the type of hate that gnawed at the gut. A hatred and anger that grew and grew over the years until you felt like you’d explode from it. I’d not piss on him if he was on fire. But for the minute, there was nothing that I could do about it. He held all the cards, and he knew it.
The threat he held over my head was the only thing that held me back from taking my chances and packing up and leaving. He knew I’d do anything to keep her safe from him.
As bad as he was, he had the same type of scum working for him, and I had no doubt that if I took my daughter and ran, he’d find us and makegood on his promise of selling her. He’d already proved that by killing my daughter’s father in front of me when we’d made those exact plans. He’d expected that to break me, but all it did was light a fire in my belly to put plans in place to leave. All my siblings were on board, from my brother, who my father thought was under his thumb, to my two sisters, who had a different life than what my father thought they lived.
