THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series (63 page)

Kyle

The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Literally. I could feel it weighing on my shoulders, making it feel as though lifting my gun out of my holster would be a super-human feat. But maybe that was just the lack of sleep and the weight of my own problems weighing on me.

“We won’t give up any of the new territory we’ve managed to acquire,” Carmine Rossi was saying.

“But that territory was acquired by stealing it from us.”

Carmine shrugged. “Half the territory you have now you stole from my predecessor.”

He was right, but I knew that Jack wouldn’t admit to it.

“What do you want?”

I saw eyes light up on the other side of the room. A few of Rossi’s men elbowed each other, each thinking that they had us over a barrel. But they didn’t know Jack. Jack McGuire was not the kind of guy who would just hand over what they wanted. He was the kind of guy who let them feel comfortable, and then he snatched it away and went for the kill.

“We want the McKinnon warehouse, the Burnett warehouse, and the Dunlap warehouse.”

I wanted to laugh out loud. That was three of our major warehouses where we did business. There was no way in hell Jack was going to give them up. It would also mean giving up half of our territory. No way
that
was happening, either.

“We want the Harbor Point Bloods working for us. And we want half the gun business.”

Jack inclined his head slightly. “And what will you give us for all that?”

Carmine seemed surprised by the question. “Why should we offer you anything? We’re not the ones who called for this meeting. If we wanted, we could just take what we’re asking for.”

We were walking a fine line here. Jack could get mad and tell him the truth, that there was no way in hell the Irish was going to let them take any more than they already had. In fact, they’d be lucky if they walked away from this negotiation with coffee money. Or he could be humble, pretend that he understood the situation, and then manipulate them into giving up almost everything but the coffee money.

I knew Jack. He’d go up the high road.

“I understand that you don’t feel that we deserve anything. But we’ve been rivals for a long time now, Carmine. Don’t you think my men and I deserve a little more respect than that?”

“It seems to me that your men are disappearing at an alarming rate. And Brian Callahan getting himself arrested a few months ago…that’s not good, either, Jack.”

“Brian’s arrest was a mistake on the part of the feds. You should know that if you read the papers.”

“I saw that. But I also saw the mug shots.” Carmine leaned forward a little. “Things have been rough for you this past year, Jack. You should thank us for taking a little of the pressure off of your shoulders.”

“Who’s been informing on us? Can you tell me that?”

That was a direction I hadn’t expected Jack to go in. However, I saw that the question caught Carmine by surprise, and keeping Carmine off his feet was a good negotiation tactic.

“Informing on you?”

“How did you know about those warehouses? How do you know about the Bloods? Who’s telling you about our every move?”

Carmine shrugged. “My men are observant.”

“It’s clearly more than that. Someone’s telling you things.”

Someone—one of Carmine’s many lieutenants—leaned close and whispered in his ear. Carmine shooed him away and focused on Jack again.

“I think we’re done here for tonight. We’ll meet again next week.”

Carmine stood and so did his men. Jack stayed where he was, allowing Carmine to feel somewhat superior by towering over him. But Carmine would have towered over Jack anyway. He was a big man, both in height and girth.

Carmine’s men headed toward the back doors of the wide warehouse. Jack had agreed to come here, to one of their warehouses, as an act of faith. The next meeting would take place on our territory, but I didn’t think it would make things any easier. This was going to be a long, drawn out process and no one was going to get what they wanted. But Jack had already stated that he was okay with losing a warehouse or two and part of the gun trade. And that was probably what it would come down to.

I was approaching Jack when gunshots suddenly rang out. And then chaos erupted. I grabbed Jack by the collar and pulled him out of the folding chair where he was sitting, dragging him to the ground.

“Who’s shooting?” he demanded. “Is it the Italians?”

“No. But I can’t…”

All I could see was bullets flying just outside the doors the Italians had just walked through. Some of Carmine’s men were still inside the warehouse, returning fire from positions of semi-protection. I couldn’t see where Carmine was, but it was clear his men were in trouble.

“Go,” Jack said.

“But what about you?”

“If they all die, the rest of their people will blame us. You have to go stop this.”

I gestured to Killian. He came over immediately and grabbed Jack, pulling him toward the back of the warehouse out of the way of stray bullets. I ran, my head down, to the doors. I gestured for some of Jack’s men to follow me and they did, without question.

“Where are they?”

The Italian on the door gestured to a building across the alley. I immediately spotted a man with a rifle on the roof. I aimed carefully and he fell.

“Where’s Carmine?”

The man pointed again as though his voice was damaged by the scene in front of him. Carmine was on the ground, bleeding from a wound in his belly. Three of his men were around him, each one hit. Two were hit in the head and clearly dead, but the other was still alive. Barely.

I started out the door, but the man grabbed my jacket and tugged me back.

“It’s suicide to go out there.”

“Then I guess I’ll meet my maker tonight.”

I jerked away and ran out the door, doing what Carmine’s men should have done, but weren’t brave enough to do. Carmine was hidden behind the front wheel of his car, crumpled like the napkin Ian threw at me just the day before. I felt the wind of bullets passing around me as I ran toward him, but if one hit me, I wasn’t aware of it.

“You alive?”

Carmine looked up at me, anger in his eyes.

“Damned right!”

“Good. I need you to get up. We need to get you out of here.”

“Where are my men?”

I gestured at a few lying on the ground. “Mostly dead. There’re are two or three in the warehouse doorway.”

“Why aren’t they here?”

I shrugged. “Because they aren’t crazy Irishmen.”

I grabbed his arm and pulled it over my shoulders. It took several attempts to get him to his feet. Each time he moved, the blood gushed from his belly. He wasn’t going to make it if we didn’t get out of here fairly quick. Once he was on his feet, however, we had to figure out how we were going to get back inside without taking several more bullets. He wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to avoid the shooters.

That’s when my Pops showed up. He and Ian came running from the other end of the alley. Thank God! Ian managed to get Carmine’s other arm over his shoulder.

“There’s another door down there.”

“Any more shooters?”

“We’ve only been able to identify four.”

“Who are they?”

Ian shrugged. “No idea. Could be a local gang, but we don’t know for sure.”

“No one knew about this meeting,” Carmine mumbled. “How could they have found us?”

“Probably the same way you found all our warehouses and managed to hit the majority of our shipments last year,” Pops said.

Carmine opened his mouth to say something, but then he simply nodded. “Probably.”

We stumbled together, Ian, Carmine, and I, dragging the big man to the back door to the warehouse. We were nearly there when one of the gunmen figured out what we were up to. He moved, taking a shot as he reached his new perch.

That one I felt.

Killian and a couple of Jack’s men came running as we appeared in the doorway. They took Carmine from us, leading him across the room to the table where the negotiations had been taking place just a few minutes before. Carmine looked even bigger splayed out on that table. And the blood pouring from that gut wound didn’t look good.

“We’ve got to get them out of here.”

Pops gestured toward the front of the warehouse. “The street’s clear as far as we can tell.”

“We need spotters. They’ll know that’s the direction we’ll go next. They’ll be prepared.”

“I know.”

“We should load them in Carmine’s SUV. If we draw attention to the front, have some of Jack’s people go that way, then sneak Carmine and Jack out the back, maybe we can get out of this without too much trouble.”

Pops slapped his hand against my shoulder. The pain was excruciating. I was pretty sure the bullet had gone straight through, but it still hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. I groaned, and Pops looked at his hand.

“Shit! You’re hit.”

“I’m fine.”

“You need to get to a hospital.”

“If we don’t save Carmine, we’re all fucked, Pops. That’s the priority right now.”

He hesitated, but he agreed with me just as I’d known he would in the end. He ran across the warehouse, calling everyone but one of Carmine’s men over and explaining the plan. They immediately went to put it into action, several of Jack’s men slipping out the front of the warehouse to draw fire that way. We waited a heartbeat, then we lifted Carmine, five of us carrying him as he was now unconscious. We were nearly to the SUV when one of the gunmen got smart and fired at us. He missed Carmine. But the bullet slammed into Jack’s chest.

I saw him go down. I grabbed him, dragging him into the SUV as someone jumped behind the wheel and took off, headed toward the hospital. Pops was on the phone, arranging for someone to come clean up the mess, trying to head off the police as long as possible. It was bad enough that three of us were shot, Carmine and Jack seriously. I took off my jacket and pressed it to Jack’s chest, trying to stem the flow of blood. He was barely conscious, but enough to understand how bad the situation was.

“This goes bad, you make sure it gets cleaned up.”

“Of course.”

“And call Delaney. Tell her what’s going on. Tell her I love her.”

“I will.”

“Someone’s trying to start a war. Someone wants both of us out of the way.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen. You make sure that Carmine’s people understand that we had nothing to do with this.”

“I will.”

He studied my face for a long moment. “You’re a good boy, Kyle. I know I can trust you to do what needs doing.”

“You can.”

He patted my cheek, his fingers slick with blood. And then he closed his eyes and disappeared.

***

The hospital was already packed, the staff overwhelmed before we pulled up. Once again, it took five men to carry Carmine into the emergency room, but I followed with Jack in my arms like he weighed no more than a feather. A pretty, redheaded nurse came over and helped me set him on a gurney, quickly wheeling him into one of the trauma rooms. I stood just to the side and watched as they began to work on him.

I found myself having something of a flashback as I watched. The night my mother drank herself to death we ended up in an ER just like this one. The ambulance ride and the actual arrival were all a blur to me. But I remembered them working on her, the way they tore her clothes away and talked to her in gentle tones, the way they pressed the paddles of the defibrillator made her body move in inhuman ways. It was horrifying. I remembered thinking that I knew she was dead…and even feeling relief that that would mean no more beatings, no more hurting. And I remember thinking that I should be sad, but I really wasn’t.

I was sad now. Jack was my mentor, almost a second father. I didn’t know who I would be without him in my life.

Pops came up behind me and pulled me back out of the room.

“They’re taking Carmine up to surgery.”

“What are the chances he’ll survive?”

Pops shook his head, a bit of sadness settling over his expression.

That wasn’t good. If Carmine died and there was no one to tell his people what had really happened, we were looking at a full-out street war. That wouldn’t end well.

I pulled out my phone and dialed Sean. Delaney needed to know her father was in the hospital.

“You should call your wife,” Pops said in a low voice. He gestured toward Killian. “Stacy already knows. I called Cassidy a few minutes ago. One of them will tell Amelia, but it’d be better if it comes from you.”

He was right. I knew he was right. But I couldn’t quite make myself disconnect the call I was already making.

I walked down the hall a little, spoke in hushed tones to Sean. He asked questions. I answered them as best as I could. But it felt like I was reading from a script that had left out all the most important things. There was something I was missing here, but I wasn’t sure what it might be.