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While I don’t expect him to answer, disappointment surges when the call rings out into nothing. However, just as I’m about to give up, he answers.
“What?” Seamus barks, his Irish tones sharp and clear.
“Seamus.”
“Kristof, you fucker,” Seamus barks. “Half thought you’d finally kicked the bucket.”
“Nope, still alive. Disappointed?”
“I’d have shed a tear if it were true.” Seamus’s voice is strained, lacking the usual relaxed candor with which he speaks. “You'd better have a damned good reason for calling.”
“Be careful,” I warn softly. “This is just a friendly call to see who's going to die first. It helps to hash these things out beforehand, I find.”
Seamus snorts with laughter and glass clinks distantly. “Kristof, you sound like you don’t trust me anymore.”
“I don’t.” My teeth clack sharply together. “You went to the ceasefire meeting and then I never fucking heard from you again. After everything we did together, I would have expected at least a courtesy call before you sold me out.”
“Sold you out?” There’s more anger in Seamus’s tone than I expect. “You’ve got t’be fucking kidding me.”
“I don’t joke about these things, Seamus. You know me.”
“Aye, and you should know me by now, you fucker!” Seamus growls sharply, and low voices buzz in the background. Suddenly, Seamus’s voice is very clear, as if he’s pressed right up against the mouthpiece.
“The reason I dinae fucking call you was because that shit wasn’t a ceasefire meeting. Oh, that bastard Aleksander painted it as such, played into all the old traditions that every Family is supposed to respect, but that shit was nothin’ more than a ruse.”
My heart skips a beat.
“That meeting was nothing but a bloodbath. Put my entire crew into the fucking blender and chewed us the fuck out. I nearly fucking died, you prick, so that’s why I didn’t fucking call you!”
His anger builds as he talks, nearly spitting down the phone, and as I listen, I don’t blame him.
“I didn’t betray you, brother. I didn’t turn on you. My Family was nearly wiped out by your fucking Pakhan. I lost my brother-in-law and a nephew, and my sister’s inconsolable, so excuse me if I didn’t have time to pick up the phone and call the fucker who’s a million miles away from the carnage!”
“Shit,” is the only word that escapes me.
“Aye, too bloody right, it’s shit,” Seamus replies.
Silence falls between us and the gears in my mind turn. Seamus didn’t turn on us. He was betrayed just like we were. Something doesn’t sit right with me, though.
Why would Aleksander fight so much to make his daughter follow archaic traditions but then, in the same breath, spit on those traditions during ceasefire talks?
Once again, I’m certain there’s something I’m not quite seeing.
“So.” Seamus sighs deeply, a grating sound of a man weighed down by grief. “Our only choice now is to find Alena since she’s still missing and use her to get your lot to back the fuck off before there’s nothing left.”
Of course! It completely slipped my mind that someone alerted the Irish to Alena’s disappearance. It seems so long ago now.
“Alena’s with me.”
“What?” Seamus almost chokes on his words. “Fucking hell, you’re serious?”
“Yes. She was always with me, so I can tell you right now, there’s no way in hell you’re going to use her as your bargaining chip.”
“Asshole.”
“But…”
I need Seamus. If he’s not with Aleksander, then I still need him on my side. “If you find out who told you about Alena, who was trying to bargain for her through you, then I will get the Family off your back.”
