“It wasn’t, but I didn’t expect it to go this wrong.” A small laugh escaped me as I rolled my eyes at how ridiculous this all was. “Gather them all up for me?” I asked him. “I’ll call Harry and get him down here to collect the body. Getting this fat ass in the car was hard enough. I’m not going to throw my back out trying to get the fucker out of the car.”
Niamh laughed and kissed my cheek.
“Get cleaned up, and I’ll take care of the others.”
With that, he left the garage. I was bred and raised for this, to take over and run a family that I never considered to be my own. And I certainly didn’t expect to do it already. I wanted to build people’s trust in me first, getting them on my side for the next year or so before Dulca was gone and I molded it into my vision.
I looked down at Dulca’s blank stare, and before I could stop myself, I slammed the car door on his face, and a thrill shot through me as I heard bones crack. I straightened my clothes and finger combed my hair.
“I wish I had done that when you were still alive,” I said down to him as blood leaked from his nose. “But at least you won’t look good for your funeral.”
For good measure, I kicked the door shut on his face again before walking away and leaving him alone in the cold garage. I dialed Harry’s number as I stepped out into the night.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Dead body in the garage,” I told him, taking a deep breath before letting him know who it was. Harry had remained so neutral his entire life, just collecting the multiple dead bodies the family constantly threw his way, that I wasn’t sure how he was going to react. Would he care? Would he be upset? “It’s Domnul Dulca.”
A loud laugh came from the other side of the phone, and I pulled it away from my ear in shock. I stopped in my tracks and waited for him to respond.
“Never thought the day would come,” the old man said. “Figured some kid would be collecting his body late one night.”
“Seems it came earlier than we all expected,” I answered as I walked into the kitchen of the main house through the back door. I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the secret stash in the pantry. “I’m calling a meeting now, Harry,” I told him. “So keep it on the low for the next thirty minutes.”
“Good luck, kid. Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I’ll take care of the body.”
The line went dead as he hung up, and I shoved the phone in my back pocket. The whiskey burned the entire way down, setting both my throat and my stomach on fire as it tried to settle my nerves.
“Steady on, Motshan,” I said out loud to myself. “Let’s get this over with.”