Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 92734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Everything was so fucking complicated since he took over. The initial transition hadn’t been tough—not when the feds swooped in and took his old man away. Unforgivable as it was, James wasn’t sorry to see him go. Victor Halloran would have killed Carrigan and put them in a position where none of them would walk away alive. Hell, he’d planned on it. Going out in a blaze of glory and all that shit.
He hadn’t asked anyone else if that’s what they wanted. He hadn’t given a fuck.
So, yeah, James wasn’t exactly crying a river that his old man was locked up for the rest of his days. The part he wasn’t thrilled with was being thrust into a position of leadership that he’d never wanted.
It was all so wrong. Brendan was the heir—the one who’d been trained for this shit, the one who the mantle of responsibility was supposed to fall on, the one who’d step up and take over. But Brendan was dead and, in the quiet moments when James was actually alone, he couldn’t help but think it was a blessing in disguise. Because, in pretty much every way that counted, Brendan was worse than their old man. Worse by a long shot.
So James did the best he could, and some days he actually fooled his ass into believing it would be enough. Today wasn’t one of those days, not when he still had Carrigan’s look of fear tattooed across his brain. Fear he fucking deserved.
Goddamn it, what had he been thinking, going back to that club over and over again? That she’d eventually show up and throw herself into his arms for a repeat of the first time? He knew damn well that some things couldn’t be taken back—and with good reason.
But a stupid, idiotic part of him had dared to hope otherwise.
He shook his head and pulled into the garage, lifting his hand in greeting to Michael. The man nodded in response, but he didn’t relax, which was enough to kick James’s instincts into high gear. Something was wrong. He shut off the Chevelle and climbed out. “What’s up?”
“Trouble, boss.”
There weren’t any of his men he’d trust beyond a shadow of a doubt, not with Brendan’s specter hanging over them, and his little brother, Ricky, thinking he was hot shit now. Too many of his men didn’t like the slow and steady way James preferred to do business. They thought that he should have taken up the banner of war that his old man had dropped, and run with it. Those damn fools only saw the potential profit of war—not the cost.
Even if James was as bloodthirsty as they wanted him to be, he knew how to look around him and see that the odds weren’t in the Hallorans’ favor. The marriage of Teague O’Malley and Callista Sheridan had allied their two families into a powerful position. Too powerful to fuck with and think he’d come out on top. But these idiots weren’t thinking like that. They didn’t care that the other two families combined had superior numbers and firepower.
And they sure as fuck hadn’t stopped to think about how convenient it was that the feds had shown up right in time to save the day. Someone on the other side was a rat, and a rat high enough up the ladder that the feds felt invested enough to interfere.
It could be Carrigan.
He brushed the thought away and focused on Michael. “Tell me.”
The man shifted. He was always doing that, as if he had run naked through some poison oak or was jonesing for a hit of something. It didn’t help that he looked a whole hell of a lot like a weasel with his narrow face and beady dark eyes. For all that, he was as trustworthy as they come, and he’d never played James false. Yet.
Michael looked away. “It’s Ricky.”
Of course it was. Fuck. He’d gone and mishandled shit back when they were on the verge of war, and ever since then his kid brother seemed determined to be the biggest pain in the ass known to man. Every time James turned around, he was fucking something up or pulling some stunt that put people in the hospital.
Or the morgue.
“What’s he done now?”
Michael shifted again, making him want to shake the answers out of the man. “He and some boys went out joyriding.”
It wasn’t the worst they could have done until… He stopped to think that the last time his brother and his boys went out joyriding, one of the O’Malleys ended up dead. Fuck again. How hard was it to understand James’s order not to do anything to agitate the issue between their family and either of the others who ruled in Boston?
Apparently too goddamn hard. “How long ago?”
“Couple hours.”
Cold settled in his chest, and for once, he actually welcomed it. Cold meant he didn’t have to feel, didn’t have to think about how fucked up his life had gotten. Didn’t have to dread what came next. He just did what was necessary. “And no one thought to pick up a fucking phone and inform me of this?”