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Because right now I want to smash his face into the table, shattering and splintering it, making everybody wonder if the crack is the wood or his bones breaking.
“If your best interests involve dealing drugs in my city, I disagree,” I tell him firmly.
“You keep saying that,” he murmurs. “Your city. Who says this city belongs to you? What right do you have to claim it, huh? What fucking right?”
“With all due respect, Juan,” Cillian says from beside me, “I don’t believe you don’t know about Murphy’s rise to power. He unified all the Mafia Families. He made alliances with the Italians and the Yakuza. He’s kept the streets clean. He’s kept business flowing… mostly legitimate businesses, which we use our skills to protect. He’s done more good for this city than most politicians.”
Juan flinches because of course, he knows how I rose to power. He’s heard about the war I won, with blood and grit as much as with my mind. There was a power struggle when I was scarcely twenty years old, and instead of hiding away from it I dove head-first into it, rallying a small group of Irishmen who became a squadron and then an army, and I won this fucking city.
There’s no way I’m going to let him take it away from me.
Or poison its people with drugs.
“Yes, I’ve heard,” Juan says, staring hard at me. “You waged a little war, a tidy little American war, the kind of scuffle we don’t even register where I’m from. And you think I should be impressed?”
“I think you should show some respect,” Cillian snaps, his anger flaring.
I mask a smirk with a mouthful of whiskey and then wave a hand at my second-in-command. “We are telling you not to deal drugs on our streets,” I tell Juan. “Ultimately you can decide what course of action to take, but don’t be surprised when you find out we’re tougher than you think.”
I stand and stride from the bar, my men following behind me, their footsteps loud on the hardwood flooring.
I walk into the spring sunlight and let out a growling sigh as I head toward the end of the street, where the car should be waiting. My men have already climbed into their own cars, jet-black sedans which line the sidewalk outside the bar.
I stand on the corner, letting pedestrians pass me, a hot chord of tension pulsing through my body.
“That didn’t go as planned,” Cillian murmurs as he walks up beside me.
I laugh gruffly. “Yeah, no shit. Do you think he’ll listen?”
“No,” Cillian says.
“Neither do I. Which means we’re going to have to make him listen…”
I glance up and down the street. “Where the fuck is the car, Cillian? It was supposed to be waiting right here.”
“There’s a new driver today,” he explains. “Remember? Molly Davis.”
I nod, though it slipped my mind, getting buried beneath all the Cartel shit.
Henry – Molly’s dad – is my oldest friend. We met when we were kids and we were inseparable through all our schooling years, and we even remained close when I went into the mafia life and he tried to stick to the straight and narrow.
He’s battled with a gambling addiction ever since his wife died, and I’ve done my best to help him. I moved him to England a few years ago when shit got too hot Stateside, and I’ve moved him and his daughter back now that he’s messed things up in England.
I want to help him, but he’s a real self-sabotaging bastard.
Still, he’s my best friend, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him.
Giving his daughter a job is a small price to pay…
At least, that’s what I thought.
I expected her to be on time, to be grateful, not to leave me waiting like a jackass on the side of the road.
“Maybe she got lost,” Cillian muses. “They’ve been in England for, what, three years?”
I nod. “Yep. And she’s only nineteen, or maybe twenty. She only got her license a few years ago. But when I asked Henry what job would suit her, he said driver. He didn’t even hesitate. Apparently, she wants to become a rally driver one day.”
Cillian gestures to the traffic lights on the other end of the street, where a sleek black sedan sits at a red light, the windows tinted and the car shined to a polished finish.
My eyes move over the car and then to the driver.
My blood starts pumping hard around my body.
Even from here, there’s something about her, provoking feelings in me I’ve never experienced before, flooding my mind and surging around my body. Even when she’s twenty feet away from me – with a driver’s cap on her head – I feel my manhood trying to stiffen, trying to pulse in irrepressible lust.
I stare hard, studying the half-confident half-shy smile that plays at her lips, her eyes narrowed, pinched in concern. Even her hands gripping the steering wheel send carnal thoughts driving inside of me.
