The Wedding Pact (The O'Malleys #2)(95)
“Bring them here. Me and the girls will get it taken care of. I’ll let you know the arrangements once I have them in place.”
And send me the bill. “Good. I’ll be there in twenty.” He hung up and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. The Sheridan man was still waiting. “Get that piece of shit”—he jerked his chin at Michael—“and meet me at my place. I have one stop to make first and then I’ll be there.”
The man nodded. “Got it.” Then he was gone, melting into the darkness with the rest of his people.
James took a harsh breath and got into the van. The constant crying couldn’t be escaped and grated on his nerves something fierce, but he didn’t try to make them stop. These women had already seen enough trauma to last them a lifetime—he wasn’t going to add to that if he could help it. He met Lisa Marie at the back of Tit for Tat, and she surveyed him with a critical eye. “Trouble tonight.”
“You could say that.” Betrayal everywhere he turned. Ricky he’d expected, though the loss was still there, waiting for him to drop his guard so it could sucker punch him. But Michael? Michael he’d trusted. He hadn’t seen that coming. No wonder my old man was nuttier than a squirrel. He motioned to the van. “What’s the best way to play this?”
She snubbed out her cigarette. “Stand back and don’t say anything to spook them.” Without waiting to see if he’d done what she asked, she opened the door and spoke softly to the girls. He couldn’t quite catch the words, but the tone was big on soothing—like something a person would use with a wild animal or a rabid dog. Lisa Marie stepped back and, one by one, the girls crawled into the pale light thrown off by the propped open back door. Two of the strippers—Echo and one he couldn’t place—appeared and led them away. It took all of five minutes, but James held his breath damn near the entire time.
“You did good, honey.” She shook another cigarette out of its pack and lit up. “Some of them won’t survive—it’s the nature of the beast—but most of them will.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “And if we start getting regular shipments of this kind in?” He couldn’t take for granted that Carrigan would be with him, let alone willing to put the fledgling nonprofit plan she’d talked about in place. That would solve a number of problems, but there would always be women who were more comfortable with the life he could offer them—women who didn’t want to go home.
“Regular shipments.” She shot him a sharp look. “James Halloran, I never pegged you for a white knight.” She continued before he could confirm or deny. “We can make it work. We might need another club, or at least more opportunity on the legal side of things for those who want to stay here, but it can be done. Some of them will want to go back to wherever they came from, so you’ll have to figure that shit out.”
He hadn’t realized how tense he was until her words relaxed something inside him. All the bullshit and evil and monstrous things he’d done…this wouldn’t make them right. But it’d be a start. James nodded. “Get me the relevant information from the women and I’ll figure it out.” He had a few feelers he could put out, though his connections weren’t as vast as, say, the Sheridans. I bet Teague knows a thing or two about tracking down this type of information. He’d have to ask the other man the first chance he got.
He got back into the van and drove home, and another interview that he desperately didn’t want to have to go through.
What the fuck am I going to do?
He’d never felt so goddamn alone in his life.
Carrigan marched through the front door of her house, and straight into her father’s office. He was there, along with Aiden, just as she’d suspected he would be. Plotting, always plotting. A freaking spider in the middle of his web with no concern for the flies caught in its strands. It stops now. She slammed her hands down onto the desk. “In case you’re wondering, Cillian’s come through surgery and he’ll survive.”
Seamus didn’t look up from the papers in front of him. “He shouldn’t have been down at the docks to begin with.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
That got him to look up. “Language, Carrigan.”
“For fuck’s sake, Father, your priorities leave something to be desired.” She took two steps back, carefully not looking at Aiden. He hadn’t said anything, but he didn’t need to. He was here instead of the waiting room, with their father instead of their brother. “It’s done. Dmitri is gone, and I’m not marrying him.” She rushed on before he could say anything else. “I practically killed myself to be an obedient daughter. I put aside all my ambitions and dreams to do it.” At least part of the time. “No more.”