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“I’ll fucking kill you,” he threatened, his words empty and rather pathetic at this point.
“Ye can try,” I sing-songed just to be a dick.
Chapter 1
Declan~
I loved my family, but they were so fucking exhausting at times. Now, growing up the way that we’d had, you’d think that I’d be used to it, and while I was, the noise still made me appreciate my quiet home all the more. Though I had two condos in the city, I had a small manor on the outskirts of town, near the state line, and that was the place that I called home. While it looked like a simple piece of private property, the motherfucker had better security than the White House, plus traps all around the one acre of land.
At any rate, we were all at my parents’ house, celebrating another goddamn pregnancy in the family. Now, while this would be a sweet cause for celebration for most people, it was a fucking migraine in the making for me. As the eldest O’Brien son, I was the only one not married or popping out grandchildren for my parents, and my mother was very vocal about my shortcomings. Cormac and Nessa O’Brien were well into their sixties, and they were both Irish Catholics, knowing how to pile on the guilt like professionals. Granted, my da was good about letting his sons make their own decisions about their lives, but he also didn’t like to see his wife upset.
Now, the problem with my mam was that she had too much time on her hands. My maternal grandparents had migrated to America from Ireland when they’d both been in their twenties, and like most immigrants, they’d had to fight tooth and nail for everything that they’d had. So, my mother had been raised not knowing what idle hands were, and that’d been fine when she’d been busy raising five sons. However, once we’d all gotten older and my da had finally handed over the family business to me, she’d found herself at odds. Granted, things had started to get better once my brothers had started getting married, but my mother loved to remind me of how I was the oldest, so where was my family?
What she didn’t understand was that I hadn’t ever wanted four ‘sons’, but that’s what I’d gotten when my father had kept knocking her up. Even though I was the oldest by only two years, I’d lost track of how many times my mother had told me to ‘watch your brothers’ because she’d needed a break. Yeah, my parents had been fortunate enough to be able to afford housekeepers and cooks, but my mother had been adamant that only family would be the ones to raise family.
So, at thirty-five, I was the oldest, then James was next at thirty-one, Desmond at thirty, Kevin at twenty-seven, and lastly, Cathal at twenty-five. All four of my brothers were married with children, and all four of my brothers worked for the family. So, when we were all together like this, you were talking eleven adults and seven children, and I always left here with ringing in my ears.
Today’s festivities were to announce that Cathal’s wife was pregnant with their second child, which would up the guest list to eighteen once it was born. While I was very happy for all of my brothers and wished them all the happiness in the world, I wasn’t used to chaos. My homes were clean, organized, and quiet. All three of them were quiet.
At any rate, while I did plan on having a wife and children one day, right now I was too busy running the family business to go looking for a wife. The winds of change had come last year, and all of my focus was on getting a better handle on our territory.
Though no one would guess it, organized crime was very prevalent in the state of Maryland, and we were close enough to New Jersey and New York to be necessary. Unfortunately for us, we were outnumbered by both the Italians and Russians, and the Italians were lucky enough to control the coastline and ports. Their numbers were also larger than ours and the Russians, though we’d outnumber them if Avgust Kotov and I ever joined forces. However, the Russians were fucking insane, and so I didn’t need that kind of headache. Insane people were unpredictable, and I was looking to build our empire, not watch it burn to the ground because the Russians had an issue with willpower and control.
Now, once upon a time, we shared Port Townsend with the German Mob, but they’d ended up ruining themselves by fucking with Nero Sartori’s wife. They’d shot and kidnapped Kasen Sartori, so Nero had done what any man worth his salt would do; he’d taken out the entire Schultz bloodline. In doing so, he had freed up Emil Schultz’s territory, giving both me and Avgust more areas to get under control. So, while Nero had the coastline and ports, I had the northern border with access to state line airports, and Avgust had the rest. It was what I liked to call profitable peace, and I wanted it to stay that way.
So, while we weren’t as organized as the Italians, we weren’t as chaotic as the Russians. However, we did have structure, even if we didn’t have fancy names like my counterparts. I was the leader to the Italian’s Boss and the Russian’s Pakhan, and my brothers would be Capos if we were comparing ourselves to Italian Mafia, though we had more ‘Capos’ than just my brothers. It was all the same after that with the soldiers, enforcers, associates, etc.
Another difference between us and the other organizations was that the Mafia and Bratva were not top-heavy like we were. With them, only blood relatives of the head family ruled, and so it really was a dictatorship. Full power was limited to only a few select family members, and Nero and Avgust really were kings where their word was law. As for me, I wasn’t that rigid. While I had final say regarding both family and business matters, I had no problem discussing situations with my father or brothers. I liked to consider myself a reasonable man, and with Noah by my side, logic usually prevailed.
Now, while I loved my brothers and trusted them with my life, Noah Murphy was my right-hand man. If we were still comparing organizations, then Noah would be my consigliere, and he was the ideal voice of reason when shit was hitting the fan because Noah was a bit of a sociopath and apathetic to almost everything. Related through our mothers, it was only when it came to family that I’d ever seen him lose his shit; anything other than that didn’t get much out of Noah.
“Maybe it’s time to finally start a family and get Aunt Nessa off your back.” I turned at Noah’s voice, a smirk on his face as he made his way up the cobblestones, eyeing the windows, not wanting to be seen. “That way, you don’t need to be hiding out here during family events.”
“I’m not tying myself to some random woman for the rest of my life just so my mam can get herself another grandchild,” I snorted. “She has plenty.”
“You’re thirty-five, Declan,” he stated evenly.
“And you’re thirty-four,” I shot back. “I don’t see you shopping for a wife.”
“I’m not the head of the Irish Mob,” he quipped.
Ignoring that, I asked, “What are you even doing here? Did Mam recruit ye?”
Noah grinned, noticing my accent coming out. “She didn’t recruit me,” he said. “However, Nero Sartori is on baby number two, Provenza’s wife is pregnant, and even Elio Sartori’s wife is pregnant with their first child. The next generation is happening, Declan.” He stopped when he was standing in front of me, making me wish that I smoked or something. “It’s happening, and you need to think about that.”
“The Russian’s aren’t popping out babies,” I reminded him.
“Yet,” he retorted. “You need to get over your obsession with Kasen Sartori and find yourself a wife.”
I shot him a look. “I don’t have an obsession with Mrs. Sartori,” I said for the millionth time. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for the lass, but that’s it.”
Noah didn’t look convinced. “You might not have an obsession with her, but you can’t deny that you’d like to find a wife that has her kind of backbone.”
That part was true.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated, dismissing his truthful observation. “Did you really just stop by to bust my nads?”
“Cooper Donaldson is showing his face again,” he answered, giving me a bigger headache. “I thought you’d want to know.”
