“Before we do, on behalf of us, many congrats on your wife. You did well with an Irish woman,” Frank McShane cut me off, grinning at the Italian man sitting across from him, sucking onto his pipe as if
it were an oxygen mask.
“Fiancée,” Savino Moretti, Klarissa’s father, corrected.
It caused old man Mahoney to laugh, sitting up and blocking my face to say to them, “Look at that, boys, he’s all butt hurt, he ain’t get—”
Grabbing his glass, I slammed it against his fucking head. The glass shattered everywhere and blood dripped down the back of his head and even got on my hand. He grabbed the back of his head and moved back into his fucking place.
“Have I got your fucking attention now?” I looked them over…each one of them silent. Mahoney held on to the back of his head. “If you ever sit up in front of me again, I will rip your tongue from your mouth and have it shoved up your own ass.”
My eyes shifted to Frank. He took the pipe out of his mouth slowly.
“Let this be known and known well. My marriage does not bias me to either the Irish or the Italian families. The fact that you think a woman would be enough to influence me hurts, Frank, and when I hurt, everybody’s got to hurt.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Fuck your sorry and shut up.” I snapped, then turned to Savino. “Ivy O’Davoren, for all intents and purposes, is my wife. Which means you’ve insulted or threatened me. Either you believe I’m so fickle minded that I’d throw away women whom I’ve claimed, or you believe the woman I have claimed will not be around long enough to become my wife. Which I don’t see possible unless someone would try to do something very stupid. Are you planning on doing something very stupid, Savino?”
“No, sir—”
“Are you saying that I’m fickle?”
“No, I—”
“Then she’s my wife and you will respect that or you’ll end up in a much worse state than Mahoney here.” I looked back at Mahoney and the blood dripping down his neck. “Mahoney, you do know it’s rude to bleed on another man’s furniture, correct?”
“I’m sorry—”
“I don’t give a damn about your sorry. I want you to stop bleeding on my couch.”
He thought for a moment before taking off his jacket and draping it over the couch. When he was done I sat back.
“Can I continue what I was saying when I came in or would anyone else wish to disrespect me this evening?”
None of them spoke.
“Good.” Outstretching my hand, Greyson handed me the papers, which I simply threw onto the table in front of us. They were pictures of Sammy, along with two dozen people none of them knew.
“I don’t understand.” Frank lifted the photos.
“Greyson.” The moment I called him, he opened the second door of the den, allowing Toby to bring Sammy inside, who didn’t have a scratch, but looked ready to shit himself. Toby pushed him onto his knees next to my chair. “Sammy, tell your uncle what you did.”
Sammy dropped his head.
“Sammy? What did you do?” Frank pressed, but still the boy didn’t speak.
“Frank, you know how I hate when people ignore me when I speak,” I said calmly, taking the scotch Greyson handed me to drink.
“Sammy, this ain’t a game. Speak.”
Sammy finally lifted his head up as I drank. “I cut the product with Fentanyl.”
“You bloody cunt,” Frank cursed, groaning, then looked at me. “Sir, he’s just a stupid—”
“A stupid kid? He’s twenty. He’s not a kid and if he’s stupid it’s no one else’s fault but his own. Right, Sammy?”
“Yes…sir.”