Honored_ An Alpha Mob Romance(49)

It was such a small thing, a bank statement, and most people kept them private because they didn’t want other people to know how much money they had or how much they spent. I realized that they were so much more dangerous than that, though. With someone’s full bank records, you could figure them out, get a sense of their habits and their likes and their desires. That could be so much more dangerous than just knowing how much money they had.

“I can’t imagine my dad doing something like this,” Liam said, jolting me out of my daydream.

“What’s that?”

“My dad. I can’t imagine him combing through bank statements.”

I was surprised. He hadn’t spoken much about his father since I met him. “Why not?”

“He was an old-school gangster, thought problems all existed out in the real world. Would have said that it was a waste of time to look at all these fake numbers and fancy bullshit.”

“So why are you doing it?”

“Because the world changes. These words and numbers are as real as anything else.”

I nodded, understanding. “They have power.”

“Exactly. This stuff has power. Might be nerdy or whatever crap you want to call it, but it’s this kind of shit that rules the world these days.”

“What was he like? Your dad, I mean.”

“Like I said, an old-school mobster. All violence and tough-guy act.”

“Must have been hard to be his son.”

“Yeah, sometimes it was. He was strict, and he beat the shit out of me a few times. But he taught me stuff, like how to fight and how to pick a lock and how to tell if someone was lying to me.”

I could almost picture the young Liam, growing up with a violent, complicated father, and it made sense that he grew up into a violent, complicated man. That violence seemed tempered somehow, or at least suppressed enough to let him think the way that he does.

“Where did you learn all this stuff?” I gestured at the papers.

“Figured it out on my own, I guess. Talked to dad’s people sometimes, let them teach me a bit about how his business worked. But mostly I just fucked around and learned as I went. I made a lot of dumb mistakes in the beginning.”

“Like what?”

He laughed. “Dumb stuff, like lending money to the wrong guy, or investing in stupid shit. One time, I tried to open an upscale strip club, but that was a terrible move. Nobody wants to sit in a velvet-covered chair in a strip club, at least not in these neighborhoods. They’re trashy for a reason.”

I laughed, imagining swanky gentlemen in top hats and monocles cheering as a woman slowly unveiled her ankle. I was sure Liam’s idea for the club was a lot dirtier, but I liked mine.

“It’s weird. I was just thinking about how all this equals a man’s life. Like, we can read his habits and what he loves just by looking at a bank statement,” I said.

Liam nodded. “It’s a little scary, I guess. How much you can learn about a person from all their data and whatever the fuck you call it.”

I laughed. That was more like him.

“What are you going to do if we find what we’re looking for?” I asked softly, hoping he was still in a sharing mood.

He paused and seemed to scrutinize me for a second. His eyes were deep and harsh, like vast whirlpools for my own, and I almost felt myself getting lost in them. Frankly, I was losing myself in him, and not just in his eyes or his arms, but in the way he held himself. I wanted to move closer but resisted the impulse.

“Like I said before, not everyone in the Mob is happy with Colm. The problem is, I don’t know who I can trust. I thought O’Brian could be our guy, but he’s not interested in helping us.”

“How many bosses are there?”

“Twelve, and there’s at least one more I can ask. But, I don’t know. I can’t go to him with what we have, not yet at least.”

“There’s twelve of you? Why not go to any of the others?”

He shook his head. “They’re probably in Colm’s pocket. The Right People have a code of honor, but they’re still people, and people fucking love money.”

“Why do you call them ‘Right People’?”

He shrugged. “It’s an old term, a really old term. It used to mean any thief or someone like that, but now it means anybody who’s in the Irish Mob. Like how the Italians have a Made man, we have a Right person.”

“Never heard that before.”

“Yeah, well, the Cosa Nostra is loud. We like to be a little quieter.”

I laughed at that. I couldn’t imagine his people could be any louder, especially with dumping bodies into a public river. But I decided not to press.