AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do we have a problem?” I ask as I approach, and he nods.
“We sure do.” He gestures towards the crates the men are moving, his expression darkening by the second. “One’s missing. Not just light, as if the sender forgot to pack a few things, but just straight up missing, the whole kit. Unless this is the right count, and the number you gave me was just off?” His face is faintly hopeful, as if all the stress I’ve been under might have resulted in such a mistake, but I’d hardly fuck something like that up. I never have.
But our shipments have never been short, either. Not as long as I’ve been running the London gang.
“I’ll look over the books,” I promise him, stalking inside to where my small makeshift “office” has been set up in one of the rooms of the warehouse, just a desk piled with ledgers and paperwork and a chair, all of it tucked in a private corner where I can face out to see the room and not be disturbed by anyone.
It’s at least good for distracting me from Saoirse. I go over the shipment logs again and again, Jacob coming in to give me updated counts, and it comes up the same every time—one crate of guns is missing. I can feel my gut starting to tighten with an angry dread, and when there’s no possible doubt, I push myself up from the desk, stalking back out to find Jacob.
“Get the men together. You and Quint,” I tell him, and his jaw tightens, but he nods.
“Sure thing, boss,” he says, and I can feel the tension in him. Jacob and I are friends, he rarely calls me anything but my name—but he’s shifted into the man who might have to do dirty work for me, very shortly.
“In all the years that I’ve run this gang,” I say loudly when the men are all assembled in front of me, some looking nervous and others irritable, “we’ve never run into this problem. We’ve never come up short. Now what I want you to tell me is why today, our first shipment after we’ve set up here in Boston, I’m missing a crate.” I face them, my hands shoved in my pockets, my face dark and angry. “I brought all of you here with me because I trusted you. I trusted you to have my back during a dangerous transition, and setting up in a new place. Now, I have proof that the shipment was loaded to come here with all the crates accounted for. So either there’s a man here I can’t trust, or someone let a thief from outside slip by them. Neither option is acceptable to me.”
I let a few moments of quiet tick by, seeing the unsettled looks on their faces. “I’ve never, for as long as I’ve been in charge here, seen violence done to a single one of you by my order. But unless someone comes forward with information, Jacob and Quint here are going to have to use more forceful means to determine if you’re telling the truth.”
A small rumble brakes out at that, and Jake, one of the younger men, pushes forward.
“So what, you’re going to have us tortured to root out a traitor?” His face is slightly pale. “We came here with you to help you take over your brother’s position, but we’ve just been sitting here waiting! None of us is doing a damned thing other than sitting on our thumbs and waiting for you to make a move. I didn’t steal that shit—”
“Quiet!” Quint snaps. “Don’t speak to your boss that way, son. Unless you know who did this, shut your mouth and stand back.”
“And if I don’t?” Jake weighs about a hundred pounds less than Quint, but it’s clear he’s afraid, and reacting badly.
“You don’t want to go toe to toe with me, son,” Quint warns. “Now be respectful, and step back.”
“I don’t want violence,” I say clearly, looking at all of them. “I consider it my responsibility to keep all of you safe, not inflict pain on you. But I willnothave a traitor in our ranks. I’ll give you all time to decide if the one responsible will come forward, or leave his brothers to suffer until they give up what they do know, if anything.” I motion to Jacob and Quint. “Question them,” I tell them gruffly. “Without hurting anyone, for now. Scare them a little, if need be. I want to know who the fucking traitor is. If my brother got into my ranks, to start turning my men against me—”
“We’ll deal with it,” Jacob assures me. “Do what you need to.”
That, for me, means calling Luca and Viktor and asking them to come to the warehouse for an emergency meeting. They arrive a little while later, meeting me in the makeshift office, the door shut so no one can hear us speak. Alessio is still absent, although Levin is back at Viktor’s side, and I lean back against the edge of the desk, feeling angry and troubled over the entire thing.
I explain the situation succinctly, and Viktor rubs a hand over his mouth, considering.
“It’s a difficult thing, when there’s betrayal within your own men,” he says finally. “I’ve dealt with it. You’re right to escalate the questioning slowly. Let them simmer, think of whether or not it’s in their best interest to tell what they know. Not too long, of course,” he adds wryly. “That’s a mistake I’ll pay for a long time yet.”
“You’re sure it’s one of your men?” Luca asks, and I nod.
“That, or they let a thief slip by. The shipment was accounted for when it was sent out.”
“Could it be a faked manifest?”
“I don’t think so.” I grit my teeth, frustration welling up.As if I didn’t have enough to deal with.“It’s someone on the inside. If Liam has gotten to one of my men—”
“We’re still trying to arrange the meeting,” Viktor says. “I’ve asked Max to speak to him, to try to reason with him. Right now he doesn’t want to meet.”
I narrow my eyes. “Does he not understand the repercussions of that?” I throw my hands up then, exasperated. “Of course he does. We talked in the cemetery, I told him I wouldn’t back down. His fuckingwifecornered me in a restaurant, tried to convince me to pack it in and go back to London, I told her no and to tell Liam his wisest choice of action would be to stop fighting me. But he bloodywon’t.”
There’s a moment’s silence as we all consider the ramifications of what’s happening. “I want a bloodless takeover if at all possible,” I say quietly. “But it’s seeming harder and harder to achieve. I came back because I wanted to save my brother’s life. If I take this seat and it’s stained with his blood, all of this will be for nothing.”
“I’ll get Max to talk to him again,” Viktor says firmly. “Just give it a little time. Deal with the problems in your ranks, and I’ll do what I can to see that Liam comes to his senses.”
As I watch them leave, a glimmer of an idea comes to me. It’s not one I like, but it could work.
I just need my wife to cooperate.
---
