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I had been out of the mafia game for so long that I no longer knew the ins and outs, the intrigues and the conspiracies. An illegitimate son wasn’t even remotely scandalous, though. Especially not for the Russians.
“Looks like Papa was trying to get his son set up in his career,” Eoghan chuckled. He saw something in my expression that made him continue with a little more ease. “By having him take down the reigning underground champion, who also happens to be a beautiful woman, he’d get some clout within their ranks.”
He took another puff of that cigarette, then let the smoke trail from his lips in a sigh.
“But you know nothing about that?” He finally asked, raising a disbelieving brow.
So he knew that I had been there. He probably knew that I had absconded with the fugitive. Eoghan had little birds everywhere, and he paid handsomely for information, especially when I was in town.
“I might have heard something about it.” I shrugged and smirked, continuing to play the game, dancing around the truth.
“And seen it?” he asked, almost mischievously.
“Of course,” I responded.
“And… participated?”
There it was. Proof that my omnipotent cousin knew it all. The jig was up!
“In my defense, you had to see this woman.” I brought my fingers to my lips and gave a loud smack in a chef’s kiss. “She was exquisite, like a little goddess of war. Boudica reincarnated.”
“All those music lessons as a kid made you a romantic.” He grinned.
“All that painting made your hands soft,” I retorted.
He chortled. We both knew that wasn’t true. His hands were stained red with the blood of so many who had crossed him. They were as dipped in gunpowder as my own.
Eoghan himself had a classical education, the same as me. Along with Sun Tzu, Carl Von Clausewitz, Thomas Aquinas, we were taught literature and music. Eoghan was a talented painter. People had called him effeminate for it. Then, there was a rumor that he had hung an enemy soldier upside down, bled him into a bucket, and used it to make red paint. From that paint, he created a large canvas of the Angel of Death, tinted red with blood and fire.
It hangs in the foyer of his mansion. Compositionally, it was a beautiful, if a little macabre, work of art.
“Is the lass gone, then?” Eoghan asked. “I wanted to meet her.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a woman’s scream. One of Eoghan’s men rushed into the bathroom, holding the door wide. I leaned in my seat to see the girl, Liesel, on the floor, rolling her head as if coming from sleep. She was naked on her bottom half.
What have you done, my little vixen?I tried to hide a laugh. I guess my little vixen didn’t get her comparison after all.
“She’s gone. Made her get away before the Russians came in.” I glanced at the bartender, who wiped the bar, pretending not to listen in on our conversation. “Beforehecalled you.”
“Quinn is good people.” Eoghan commented, nodding over to the bartender, who nervously nodded back. I presumed he was ‘good people’ because he’d been warned to behave.
“Did he tell you that she was here?” I asked.
“Of course.” Eoghan smirked. “This place is under my protection.”
“Hence the name?” I asked.
“No!” Eoghan gasped, feigning hurt. “It’s just a popular song. I would never tell someone what to name their business. What kind of tyrant do you think I am? British?”
Hugo snickered. One thing the French and the Irish had in common was their hatred of the British, and their royalty.
I have no striking love of the in-bred lechers who sit on a throne with their funny hats and bejeweled scepters, but Brits, as a general rule, weren’t all bad. I straddled both sides of The Troubles, which set me up for a future of straddling two worlds. Eoghan had no such compunction. He was catholic to his bone, and as Irish as a shamrock.
“No, you’re not,” I relented. “You’re practically a leprechaun.”
“Aye, and the ladies are after my pot of gold.” He grabbed his sack crudely, to strike home the innuendo. “You, on the other hand, are as Irish as St. Paddy.”
“He was British.” I smiled, raising one brow.
