He stopped about ten feet away from me, flanked by his goons.
“I’m doing very well, very well. Business is booming, as they say.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“And you? Troubles following you around?”
I nodded. “I’m sure you’ve heard.”
“Heard? It’s the only thing the Right People are talking about! Liam Sullivan, son of the big Boss Sullivan, prodigy and well beloved Right Person of the Mob, turned his back on Colm Brennan and went into hiding over some fucking bitch.”
I winced at his last words but held myself in check. It wouldn’t be wise to get pissed at him, though I wish I could pay him back for calling Ellie a bitch.
“That’s more or less it,” I said.
He smiled at me, and it looked like a jackal trying to be friendly.
“Walk with me,” he said.
He started toward me and waved his two goons off. I fell into step next to him as he walked slowly toward the other side of the lot, pacing along its edge.
“What do you want with me, Liam?”
“I know you have no particular love for Colm,” I started, but he interrupted me.
“Don’t assume you know what I think, boy.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m sorry, Boss de Barra.”
He nodded. “Continue.”
“I have proof that he has been stealing from the Mob for years.”
De Barra didn’t react. I had expected something, maybe a slight widening of the eyes, a lifted brow at least, some sort of surprise. But he was completely placid.
“Of course he was stealing,” he said after a minute.
“You knew about it?”
“I had my suspicions. It was a little surprising when he suddenly had so much muscle at his disposal. He needed money for that, money he wasn’t supposed to have. I made a guess.”
I nodded. I couldn’t have been the only person to notice that.
“Those were my thoughts exactly. But I have proof of it now.”
He paused. “And?”
“And, that’s a major fucking problem, de Barra. Do you want to follow a man who has been stealing from you?”
He paused and shrugged. “He did well, hiding it.”
I gaped at him. “He’s a thief. That’s something we kill for, stealing from your own people.”
He sighed. “Liam, he’s the boss now. He stole, he got away with it, and when the time came he seized power.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So you’re fine with that?”
“Ah, well, I didn’t say that.”
I waited, letting him gather his thoughts. I felt incredibly uncomfortable standing so close to him. Though he was a boss, and an older boss at that, he was still known to be violent and unpredictable. He did his own killing when he had to. People said he liked to send a message by wielding the knife himself.
In short, he was everything I hated about the Mob, and everything I was afraid I’d one day turn into.
“What are you saying, then?” I asked, a little too harshly.
De Barra smiled. “I only do that which profits me, Liam. That is the whole of the law when it comes to us. You can speak to me about honor among thieves, about protecting the neighborhoods when the establishment turns its backs, but the truth is, we’ve become drug dealers and petty criminals. The glory days are long gone, as dead as your poor father. We have a new god now, and her name is profit, and she is the only righteous bitch we follow.”
I made sure my face didn’t betray the disgust I felt forcing its way up through my stomach. I actively swallowed against it.
“Liam, what Colm did, the stealing and the coup, they were shit things. In the old days, they would have gotten his throat cut and his body thrown into the river. But now, we don’t live in those days anymore, my boy. We live in much harder days, dirtier days. Ideals are all well and good, but if they can’t put food in my stomach or gold plated fucking guns in the belts of my men, then I don’t give a single fuck about it. Colm worshipped the profit and he was rewarded. Tell me, Liam, why the fuck should I test that?”
I stared at him as he finished his rant, fear mixing with the disgust. He was insane, like everyone said, absolutely fucking mad. His expression was calm and his eyes were clear, but there was something there at the edge of his voice, another presence. It was wild-animal unpredictability, it was absolute insanity, and it was the deep dark abyss the mind dips into when it’s lost to whatever possesses a person in the worst parts of the psyche.
And yet, this absolutely insane man was still my only option, and I had a feeling his whole speech was a way to start negotiations.
“You say you worship profit,” I started slowly. “Then picture this: Boss de Barra, king of the whole Mob and all the Right People. Imagine the profit as the money starts to flow into your coffers.”