Murph smiles brightly. “Joe. You know that old bastard loves me.”
“Haha. And you love to remind me.” I start unlacing my gloves. “Seriously, man. Why are you here?” I take off my right glove then my left.
“We need to talk,” he says in a low voice.
To me, those words are frightening. Not that much scares me, but in my experience they never mean anything good. I raise an eyebrow. “About?”
“I found Teagan.”
A wave of relief washes through me. I feel like finally something good has happened in the world of Sean Reilly. “Good,” I comment. “If you see her again, tell her to call me. I’ve been trying to get a hold of her.”
“No man.” The smile falls from Murph’s face. “You don’t understand.”
My heart stops beating. My hands start shaking so I ball them into fists at my sides. I grit my teeth. I strain to get the words out, “What do you mean I don’t understand?” There’s a rasp of insanity in my voice that I’ve never heard before. “Did that fucker Emril do something to her?” I storm over to Murph and grip his right bicep. “I swear to God I will cut him.”
Cut him.
Slaughter him.
Murder him.
“No man!” Murph shouts in frustration. “Just listen. It wasn’t Emerson.” I find it kind of funny that Murph can remember how to pronounce my sister’s husband’s name and I can’t. “I already went to see him. He’s at the hospital with her.”
“The fuck’s she doing at the hospital?” I’m breathing heavy. I can feel the rage spike inside of me. My jaw is clenched so tightly I swear I can feel my teeth cracking. I start yelling, “What the fuck is she doing at the hospital?”
Murph shakes his head. “I’m fucking dead man.”
I’m so angry and frustrated that I can’t handle it. “Fucking spit it out O’Fallon!”
Murph launches into his story about running some errand for Connie and when he gets to the part about Tee passed out in some basement I don’t even give him the chance to finish. I’m out the door and booking to my car with one thing on my mind.
Connor Doyle is a fucking dead man.
Epilogue
Connie sat in his office at his desk.
Leaning back in his reclining chair, with his arms tucked behind his head, he spun around to face the 60’ inch flat screen television hanging on his wall. He shook his head when he glanced at the score of the Cavs game. They were down 32 points. If they didn’t pick it up in the next quarter he’d lose the 5k that he put down on them to win.
The one thing he hated more than being betrayed by someone he trusted was losing money.
Turning back a round, he picked up a stack of paperwork on his desk and started thumbing through it. Lease documents, bank statements, tax information, etc. Sometimes he hated keeping track of all of his investments and wished he could hire someone to do the job, but Connie always maintained the theory that only person he could trust with his finances was himself.
A knock at the door, caused him to sit up straight and set the paperwork aside. “Come in,” he yelled as he scooted his chair backwards. He kept a gun in a holder, hidden beneath his desk and put his hand on it, ready to whip it out if he needed to. He knew that a number of people wanted him dead and he didn’t want to give any one of his enemies the opportunity to be able to blind-side him.
Aidan strolled through the door, a serious look on his face. He stood, a few feet away from the desk and Connie eyed him up and down. He was tense, limbs locked in place. That and the look on his face told Connie that something was off. “Is there a problem, Aidan?” Connie asked.
Aidan remained silent for a moment. He opened his mouth then closed it, uncertain of how to respond. When he finally spoke up, all he could get out was, “Yes.”
With his left hand, Connie pulled himself closer to his desk and urged Aidan to go on with his eyes. “Well,” he made a hand gesture, “what is it?”
His henchman took a deep breath. “The girl is gone.”
Shock slammed into Connie like a brick wall. He narrowed his eyes, glaring through slits. “What do you mean, gone?” There was chilling tone in his voice. He repeated himself, “What do you mean gone?”
“She’s…she’s,” Aidan stumbled with his words. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I went to check on her and she was gone.”
Connie’s blood boiled. He could feel the veins in his neck popping. “Weren’t you supposed to go check on her yesterday?” His voice took on a deep rasp. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this angry.