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“You’re the one who called me?”
She flashes a sweet smile. “My secretary did, sweetie. I need your help.” Then she slams a stack of files down in front of me. I wait. “Super easy job. As you know, we have full control over all territories along the East Coast, apart from Philadelphia and South Jersey.”
I groan. “You want Philly now too? Wasn’t the Bratnov blood-bath eight years enough drama for this decade?”
Poppy offers a wry smile. “We don’t want Philly. We don’t have the manpower to run it and besides, the Philly Institution—”
“The mob. She means the mob,” Lorcan interrupts, rolling his eyes.
“The Abruzzo family, Italian mob, mafia, whatever you want to call them, have been pretty good to us. A few years back, we set up a treaty with them. We allow them access to the Peruvian’s supply—”
“Cocaine. She means cocaine,” Lorcan interjects again.
“At no extra mark-up from us, and in exchange, Quinn Ventures can set up legitimate businesses within their Central Business District, and those businesses won’t have to pay payment protection to them.”
Beside me, Donnacha huffs. “All these politics make my head swim. Just give me a gun and a toolbox and an asshole who needs to be taught a lesson. I don’t understand any of this shit.”
Lorcan’s hands fly to Valentina’s ears, and he flashes his cousin another menacing stare.
“Anyway,” Poppy sighs, shaking her head. “Business in Philly has been thriving. Office space is cheaper and it’s great for networking. However, the Abruzzo’s don’t care about our investments over there—I mean, why would they? They aren’t profiting from them. What I’m trying to say, is that the end of the quarter has come and gone, and over seventy-five percent of the businesses haven’t paid us our agreed fees, returns, and dividends.” She leans over and taps the stack of papers in front of me with a red fingernail. “Names and addresses here.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You want me to pop off a few suits because they are late on payments?”
Poppy purses her lips. “No, sweetie. First off, they aren’t late. They simply aren’t going to pay, and no amount of polite emails from our CFO, Orna, will make them pay. I guess because they are so far away, they don’t have the fear put into them like the businesses in Boston do. I guess they think they can get away with it. I don’t want you tokill,” she mouths the word and glances towards her daughter, “them. I just want you to shake them up a little. Remind them they have contracts to fulfill and payments to make.” She lowers her voice and pins me with a serious stare. “For the love of God, don’tkillthem.” Again, she mouths the word. “Dead people can’t pay their debts.”
Still, I’m confused. “And you can’t send one of your million henchmen to do the job?”
Lorcan shakes his head. “We don’t want it coming back to us. Also, we don’t want the Abruzzo’s to spot us and think we are trying to conduct business they don’t know about on their turf.”
“Yes, we don’t want to rock the boat,” Poppy says. “And make sure you spread out your visits over a few months. We don’t want to make it look like a pattern. Otherwise, it’ll be obvious something is up.”
Makes sense.I say wryly, “No bodies to get rid of. Easiest job ever.”
Donnacha lets out a laugh. “Yeah, for anyone who ain’t you.”
“Meaning?”
He shifts in his seat and stares at me, amused. “Remember when you left us? Your plan was to float around for a little while and then set up your own institution. But then youreallygot a taste of what it feels like to a cold-blooded killer. That’s what you do, buddy. You kill people and you fucking love it.”
“Language,” Lorcan hisses, and Poppy frowns beside him. I glance down at Valentina, she’s snoring peacefully against his shirt, her fist curled around the floral silk handkerchief usually folded in his suit pocket.
I mull Donnacha’s words around in my head. He’s right about some things, wrong about others. When I left, I didn’t want to work for Lorcan Quinn, I wanted to be just like him. Set up my own institution and rule my own city with an iron fist. But he’s wrong about why I’ve stayed as a freelance hitman for eight years, instead of making the leap to Boss.
I love the fucking freedom. I have no loyalty to any family apart from the Quinns. No red tape, no fucking treaties or turf wars or agreements. I’ll carry out a hit for the Bratva one week, kill one for another client the next. I ride solo, make my own rules, and see the world while doing it.
“One day,” Lorcan says, studying me. “You’ll make a great boss. But for now, you’re just enjoying the international pussy and—” Poppy’s whacks his arm, causing him to chuckle. “It’s fine, she’s asleep.” He runs a gentle hand over his daughter’s head then replaces it with a kiss.
I shake my head and rise to my feet. “Yeah, not getting caught in the middle of a Quinn domestic.” Lorcan reaches over and shakes my hand. “I’ll take half my usual fee since there are no bodies to get rid of.”
Donnacha coughs. When I meet his gaze, he raises an eyebrow at me.
Through gritted teeth, I say, “Never mind. I’ll do it for free.”
Fucking favors.
Waving over my shoulder, I stalk back through the Quinn offices and to the elevator, nodding to Orna in one of the meeting rooms as I go. Now the Chief Financial Officer of the family business, she’s come a long way from the housekeeper that used to iron my slacks and bring me iced tea when on patrol.
Back in the silence of my Bentley, I stare out the dashboard and grind my molars.
