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“An eejit?” Conor tacked on helpfully, earning himself a glower that would have felled a lesser man.
Conor wasn’t lesser. Just a little whacko where reality was concerned.
Eoghan sniffed. “Why the fuck didn’t you want me to know?”
“Because you’re busy. These two have no goddamn life anyway. You’ve got Inessa now. I don’t want you getting involved with shit that isn’t important.”
“Not important? Some fucker’s been skimming millions off you over the years and you think that ain’t important?” Eoghan growled. “I’m the security man. Why the hell wouldn’t you keep me in the loop?”
“Bro, I triggered a fucking war,” I muttered under my breath, just in case the CCTV cameras were compromised.
“And I didn’t? And you didn’t have my back? Help me out with getting the right weapon?”
I grimaced. “I appreciate the loyalty, but I didn’t break Ma’s favorite vase or crash Da’s car. I caused a lot of shit.”
“So have I. Anyway, back in ‘09, the Haitians were trigger happy. It was bound to happen,” he dismissed.
“You know it makes Da happy when we’re at war. Means he can play.” Conor’s blasé tone had me grunting.
“Well, just because he likes to play with his food doesn’t mean I want him to play with me. Even if he didn’t give me shit over the war, he’d give me a fuck ton of crap over the lying.”
At that, each of my brothers shuffled around like we were teens again.
Aidan Sr. did not deal well with liars.
In fact, people had a tendency to lose extremities if they lied to him.
While I was pretty sure I’d be safe, I didn’t feel like dealing with the repercussions of a lie that was older than my son.
“We can keep this from Da,” Brennan reassured me, then asked Conor, “Can’t we, doofus?”
Conor shrugged. “I don’t see why not. He’s preoccupied now anyway. If he did find out, your being injured would probably help, and the fact that Seamus is a lost grandchild is bound to take his interest. Of course, there’s the strip club and the—”
My heart skipped a beat as I remembered the rituals Da had dragged us through when we were young. “Fuck,” I rasped. “I forgot about that shit. Two weeks of relative normalcy and it skipped my mind how insane Da is.”
“You forgot about the drug den?” Brennan shook his head, but he was laughing as he did it. “Not sure how you forgot about that.”
“Well, apparently Aidan Jr. did considering he’s a junkie.”
Eoghan sighed. “Conor, you keep on saying that shit, he’s going to shoot you.”
“Better than shooting up some…”
When his voice petered off, I eyed him. “Shooting up what? He’s taking prescription meds, Conor. Not hardcore narcotics.”
“Slippery slope,” was all he said, but he sniffed too. “Look, you might have all day to shoot the breeze in a parking garage, but I can assure you, I don’t.”
“I need to speak with Da too,” Brennan said. “I’ll drive us both there, and I can drop you two off as we go.”
When Eoghan and Conor nodded in agreement, I didn’t argue because I didn’t feel up to driving. This entire conversation was a mess just waiting to hit me between the eyes. I had a feeling Da wouldn’t find out, but he didn’t need to for trouble to be brewing.
If Cillian wasn’t dead, if he was the one behind the blackmail, then I had a nasty feeling he’d have been charging me a hell of a lot more than ten grand a month.
And if someone was pretending to be Cillian, having assumed his identity… well, there was an end game in play, wasn’t there?
I rubbed my chin as I hefted myself into the passenger seat. That I looked like a bag of bones and a piece of shit was confirmed when neither of my brothers called shotgun on the seat and settled in the back.
When we took off, the radio raged with some old school Queen of the Stone Age.
