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28
AIDAN
It was amazingwhat could be accomplished when every single Five Pointer was working to eradicate internal threats.
In less than an hour, Jonesy, Mark, Paul, Tony, and Connolly were all at the cement factory, as were the rest of their crews.
We didn't have the space to separate them, but I kept the ringleaders apart from the crews because, as far as I could tell, this was a small operation. Not just to keep the chance at success high, but because the majority of their men were loyal to me.
I needed that confirmation before anything else went down, though, so we got to work.
While Five Pointers weren't snitches, they were human.
When I used Anthony as an example of how I blinded men, they quickly spilled their guts.
A few hours in, and as I’d surmised, most of the crews were in the dark about their leaders' intentions, but they were sheep so I knew they'd have gone along with them anyway.
It was hard to torture a sheep for being a sheep when you wanted them to be a sheep so I cut my losses, warned them that they’d be on notice for the foreseeable future, and continued my hunt for a wolf among them.
One popped out.
Unsurprisingly, it was Paul’s son, Hal. Middle-aged, soft around the gut, not that smart in the brain department, he kept to himself, did his job, but I knew he had a tendency to talk too much when he was drunk. Da had given Paul shit about that in the past.
What interested me the most was how the men naturally moved away from him as if they were trying to avoid his attention. Or was it that they were avoiding the wolf in the flock?
I didn't know him that well. Da hadn't liked him and who Da didn't like, we never hung out with. Callum, Mark's boy, Da had liked, and that was why he'd encouraged a friendship between Conor and Callum...
Hal was one of those kids who'd pulled off fly's wings for fun or who'd trained a magnifying glass onto an ant hill and let the sun's rays burn them.
Standard psychopath shit, but in a world of psychopaths, a man grew to be discerning.
Da was cruel, but nothing he did was pointless.
Hurting flies, burning ants, what was the use in that?
He was more likely to stomp on the ants and swat the fly then punch whoever had left food out that had attracted the bugs in the first place.
Psychopathy 101 from the master himself—was it any wonder I was fucked in the head?
Glancing over Paul’s crew one final time, reading expressions and the minutiae that another could have missed, I informed them, "Hal, you're staying. The rest of you can follow Declan out of here."
The sense of relief was palpable. It was as if a massive set of bellows had triggered a gust of wind that wafted around the space, airing it.
Most of them sagged as I watched them trudge from the room, muttering speculation under their breath, but I maintained my focus on Hal who Brennan sidled close to so he couldn't run off.
And he was showing signs of trying to—his eyes had gotten big, and they were flickering from left to right, quick enough that it could have given him motion sickness.
With Anthony still sobbing behind me until Declan returned and dragged him out, I headed over to a stool in one corner and I took a seat.
Resting my elbows on my knees, I stared at Hal and drawled, "Should have known you'd be in on this. You're too much of an idiot not to recognize when you should keep your nose out of things."
"Fuck you, Aidan," Hal snarled. "You ain't got the right to talk to me that way."
"He's got every fucking right," Brennan snapped, clipping him upside the head. "He’s your goddamn boss."
"You ain't my fucking boss." Hal straightened up. "If that soft piece of shit, Anthony, hadn't ratted us out, you'd never have known what was—"
His idiocy confirmed, as well as his treachery, I spat, "You asswipes had the subtlety of a nun in a whorehouse. You overplayed your hand, Hal. Far too early as well."
