Page 127 of Mad As Hell

“Less,” I murmured. “He gave some to Madeine, remember?”

“It was less about him getting ten million and more about making Gary lose ten million dollars.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Jesus, this is exhausting.”

Ryan’s hand cupped the back of my neck, his fingers digging into my tense muscles. “I know.”

“How long can you keep this up?” Bex asked. “I mean, this can’t last forever, right?”

Linc snorted and looked at Ryan. “We had a plan, but that shit got blown to hell a few weeks ago. Taking out O’Shea was sort of the catalyst for going public.”

“How so?” Bex stiffened in alarm.

Ryan shifted us a little to reposition his arm around my back, pulling me up a bit. “O’Shea’s father has been my dad’s lead attorney for years. It bought Dean some latitude that he seriously fucking misjudged. Turning him in meant we needed to sever the connection between my dad and his.” Ryan reached for the tumbler of tequila and downed it like a shot. “After we had Dean arrested, we knew we needed to also take his father out of commission before he could find a legal loophole to get Dean out. Peter O’Shea is one of the best attorneys in the country. He’s on the fast track to become the US Attorney General. Or, he was.”

Ash smirked. “Until we released some of his dirty little secrets to the world, right after his son got arrested. Rumor has it he’ll be disbarred by the end of the month, if not arrested.”

“How?” I gaped at him.

His green eyes glittered. “It’s amazing the dirt people will share in emails, especially when they’re bragging about it to their friends.”

“You hacked his account?”

Ash shrugged, the feigned innocence utter bullshit. “Hacking is illegal, Maddie, remember? Besides, it’s not hacking if he sent pictures of some of his wilder exploits to my dad’s account. I technically have access, since I intern for the firm.”

I pointed at Ash. “I get how your dad plays into this, and obviously Gary and Beckett,” I looked at the guys on the couch, “but what about your dads? A hotel mogul and an ex-military guy don’t exactly scream criminal enterprise.”

Ryan toyed with a lock of my hair. “Did you know human trafficking is a business that makes more than one hundred fifty billion dollars a year?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The words exploded out of me in surprise.

He shook his head. “Gary and Beckett realized they were missing out on something that’s mostly been run by overseas cartels from piss-poor small towns. They pull the right connections and grease the right wheels? They could double that. Easy.”

“Beckett and Gary provide the financial capital, my dad makes sure it’s funneled the right way,” Ash went on, “Court’s dad provides the muscle to move the people from country to country, and Linc’s dad finds the buyers or arranges a fucking auction at his clubs. Our fathers, and O’Shea, had it set up.”

Bex toed off her shoes and pulled her knees to her chest, her heels digging into the edge of the sofa. “But why does hurting the O’Sheas mean you have to bring Phoenix out now? You said you’ve been working to dismantle your fathers’ businesses for years. How does getting Dean arrested mess things up?”

Court draped an arm along the back of the couch, his fingers brushing her shoulder. “O’Shea was working the political angle. He knew which judges and people to pay off to make sure no one looked twice when a shipment of televisions was actually a cargo ship of women and children. But now there’s going to be too many eyes on him.”

I shuddered and tucked myself closer into Ryan’s chest, remembering the callous way that Gary and Beckett had talked about my mother. Hell, I’d seen the way they regarded all women and children. I could absolutely see them being heartless enough to view human beings with dollar signs.

Ryan rested his chin on top of my head, quiet and contemplative. “We have a little time to figure out our next move. They’ll need to stop and regroup, but it won’t take them long to find someone else with enough connections to help them start their side project.”

I scoffed. “Really? I’d love to see the job posting on Craigslist for that position.”

“Who the fuck is Craig?” Ryan’s brows slammed down in confusion.

I sighed. “Wow. I need to find some friends who live in the real world. It’s a website where people can post anything from job offers to free furniture.”

Linc’s head cocked to the side, an amused smile on his lips. “Huh. What a cute idea.”

“There’s a line of people waiting for the chance to get in good with our fathers,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes at his friend. “As soon as O’Shea’s shit blew up, there was a queue of men vying for his position. They all know each other through X3. They’ll have their shit together soon, and we need to be ready.”

Ash shook his head. “They’re not there financially. My dad was bitching about it last night when he had me dig into O’Shea’s financials to triple check nothing could come back to bite them in the ass.”

“Do they know that you all know what they’re doing?” Bex questioned.

Linc’s expression darkened. “They think we’re on board with it all. Anything to make sure our families remain at the top of the food chain.”

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