And smiles.The absolute fucker.
I don’t react. I just fish out the shard and slide it into my palm.
The cards are dealt again.
But I’m done pretending this is a game.
19
MAGGIE
The death meeting is the very last place I want to be. Not that that’s its official name, but what else should I call it?
The council of serial killers?
Contract killers ’R’ us?
Jeepers creepers it’s the human grim reapers?
If I had any sense, I’d have hidden under the bed when Eliza came to drag me away from keeping an eye on Roman and forced me down to the meeting room. And now I’m sat amongst familiar faces, looking older than the last time I saw them, and their heirs eager to fill their footsteps.
Not me, obviously, but the rest are chomping at the bit.
Eddie is here, of course, with his dad and younger brother. Priscilla’s son, and my soon-to-be-step-brother, James, sits on the other side of Eliza. The Smiths, still looking loved up as ever, even though they are well into their sixties, with forty years of blood-filled marriage between them. Then there’s Monsieur Tremblay, a dab hand with bombs, and perhaps the least sleight of hand of everyone, and his long-term rival and lover, Bianchi. A cold-blooded fucker if ever I’d seen one. Even looking at him gives me the heebie jeebies. The Irish lot are there in force, Jack Kavanagh and his band of sons, most of whom are eyeing up Eliza like dogs on heat.
Conversation mumbles, and Dad goes through the list of people who have excused themselves from this month’s meet.
As usual, I feel like a sheep amongst a party of wolves.
The room looks exactly as it always has, not changing an iota since as long as I can remember. The huge, gleaming mahogany table, looking more suited to a war room than a home, takes up most of the space. Matching chairs, which I assume are deliberately uncomfortable to keep everyone on edge.
Across from me, Eddie licks his lower lip, his finger dancing around the top of his water glass.
Barf.
He gives me a slow smile that makes my skin crawl.
To his right sits his father, equally as discomfiting as his son. The apple rarely falls far from the tree.
Hector Stewart.
He’s like a great coiled snake, those beady eyes always assessing everyone around him.
The network has always been a little fraught, but new tensions run through it. Because someone’s been undercutting everyone, going behind the scenes to steal contracts out from the others and upsetting the carefully constructed balance the families have long tolerated.
‘It’s not a coincidence,’ Tremblay says in his light French accent. ‘Three contracts in two months, all intercepted before completion.’
‘Intercepted?’ Eddie scoffs. ‘Or stolen.’
‘Stolen,’ Eliza says, not that anyone pays her much heed. Outside our family, it’s rare for daughters to be invited to meetings or to be involved in the darker side of our world at all. Lucky me, having a father who believes in sibling equality in the one place I could really do without it.
Someone is walking into their territory and disrupting things.
A deadly pastime, for sure.
They never really talk about the marks like they are living people, and while most are scum, not all families are so discerning in their selection of contracts.
‘It’s sloppy,’ One of the Irish lads says, ‘No pattern or signature. Pure disruption.’
