“By the way, where’s Luna?” I asked as the thought struck me.
“Hi, Kellan!” Autumn skipped over to me and pinched my side.
I grinned. “Hey, dollface.”
“She’s probably asleep.” Emilia answered my question. “She was up all night too.”
“Yeah, it’s a party around the clock here now,” Finn drawled. “If Ryan’s not screaming bloody fucking murder, Luna’s retching and complainin’.”
“I’d like to see you go through a pregnancy without bitching,” Emilia deadpanned.
“He wouldn’t make it past twelve weeks.” Shan gave his son a dry look.
Finn scowled but said nothing.
Chapter 2
Work stole all my time in the months that followed.
Luna gave birth to a healthy baby boy in November, and I turned up late because a couple mates and I were elbows deep in Italian blood. But the boy was cute as hell, I could admit that—from a safe distance. And being Luna’s brother gave me two days off work, so that was nice.
“We got movement on South 17th.” Colm’s voice filtered through in my earpiece, and I immediately jumped out of my car.
Fuck, it was frigid.
“I’m still in the parking lot the next street over,” I replied. “Let me know if you need backup.”
“Good for now. Two guys,” he said. “I’m in pursuit. They don’t seem green. Early forties.”
I cursed internally. This no longer felt like we were cleaning up the last of the gobshite Italians we’d gotten rid of this past year. For one, our main battleground had been Europe, even though we’d taken plenty of heat here too. Either way, we should be done by now. We’d fucking annihilated an entire organization. They had no management, no structure, no leader, barely any funds. But someone was sending people across the pond.
For two, cleanup after a war tended to consist of young low-men who were too green to have a position in a conflict—or old-timers who couldn’t handle that shit anymore.
“Old Phil is reporting three men on the move along South 26th,” Eric announced in my ear.
“Well, what the feck are they doing out there?” I snapped irritably. That was out at the very end of the shipyard, and it was dead at this hour. “And why aren’t Phil’s guys on our line yet? How many did he send?” Because there wasn’t a chance in hell Phil himself was here in the middle of the night.
He was one of the few old-timers left from before we got new management, a new boss, and I’d had it with him. He needed to retire.
A gunshot sounded through the air in the distance, ending my conversation with Eric before I could get any answers. He spoke rapidly in the background, maybe with one of Phil’s guys. I didn’t fucking know, and frustration was building up too damn fast. Judging by the low volume of the gunshot, I reckoned something was going down where they were, South 26th, because my guys were closer.
“Backup to 26th,” Eric directed. “Three Italians, one of them dead. We’ve got one injured. Round ’em up and meet us at Lot 47. We’re picking up Phil on the way.”
“Copy,” I replied and jumped into my car again. “Colm, stay in pursuit and have Red Mikey help you.” I tore out of the parking lot and headed farther down the shipyard.
If we were going to Lot 47, it meant someone was gonna stop breathing. It was Finn’s warehouse, located conveniently close to his office.
The shipyard at night was a rusty ghost town, but dead didn’t mean abandoned. The whole area had tight security, and, ironically, several security firms had their headquarters here. Finn’s included.
It was one of the reasons I was pissed with Old Phil. We couldn’t have this territory unsupervised when our boss spent a lot of his time here.
The scene I drove into a minute later made my blood boil even more. Right there in the middle of the fucking street. Four of our boys restraining two Italians who were slumped together on the ground with ropes around their chests. One dead Italian lying on his back. Fucking Christ, Phil had sent his youngest son and three of his friends. None of them was over eighteen.
I left the engine running and jumped out again, then darted over to Lucas, Phil’s son, because he was clearly the one who’d been injured. He was hunched over and clutching his stomach.
“Hey, what happened?” I bent down to check him for—fuck, that was a lot of blood. I quickly scanned the Italians and narrowed my eyes at how they were positioned with their backs to each other. “Did’ju check them for weapons?”
One of the boys, I didn’t even know his name, nodded and looked nervous enough to let me know everything I needed. They had no business being here whatsoever.
I pointed to the Italians. “Check them again. I can fucking see the nine tucked under his jeans, and his mate can reach it.”