"You’re telling me there’s a difference?"
"Are you English?" When he said nothing, I murmured, "I think the twelve million dollars your father funnels into the IRA on a yearly basis says otherwise, don’t you?"
He smirked at me. "Touché."
"The Italians are no friends of mine."
"Glad to hear it."
"I’m not here to hurt you."
"Even gladder to hear it. Although I’m not entirely sure how you got in—"
"My money’s as good as anyone else’s. This place functions as a business, I believe."
O’Donnelly’s gaze darkened. "If you’re not interested in the New World Sparrows—"
"I didn’t say that," I denied. "I’m very interested. Just as every other person in the country is.
"A secret society of bent politicians and corrupt officials spanning City Hall to the nearby police precincts? That’s fascinating stuff for anyone who’s amused by America’s dedication to democracy.
"Corruption is the basis of every single one of your dollars. People are just too naive to see that."
"And God love them for it." He tipped his glass at me in a silent cheer.
"Knowledge is power."
O’Donnelly shrugged. "Only in the hands of the few. Anyway, we all love a conspiracy theory, don’t we? I’m sure there’ll be a Netflix show about it soon."
"A secret society functioning within the government?" I scoffed, "Is it a conspiracy when it’s actually happening? Isn’t that just the truth?"
O’Donnelly raised his glass to his lips and after he took a deep sip, blandly asked, "You said the Sparrows weren’t your reason for approaching me. So why are we talking about them?"
And here it was.
A move I’d been waiting ten years to make.
A move that I’d shed blood for.
That I’d sacrificed my life for.
A political power play that I needed to ram home, one that had nothing to do with the Senate floor or the Supreme Court.
O’Donnelly had to agree to help me.
He had to.
My father had died for this, had died because of this fucking city and its movers and shakers, and I couldn’t let his death be in vain.
"The Famiglia. As much as I’m sure you’d like them all culled from existence, mass genocide is still something that even a rat-riddled government such as your own disapproves of.
"You and your allies chopped off the Italian mafia’s head when you killed Benito Fieri—" And had denied me what I’d been working toward for over a fucking decade. "—but you never stopped to think about what would happen to its body. The Italian mafia can function without a head but they’re morons without leadership."
"I don’t care what the Italians do," Aidan drawled.
"We both know that’s bullshit."
He stared into that fucking whiskey. "Do we though?"
"Yes. We do." I didn’t wait for an invitation to take a seat, just slid opposite him. "It’s bad business if the cops are sniffing over territory that butts up against yours.
"As they clamp down on the stupid moves the Famiglia is making, I’m pretty sure that the sanctioned actions your runners take will come under police scrutiny as City Hall tries to sweep up crime. Especially in the face of the mayor’s involvement with the Sparrows."
Involvement was an understatement.
The mayor had recently been killed in his office in City Hall. Shot by a fellow Sparrow who, in turn, had been gunned down by a sniper at the scene.
And they said there was no honor among thieves.
In my experience, it was far easier to make a lot of problems go away when there was a patsy involved. Detective Craig Lacey, the dirty cop who’d killed the mayor, was probably going to be tried for every unsolved crime committed in the past fifteen years in his precinct whether he was guilty of them or not.
Land of the Free… sure.
My mouth tightened at the thought, but I merely said, "The Valentini family made the Famiglia—"
"Made it what it is? The face of that conspiracy theory you’re talking about?"
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, the Famiglia was hoodwinked by the Sparrows too." He took another small sip then shifted in his seat. As he did, I saw a flash of something in his face, muscles tightening, skin bunching, and having been behind a lot of men’s pain over the years, I knew what it looked like.
O’Donnelly was in pain?
I knew years earlier he’d been involved in a drive-by shooting that had wrecked his leg. Every now and then, he walked with a limp, but as far as I was aware, the Irish Mob had gone out of their way to portray him as a well man.
Facial micro expressions didn’t lie, however. They were the bullshit detectors I’d learned back in university and which had come in so handy during my time as the head of a faction of Sicilians who were determined to take their territory back in Manhattan. Who’d go to any length to bring down the Italian mafia and to claim it as their own.
His response to fidgeting was far more interesting than his words.
Slowly, musing upon his actions all the while, I said, "I’m not surprised the Italians were the front. That makes sense, actually. Fieri proved time and time again that he was an incompetent leader, just like his father."
"Not that incompetent," O’Donnelly pointed out. "I’ve had a recent history lesson on the Famiglia, more’s the pity. I know that the Fieris butchered your family and had you running with your tail between your legs back to Sicily."
Though rage whirled inside me, the stirrings of a hurricane that I’d been controlling for ten fucking years, I merely rasped, "Would you say that the Five Points function on honor, O’Donnelly? Beneath it all, the blood and the death and the violence, is there an honor code among you?"
"As you pointed out, Valentini, my father is Irish and a devout Catholic. What do you think?"
"I think the Irish Mob wouldn’t be so tight knit if there weren’t some kind of mores and laws in place." When his jaw tightened, I catalogued the response. "If someone came in and decimated those rules, killed every single member of your family, I’m sure you’d retaliate."
"You’re still standing. So, decimation is a little hyperbolic, wouldn’t you say?"
Hyperbolic? So, the Irish heir had picked up a dictionary in his time. There went the theory they were all meatheads.
"Would you like to hear how my seven-month-pregnant grandmother almost died in the same fire that killed my grandfather?
"How she had to hide out in the wilds of fucking Idaho before they came after her again? Nearly killed her newborn son, so she had to run to Maine, then sail away on a goddamn fishing boat so she could spend the rest of her life in the Sicilian countryside?
"My goddamn queen of a grandmother, fucking mafia royalty," I spat, "having to marry an abusive farmer and be grateful for every beating because he kept her son alive? Is that what you want to hear?"
"I don’t want to hear any of it. Not my monkey, not my circus because while your tale is tragic, so’s mine, Valentini," he ground out. "My mother was kidnapped by the fucking Aryans, gang-raped until she was a shadow of her former fucking self and rescued by my da who came riding in like a white knight to slay her dragons.” His top lip curved up in a sneer. "We’ve all got war stories, Valentini. That’s the price we pay for this fucking life. That’s the price of these goddamn suits and the watches on our wrists that’d buy an average man a car.