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"Always were a moron. That's why you're still on your da's crew and never made anything of yourself," Brennan sneered.
Hal whipped around to glower at him. "Fuck you. If anyone can't talk about living under their father's thumb, it's the O'Donnelly boys.
"Look what happens the minute he dies—chaos."
"You're not wrong," I said smoothly. "But transition is always hard on everyone. You, however, made it easier on me, Hal. You did me a fucking favor by coming up with a useless plot to overthrow me.
"If anything, I'm reaping the benefits of my da's short-sightedness. He's the one who trusted those snakes in his crew, he's the one who brought them into the inner circle, and he's the reason I'm having a problem tonight."
"If you think there ain't deeper problems than that, you're a fucking idiot."
"Oh, I know we got issues, but I also know that after tonight, I'll have half-a-dozen fewer ‘snags’ to deal with.
"Unfortunately for you, you're the ones who brought yourself to the top of my list."
I withdrew a set of keys that Declan had given me earlier. He’d handed my cell and Da’s back to me as well as the other shit that had been swiped from my pockets after the crash. These keys were proof of Mark’s involvement as no one should possess them other than an O’Donnelly because they opened Da's office here.
Mark had been handling them like they belonged to him.
They didn't.
I'd never wanted this fucking throne of bones that my family had been dead set on leaving to me, but that didn't mean I was about to let it be taken from me either.
I thought about Savvie, I thought about what she was, who she was, and I thought about what she'd shown me tonight.
I'd married an equal.
But in my world, a wife would never be an equal. It just wasn't how we worked. We protected our women, we sheltered them, and we kept them safe. We often failed in those duties, but we had enemies, and that couldn't be helped.
But Savannah wasn't afraid.
Tonight, she'd acted with strength.
That was why I tucked the longest key between my pointer and middle finger, it was why I clutched the bundle of keys in my palm as I strolled over to Hal, and it was why I chose to gift her with her request.
When I was close enough to put a hand on his shoulder, Brennan was all that stopped him from bolting away.
I smiled at him, pleasantly, like we were about to have a chat, but the fucker surprised me.
Surging upward, using strength that was founded in desperation, he head-butted me. I didn’t think he had more of a plan than that, but my already aching skull got a full-frontal hit, and though he dazed me, Brennan quickly grabbed him around the neck and hauled him down to his knees with a dull thud that had him shouting hoarsely in pain.
I had to laugh as I reached up and brushed a finger along my bleeding nose. "Nice try, Hal," I told him. "But all you’ve done is piss me the fuck off."
Pinching the tip, I winced as my eyes watered with pain, but one thing you got used to when you were raised by Da was a busted fucking nose.
Brennan shot me a look, but I dismissed his concern as I loomed over Hal, the side of my spare hand slamming into his throat.
While he choked, I informed him, "We might call our firm the Five Points, but the O'Donnellys is silent. There ain't no Five Points without the O'Donnellys, and there never fucking will be. Not as long as I have breath in my lungs."
I jabbed him.
Allowed the blunt tip of the key to penetrate the soft sclera of his eye.
Satisfaction filled me as he howled out his pain and his surprise. When he sagged over, I pulled my hand back and shoved the bloody keys into my pocket.
Blood spattered around him as he cupped his eye, his sniffles and wails merging into one long scream as he rocked himself.
Watching his suffering for a few moments, silently, I retrieved my cell from my other pocket, grabbed him by the back of the head, and tugged on his hair until I got a good shot of his face. He wriggled and writhed against my hold, my grip undoubtedly tugging on his new wound, but Brennan helped me by putting his foot between Hal’s shoulders and forcing him to maintain his position.
