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He grabs the remote and mutes the television hanging from the ceiling in the corner. “The last few times you came to talk, I almost died, so you’ll have to excuse me for being nervous.”
“You are the one who made an enemy out of me,” I remind him. “I didn’t even know your name before you decided to team up with Benedetto Furino.”
He sighs, his shoulders sagging like he is weary to his core. “I don’t have enemies. I don’t give a shit about the Furinos or the Volkovs or the Irish. I just don’t want to be shot.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Then you picked a bad line of work.”
“Tell me about it.” He gestures to his right knee, which is wrapped in a thick bandage. Then, he turns to me, hands folded in his lap. “What do you want now? I told you everything I know.”
I step forward, not wanting to waste another second. “Where would the Irish hold someone hostage?”
“The shipyard, probably. The same place they stored the guns.”
I shake my head. “I’ve already been there. She isn’t there.”
“She?” he asks, eyebrows pulled together. “Eve?”
I nod, jaw clenching at the thought. “They took her.”
“But she’s Benedetto’s daughter.”
“Someone should tell Benedetto,” I say coldly.
He curses under his breath. “That is fucked up.”
“She’s pregnant, too,” I admit, saying the words out loud for the first time. “Benedetto knows, and he is threatening the baby if I don’t hand over the guns I stole.”
Patrick runs a hand down his face. “I’d tell you just to give back the guns, but I think we both know it’s a trap. He’ll kill you.”
“Which is why I need to surprise them,” I say. “They are expecting me to reach out and set up a meeting location, so I need to ambush them. I need to surprise them and get Eve out of there before he can hurt her.”
Patrick’s forehead wrinkles in thought, his lips twisting to the side, and then his eyes widen. “There’s a warehouse. I’m not exactly sure where it is because I’ve never been there, but I can draw you a map. The place is abandoned, so if I can get you to the right area, I’m sure you can find it.”
I rush to the small desk in the corner and grab a pad of hospital stationery and a pencil. Patrick takes it from me, uncaps the pen, and then stops, the tip hovering over the paper. He looks up at me from the corner of his eye.
“What?”
He drops the pen into his lap and folds his hands. “I’m going to need you to do something for me in return.”
I groan. I do not have time for this, but I also don’t have time to do this without him. “What?” I growl.
“You have money,” he says, stating the obvious. I circle my hand for him to continue. “Get me and my family out of this city. Away from this life.”
I frown. “But you work with the Irish. Why would you trust me to help you?”
“For the same reason you trusted me not to tell the rest of my family you were coming for their guns and for the same reason you are trusting me to tell you the location of the warehouse where they are holding your girl,” he says, lowering his chin so he is looking up at me from beneath lowered brows. “Because I don’t have another choice. I let you attack the Irish without giving them any warning, and now I’m in the hospital with a gunshot to my knee. How long do you think it will take them to figure out that I’m the one who gave you the information?”
He’s right. It won’t take long before he has Irish hitmen lurking in his garden.
“I just want to be somewhere safe where I can raise my family,” he says. “Nothing fancy or lavish. Just a new start in a new place. That’s it.”
The request is so modest that I can’t possibly refuse him. Especially when doing so would mean not finding Eve. I nod. “Deal. As soon as I have Eve, you’ll get your fresh start.”
We shake on it, and he draws me a map.
I can see the hesitation in his eyes as he hands me the slip of paper. He truly has nothing to bargain with. He has to count on me being a man of my word, and lucky for him, I am. As I drive towards the warehouse, I make a few calls to begin arranging the “disappearance” of the O’Neill family.
27
