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Eoghan’s office was off the foyer, so that ‘business’ didn’t have to go too far into the house. It allowed the family and the business to be separate, at least in theory. While Eoghan was married, I hadn’t seen his wife in over a year. I wondered if she was somewhere in these halls, hiding like Aoibheann.
I knocked on his office door and glanced at the painting that filled the wall right beside it. Red, filled with devils and demons, and Eoghan’s face as the Angel of Death, an enemy small and screaming in his hand, his teeth bared with exaggerated fangs.
I didn’t wait for a response before walking in.
“What’s the story?” He greeted me, sitting at his desk and not looking up from his piles of paperwork. His office was stuffed with more hand carved furniture, leather upholstered chairs, all in a forest green. The walls were white, covered in bookshelves, and a stone fireplace sat across from the picture book windows. A small grandfather clock ticked in the corner.
I chuckled. “Maybe I just wanted to catch up?”
“Don’t fuckin’ lie to me with that snotty little limey voice of yours.” Eoghan laughed. “I’ll take it as an insult.” He banged some papers together, grabbed them in a stack, and tapped them on the desk to straighten them. “Out with it.”
“Remember the girl?”
He laughed. “Which one, lad?”
“The one from the fight, you eejit.”
“Oh, aye. Dark skin, hair in braids, fists of fury?” I could hear the mirth in his voice. “The woman who got my proper little British cousin into a brawl? That little Helen of Troy?”
“Alright, mate, relax.” I was regretting this talk already. “I just wanted to know if you’d heard anything.”
“About the pretty Filipina Rose?” He was laughing. “No.”
My heart sank. Coming to Eoghan for a favor was a huge mistake.
“Well…” He said, dismissively. “Except that there’s a price on her head. I believe it’s dead or alive. It’s not a big sum…”
“What?” I said, unable to process this information.
“It was ten-thousand dollars for her, with a bonus if she was brought in alive,” Eoghan continued. “It’s been raised to twenty thousand.”
I took a seat across from him and leaned forward so that my elbows were on his desk.
“There’s a price on her coach’s head too,” Eoghan added, staring at my face, studying me for a reaction. I studied him right back. “Nice guy, that one.”
I sat still, thinking of everything that the news implied. She wasn’t dead. The bratva definitely thought she was still alive, and they wanted her. But how did he know about her coach? I had seen her coach in and out of the locker room, but his name wasn’t published anywhere.
“Who?” I pried.
“Ajax LeBlanc. Ever heard of him?” He asked, tilting his head.
“No. I’ve seen him though. Big fella. Black hair.”
“That’s right.” Eoghan nodded to confirm my information. “Got stuck in the melee and took a bullet in the gut, poor bastard.”
“He’s dead?” I asked, slowly.
“No.” Eoghan chuckled, as if I was a particularly obtuse child. “If he was dead, then there’d be no reason for the price on his head.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Cousin, you’re not in the life, are you?” He shrugged. “I don’t owe you information.”
He was opening a negotiation. He had information I wanted. But he needed some form of payment.
“What do you want?” I asked, not wanting to do the tap dance to get to his price. What would it cost me to find out what he knew?
“Peace on earth, and goodwill towards all mankind,” he said with a sarcastic grin.
