Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Lorcan, Father Patrick murmurs, ya've really done it this time, haven't ya?
"Shut up, Father," I mutter under my breath, pickin' up the phone and squintin' at the screen.
Fearghus.
Of course it's Fearghus, Lorcan ma boy! He sent ya to break into Giovanni Bavga's estate to find evidence that he killed Rico LaRiccia.
"Shut up, Father Patrick! I'm workin' here!" I blow out a long breath, steeling myself before I tap accept. "Yeah. Ya got me."
"Ya got me?" Fearghus's voice explodes through the speaker, forcin' me to hold the phone away from my ear.
He's American through and through—spent his whole fuckin' life in South Boston, never set foot on Irish soil except for the occasional funeral. And right now that Southie accent is thick enough to cut with a knife, which means he's well past irritated and sailing straight into furious.
"Ya got me? Where the fuck are you? Where the hell have you been? The LaRiccia's are slitherin' down my fuckin' neck like a bunch of goddamn pythons, Lorcan. I've been calling you for hours. Ya know why I've been callin' you for hours? Because they've been calling me for hours, that's why. Every five fuckin' minutes my phone's lighting up with their bullshit, and you—you're nowhere to be found. So how about you stop jerking me around and give me a fucking report!"
His voice carries that particular quality of controlled rage that comes from decades of commanding men—sharp enough to flay skin but measured enough not to waste energy on useless volume.
He's really more bark than he is bite, truth be told. But it generally takes about ten years of knowing the man to lose the visceral fear this six-foot-four giant instills in people the first time they meet him.
Which is precisely why he's in charge of the Boston operation, and precisely why I'm still standin' here at attention even though he can't see me, phone pressed to my ear like a chastened schoolboy.
I rub a hand down my face, words formin' in my head. I've planned this conversation. Thought about it the whole drive home. So I'm ready, I just need the proper amount of no-fucks-to-give in order to pull it off.
"Yeah, like I fuckin' told ya. I got nothin'. There is no fuckin' way Giovanni Bavga killed Rico LaRiccia, Fearghus. None. Zero. Zed. Hell would freeze over first. Giovanni is…"
I don't exhale my frustration. I can't afford to fuck up this lie. But I do pause before launchin' into the insult. Because this isn't true at all.
"Giovanni Bavga is the dog of the fuckin' entire Bavga empire. He runs Riverview where? Riverview who? He's been banished to the middle of fuckin' nowhere, Fearghus. It's not him. And I spent three hours in that mansion, looked through every fuckin' drawer, under every fuckin' mattress…"
I go on like this, describing pretty much every room in Giovanni's house. The library with its first editions and museum-quality furniture. The kitchen with its commercial-grade equipment that has probably never been used. The ridiculous Gothic foyer with twenty-foot ceilings and antiques that belong in the fuckin' Met.
"There's nothin' there," I continue, pacing across my living room. "No blood. No weapons. No sign of struggle. No evidence of anythin' remotely suspicious beyond the fact that the man has terrible taste in interior design—all that dark wood and leather, Christ, it's like a funeral home had sex with a gentleman's club."
That last bit's actually true. Giovanni's aesthetic is aggressively masculine in a way that reads as compensation for somethin', though I'm not entirely sure what.
"So you're tellin' me," Fearghus says slowly, and I can hear him breathin' heavy on the other end, "that you found absolutely nothin' to suggest Giovanni had any involvement with Rico's disappearance?"
"That's exactly what I'm tellin' ya." I keep my voice flat, bored even. "Rico LaRiccia went to the Philippines, yeah? Posted about it on Instagram. There's digital evidence, social media, the whole thing. Whatever the LaRiccias think happened, they're chasin' shadows."
Lorcan, mah boy, Father Patrick whispers in my head, how many Hail Marys for lyin' to yer uncle about a murder?
Not now, Father.
"The LaRiccias aren't gonna like this," Fearghus says after a long pause.
"The LaRiccias can go fuck themselves," I reply, injectin' just enough Irish temper into my voice to make it believable. "They told you to investigate, I investigated, I found nothin'. That's it. That's all there is. If they don't like the results, they can tell someone else to confirm what we already told them."
Another pause. Longer this time.
I can practically hear the gears turnin' in Fearghus's head, weighin' my words against whatever pressure the LaRiccias are applyin'. My uncle's brilliant at readin' people—it's why he's survived four decades in this business—but he's also pragmatic. If I'm givin' him a clean out, a way to tell the LaRiccias to fuck off without actually sayin' those words, he'll take it.