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Donnacha
Even in the darkness of the Tunnels, my babies gleam back up at me. A few pieces from my collection—sharpened, buffed, and polished—are all lined up and ready for showtime.
Ignoring the whimpering coming from the shadows, I make a show of snapping on rubber gloves and crouching over my tools.
“Ip, dip, dog, shit,” I chime, pointing at each of my tools in turn. “You are not it.” My finger stops over my pliers. With a dramatic sigh, I glance up at the balding man tied to the chair in front of me. He’s sweating buckets. “That’s a shame. I’m sure that gold tooth of yours is worth a fair bit of cash.” I kick the pliers with my boot, sending them flying across the concrete. They disappear into the darkness and crash against the wall, making the man jump.
“You don’t have to do this,” he begs, straining his wrists against the rope. He rocks back and forth on the chair he’s bound to, testing the strength of my knots. Testing my fucking patience. “If you let me go, I promise, I’ll—”
“Rest your voice, lad. You’ll need those vocal cords to scream nice and loudly for me.” I raise an eyebrow, grinning. “I like a screamer.”
He pauses. His eyes graze over the hammer, shotgun, hacksaw, and Samurai sword laid out neatly between us. Then he pins me with a hopeful stare. “If I scream, will you let me go?” he whispers.
I laugh. A big laugh that echoes off the concrete and makes him recoil.
“You’re funny. Someone out there will miss that about you, buddy. Hell, they might even write it on your gravestone. Now, where were we?” I strum a gloved finger against my bottom lip, pretending to think, before diving right back into my game. “Ip, dip, dog—”
“I’ll double my investment!” he yells. “Triple it, even, if you just let me go, please—”
I hold up a hand to silence him.
“Save the negotiations. You’re talking to the wrong Quinn.”
“Bring me to the right one then!”
“Too late, buddy,” I say, booting away the hacksaw, simply because I prefer the idea of the hammer or the sword for this one. My game of chance is nothing but an illusion. “Like most people who end up in the Tunnels, I’ll be the last Quinn you’ll see.”
I don’t even know this fucker’s name. All I know is that he’s a creepy bastard. Some angel investor Poppy had secured funding from to build a new housing project over in Bay Village. Last night, they’d met for business dinner, and he’d squeezed her thigh under the table and slipped her his spare room key over the top of it. Yeah, getting handsy with Lorcan Quinn’s wife will secure you a date with me down in the Tunnels, the disused sewage network that runs under the streets of Boston. Down here, you’re in my world. We play my games, by my rules, and there’s only ever one winner.
A knock on the door interrupts round three of our game.
“Yeah?” I bark over my shoulder.
“Lorc’s on the phone.”
Ronan’s footsteps echo across the concrete as he crosses the room and presses the burner into my palm. I flash my victim a smirk. “Just the Quinn you were after. Perhaps he’ll grant you a presidential pardon?”
The hope that lights up his bloodied face is hilarious.
I bring the cell to my ear. “Ah, my favorite cousin. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Meet me at Gatsby’s in half an hour. We have a lot to discuss.”
“Such as?”
“Where the fuck you disappeared to yesterday during our meeting with Belsky.”
The girl with the silver hair pops into my head, blood and all. Fuck, she was hot.
“It’s a date.”
I flash my victim an apologetic grin. “No such luck, I’m afraid. Ronan?”
“Yes, boss?”
“End this waste of space for me. I’m going out for lunch and won’t have time to wipe the blood splatter from my shoes.”
“On it, boss.”
