“Rule forty-two—”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Who taught you all the rules?”
Dropping the binoculars, she grinned back at me. “Your father told me when I called him. How many rules are there? Because I think you people just make it up as you go.”
“My father has one hundred and six rules,” I told her, taking her binoculars to look out over the docks. “His father had eighty-seven. God knows how many I will keep or add.”
Pulling the binoculars down, she forced me to meet her gaze. “Rule five of our rules. Always answer my calls.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She nodded, leaning over the rail. “I called Brooks.”
“The mole?”
She nodded once again. “Yes, apparently the Chicago PD are out fetching coffee for the FBI to pull off a sting operation. They need to find the President’s murderer and every moment that goes by, they look worse. They don’t care about the drugs today.”
“So Roy’s on the up and up,” I said, turning my back to the scenery to focus on her.
“Beau says there is a rumor going around that we had the President killed in order to get Colemen into the White House.”
“I wouldn’t put it past us,” I joked, to which she simply rolled her eyes, but I did see the corners of her mouth rise.
“A drug sting could be a way to get us in cuffs. Then maybe make a deal for information about the President.”
That would be genius, however…
“The Chicago PD are a bunch of idiots who are scared of their own shadows. I highly doubt any of them would be able to pull that type of thing off, even with the FBI.”
“Sir, Ma’am,” Adriana spoke up, looking over the docks. “There’s movement.”
Turning around, I looked through the binoculars only to find nine men all wheeling iced fish towards the factory. One by one, they rowed in pink salmon and scanned the area.
“Does that look like eight million worth?” I asked
“I guess we’re going to find out. If it is, we need to get it off the ice,” she said into the wind, pulling out her phone.
She was right. If it was quality cocaine, then dropping the temperature would cause it to become moist, chunky, and lose its strength.
“Sedric, I’m sure you saw?” she said into the phone before going quiet. “All right, Liam and I will watch from here.”
Adriana handed me a tablet with a live feed of inside the factory. I watched as my father strode in with Declan beside him. It looked as though they were alone, but we all knew better. Roy and his men couldn’t see the guns above them.
“Mr. Callahan, I’m happy you chose a place without pens,” Roy said to Declan. He didn’t smile, instead walked over to one of the fish, pulled a knife and stabbed it, ripping open its skin. Packages of white powder spilled out.
“Pens?” I asked.
“Brother and sister bonding.” She smiled, watching the screen carefully.
My father tasted a bit off of his finger before looking to Declan. Their faces were cold, blank…evil.
Declan glanced over all the fish. “Where did you get this, Roy?”
“Looks like it’s real.” If it wasn’t, I’m sure Declan would have been gutting him.
“I respect eh, Callahans, in fact, I’m scared of eh, however, I can’t give up my people. You can understand that, right?”
“No,” he replied.
“Sedric,” Mel stated, still on the phone, “accept it and make sure he sells it off. If he does, we will let his supplier slip for now.”
She glanced at me and I nodded, turning off the feed. “Have a sample brought to us.”
She repeated it to my father before hanging up.
“Eight million worth of coke easily turns on the street. He could cheat us,” I told her.
“He could and then we’ll staple pens into his arm. For now, we go home and deal with the politicians.”
“Great. Dinner with more people trying to steal my hard earned money.”
MELODY
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I screamed into the mirror of my closet, causing Liam to walk in like an erotic angel from hell. He wore his white pants, shirt and blazer flawlessly, while I, on the other hand, was ready to flip out.
“What’s wrong?” he asked stupidly, pulling a loose thread from his blazer.
“‘What’s wrong?’” I repeated, nostrils flaring, “What is fucking wrong, is THIS!”
I turned around to show him the zipper that had broken less than halfway up my back. I had never, ever in my life not been able to wear any of my clothes!
He laughed. The Irish asshole just laughed.