44. Ronan

Chapter 44

Ronan

N iall doesn’t say much on the drive out to the suburbs. He stares pensively out the window, and I can tell there’s something on his mind that he’s not sharing. I let him stew for a while—we have another half hour to go—since I know that’s the best way to draw him out.

I’ve known Niall a long time. We were friends before I became the boss, but our relationship only accelerated after I took control of the family. He proved himself to be competent and trustworthy, but he doesn’t always agree with everything I do. We’ve established long rhythms together, and this is one of our little routines: he gets all quiet and thoughtful before finally telling me how he thinks I’m fucking up.

“I never liked Julien, you know.” He says it almost as if we had been having a conversation all this time instead of driving in total silence.

“Oh, yeah? I’m really shocked.”

He gives me a look. “You put too much trust in him.”

“Maybe,” I concede. “But we need him right now.”

“Are you sure about that?”

So that’s what this is about. He doesn’t want to get involved with Julien, and it’s not like I can blame him. Julien comes off as this unserious small-time gangster, but the truth is he has an enormous network of people working for him, mostly overseas. He’s deeply connected to some very shadowy, very shady European businessmen and major banking conglomerates, and his operation is a part of a much wider network of interconnected crime syndicates.

Julien runs deep, much deeper than he appears, and Niall doesn’t like it. We’re a local family and Chicago runs through our veins, while Julien doesn’t care about this place beyond using it as an easy port to bring through his product.

That’s the type of businessman that’ll throw us under the bus the first chance he gets.

“I understand your reservations. I share them too. Julien’s unpredictable sometimes, and this stuff with wanting to marry into our family—” I shake my head, revulsion running down my spine. “There’s something he’s not telling us.”

“But we need him.” Niall deadpans at me. “As if there aren’t any alternatives.”

“Do you want to get another family involved in this shit? Think we could go ask Dusan if he’s interested in getting his hands dirty? The cops are all over us for that shit with the Righteous Servants. No crime boss in this city in his right mind will get within ten feet of our operations, not with the fucking Chicago PD breathing down our necks.”

“And yet Julien’s willing.” Niall raises his eyebrows. “I wonder why.”

“Again, I hear you, and again, it doesn’t fucking matter. We’re stuck with the guy.”

We lapse into silence. Niall doesn’t like my answer. I wish I had something better to tell him other than suck it the fuck up and move on but that’s the best I can do. We need muscle, Julien has muscle, and we already made an agreement.

Now we’re driving to a random warehouse an hour outside of the city on a tip one of Julien’s informants picked up.

Nobody knows if it’s legit. Even Julien said he’s got his doubts. This particular informant has been solid in the past, but the guy’s also an addict, and addicts do stupid shit.

The way I see it, worst-case scenario is we get out there, find an empty warehouse, and drive back home. Two hours wasted, but nothing really lost.

Best case is we end this fucking war before it really begins.

That’s worth the risk to me.

As we get closer to the location, I slow our approach. Uncle Eddie’s driving a van filled with loyal soldiers, while Uncle Joseph is in an SUV packed to the gills with men in Kevlar vests and assault rifles. Julien showed up too, though he’s coming at the place from the other side.

The warehouse is a big, beige structure, almost like an airport hangar. It’s at the end of a long driveway, surrounded by a crumbling chain-link fence and overgrown with weeds. I’m guessing the area used to be a working farm, but the fields are turning to grass as the wilderness reclaims them.

“Looks dead,” I say, searching for any sign that people have been here recently.

“Not the best choice of words,” Niall says, giving me a meaningful look.

I grin back, park, and get out. Nothing happens, nobody moves. There are no shouts from the warehouse and no cracks of gunfire. Just silence and birds singing nearby.

I give the others a couple minutes to get into position before walking over to a side entrance. The walls are pitted with rust and mold, and I can’t imagine anyone’s used this place in a long time. The door opens without any issues though and creaks loudly as I drag it along its jammed hinges.

Inside, it smells musty and dirty. I turn on a flashlight and hold it in one hand as I aim my gun straight ahead. Niall’s at my shoulder. The uncles are getting prepped and ready, and they’ll rush in the second I send them a signal.

There’s nothing. No sign of life, no stolen pallets of drug-filled hockey sticks, no truck, no nothing. The main warehouse floor is littered with trash and debris, but nothing else. Catwalks loom above us. I turn off my light and look around, shaking my head.

“Looks like we can call it off,” I tell Niall. At the far end of the space, I spot a few men coming toward us and recognize Julien in the lead.

“Hello, friendly Irish pals,” Julien calls out. “Seems like we were misled.”

“Got any idea why your source would feed you bullshit?” I ask as he approaches with five fighters in tow.

“No clue,” Julien admits, and he seems uneasy. “My source has been very solid up until now. I’m not sure what happened. Perhaps?—”

Whatever excuse Julien was about to make is suddenly drowned out by the sound of gunfire.

Bullets slam down from the catwalks. At first, I’m completely disoriented—it’s strange that the shooting is coming from above us, at strange angles. But quickly I understand what’s happening: this is a fucking ambush.

“Run!” I shout as bullets spray at the ground around us. I yank Julien forward just as one of his soldiers gets shredded, his skull exploding as his brain matter and bone pieces get thrown onto the floor.

I’m moving hard. There’s yelling all over. Niall’s with me and Julien’s right behind, and I’m heading for the door. The shooting continues, and it’s obvious our attackers planned a decent surprise, but they didn’t think about the angles.

It’s not easy shooting moving targets from a height. Instead of presenting our whole bodies as targets, they can only aim for our heads. That’s the only reason we’re still alive as I throw myself down the hallway, barely escaping with my life, as two more of Julien’s men get taken out. Their mangled corpses twitch with more bullet impacts, and blood leaks onto the concrete.

“Fucking ambush,” Julien snarls, looking around with wild, rage-filled eyes. “God damn it, they murdered my men.”

“How many are out there?” I didn’t get a good count. I spotted at least three positions, but there must be more.

“Impossible to say.” Niall’s face is white and his jaw works. “What’s the plan?”

“Tell the uncles to back off.”

“Fuck that,” Julien snarls. “They’re trapped on those catwalks.”

“Do you want to storm them? There’s no cover in that fucking warehouse. We’re lucky we’re alive.”

“My men weren’t lucky.” Julien turns around like he’s going to rush back out there at any second, but he doesn’t move. “Fuck. Fuck! We were played.”

“You can deal with your dead soldiers and that lying informant when we get out of here.” I turn back to Niall. “Tell the uncles to stand down and keep the perimeter locked down.”

Niall types it out in our secure messaging app and sends it. The responses are immediate confirmations. I stride back down the hall and through the side door, pausing only to make sure that there aren’t any men stationed outside ready to pick us off as we try to get out.

Uncle Joseph jogs over, looking grim. “We heard the shooting.”

“Ambush,” I confirm. “Killed Julien’s men. We barely made it out.”

“What’s the plan?”

Julien shakes his head and walks off, heading around the edge of the building, angling toward his vehicles and however many men he left outside.

I watch him go before making up my mind. “We sit and wait.”

Uncle Joseph’s eyebrows raise. “They tried to kill you in there, Ronan.”

“And if we rush inside, more of our guys will die. Spread out and watch the building. If anyone shows up, kill them. If anyone tries to leave, take them prisoner. Kill them if you can’t.”

“We can’t watch this place forever.”

“No, we can’t,” I agree. “But they’ll have to come out eventually.”

Uncle Joseph doesn’t look happy, but he jogs off to start handing out orders. I storm back to the truck and get behind the wheel, but I don’t drive off yet. Niall climbs in next to me, and we brood together in silence.

“That was a shitshow,” he says finally. “If Julien’s men hadn’t gotten killed—” He stops midsentence, staring out the window at something.

“Yeah, I get it, you don’t trust Julien, but you’re right. It’s his guys that died. I don’t think he had anything to do with what happened.”

“Ronan.”

“He was just as surprised as we were. You saw him in there.” I squint at the warehouse, not looking over.

“ Ronan .” It’s the fear in his tone that finally makes me turn.

There’s a gun aimed at his face, the barrel against the glass. I focus on the man holding the weapon, and Seamus’s grim stare finds mine.

We don’t move. Niall’s frozen in place. Seamus’s jaw ticks and the gun dips up and down like he’s not sure what to do. Uncertainty and discomfort play across Seamus’s face, and I think of that fight we got in, that boxing match and the conversation after. I think of all the years I’ve known him, and even though he fell in with the wrong crowd, I can’t bring myself to hate him.

This is what’s wrong with a family fighting itself.

Finally, Seamus takes a step back. The gun barrel moves away from the window. He’s still looking at me, but there’s sorrow in his eyes now. I can’t move, and I’m pretty sure Niall’s not even breathing. Seamus keeps backing away, gun not wavering, until he reaches the overgrown field. Then he turns and runs into the overgrowth, disappearing into the bushes.

“Fuck,” I say, letting out a long breath.

“Fuck,” Niall agrees and groans, head tilted back. “I thought we were dead.”

“He couldn’t do it.” I speak very softly. I should be terrified, but I’m not. A strange glow builds in my chest and spreads throughout my body.

It’s pride.

I’m fucking proud of Seamus.

He did something hard. He got the drop on us and could’ve ended everything right here and now. All he had to do was pull the trigger, and we’d be dead.

Instead, he didn’t do it. I don’t know what he was thinking or why he decided to back down, but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to murder two of his own cousins.

Seamus and I might not agree on everything. Hell, we might sometimes get into shit.

But Seamus didn’t pull the trigger, and that shit matters.

Our family can come back from this. It can come back because a part of them must understand what they’re trying to sacrifice for one man’s ambition. Even if they don’t realize that’s what they’re doing, they still have to know on some level.

I start the engine. Niall laughs, a wild and harsh sound.

“Spread the word,” I tell him. “Seamus is off limits.”

“Ronan—”

“Don’t make me say it again.” I pull out of the overgrown lot. “He didn’t do it. Seamus is still on our side, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”

Niall shakes his head, but he doesn’t argue as he sends my orders out.