Chapter 5

Declan~

A s soon as I walked into Lir, Desmond was waiting for me, which had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up almost immediately. If I had to describe my brothers, James was the quiet one, Desmond was the clown, Kevin was the smart one, Cathal was the violent one, and since I was the oldest, I was all that blended into one person. At any rate, with Desmond being the jackhole of the family, he was usually already in his cup when we had poker night.

"What's up?" I asked as soon as I was close enough.

"Kenneth Swanson isn't returning my calls," he informed me, making me have to crack my neck as we made our way to the back of the bar. "He never not picks up."

"Did something happen to him?"

Desmond shook his head. "Nope," he answered, popping the ‘p'. "Rumor has it that he can't pay, so his plan is to avoid us entirely."

I stopped, then looked over at my brother. "Are you fucking kidding me? That's his plan?"

"Noah thinks that he might be trying to make a break for it," he said. "He might already be heading out of town as we speak."

My feet started moving again. "Do we have anyone on his house yet?"

Desmond nodded. "We have Harland doing periodical checks, but no one sitting on it around the clock."

When I pushed the door open to the backroom, I asked, "What about his job?"

"Same thing," he answered.

"There's the man," Aran greeted. "Ready to part with your coins, old man?"

I flipped him off, and he just laughed as all the guys were already taking their places at the table. For whatever reason, we always sat with the relations at every other seat with an O'Brien, then a Murphy, then another O'Brien, then a Murphy, and then so on. Our dealer was also a man, so that no one got distracted by anyone's impressive chest. It was one thing for the servers to have their tits hanging out, but we didn't play for pocket change at this game, so our dealer needed to be here for the game and nothing more. Plus, I'd rather kill a male dealer with loose lips than a woman.

Instead of taking his seat like the rest of them, Noah had already been making his way towards me when I had walked in the room, and he got right down to business. "He owes a hundred."

It was moments like this one that a gifted hacker on the payroll would be beneficial. Now, while Kevin was smart as fuck and a wiz on computers, he didn't have the hacking skills that could get us what we needed and stay out of prison. There was no way for him to be able to look into Kenneth Swanson's bank accounts without alerting someone.

"Where did you guys hear that he doesn't plan on paying?" I asked, because you really did have to consider the source when dealing with rumors.

"Lonnie Parker," Desmond answered. "He said that Kenneth was playing at the tables last week, and when Lonnie remarked about his losses, Kenneth said that he had a plan to win it all back, and if he couldn't, then all he had to do was avoid us until he figured it out."

"That's not the same as not paying us at all," I pointed out.

"When Lonnie finally cut him off, that's when Kenneth got testy and told Lonnie to go fuck himself, and that he didn't have to pay us shit because we were the criminals, not him," Desmond continued.

"Certain people's level o' stupidity really is astoundin' a' times," Noah remarked dryly.

"Well, we're not going to let him run off with our fucking money," I said, trusting the source as much as I'd trust anyone that wasn't family.

Lonnie Parker ran an underground casino, and the man didn't fuck around when it came to his little enterprise. A three-time felon, working a cushy office job was not in the cards for him, even if those felonies had taken place in his early twenties, nearly thirty years ago. Society only gave second chances to those that they wanted to, and not everyone was afforded that same grace.

At any rate, the last thing that Lonnie was going to do was cause trouble for himself by making up lies that involved any O'Brien. Plus, it took a lot for Lonnie to cut someone off at his gaming tables. After all, it was the way that the man made his living, so he had a long leash when it came to his regulars. However, it appeared as if Kenneth Swanson had overstayed his welcome almost everywhere at this point. Even though all the syndicates operated out of Port Townsend, our tentacles extended to the entire state, so he was stupid to believe that he could run.

Like most gamblers, Kenneth lived in the fallacy that chasing your losses was a good idea, which it wasn't. The lights in Las Vegas were kept on because of the losers, not the winners, and if that didn't tell you something, then you were probably too stupid to exist.

"I want him found," I said unnecessarily. "Tonight."

"And then?"

I glanced over at Noah. "Then I want to have a chat with him before I end him," I told him. "If he's flapping his lips, then it sounds to me like he's desperate to be an example for others."

"You can't collect money from a dead man," Noah remarked pragmatically.

"You also can't collect money from a man that has none," I retorted. "And it's obvious that Kenneth Swanson is done for at this point."

"I can have someone at his home and work, but I can't see him being in either of those places," Desmond said. "He's gotta know that those are the two places that we'd look first."

"Which is why he might be there," I reasoned. "Reverse psychology and all that."

"Hey," James called out. "Are we going to play, or what?"

"We're talking business," I called back, shutting my brother up.

"Should we be checking out Lonnie's place?" Desmond asked.

I shook my head. "Nah," I answered. "If Lonnie's already cut him off, then he'll look somewhere else to scratch his itch."

"He could be headed to Jersey," Noah suggested. "If he's run dry here, it's possible."

"Or he could be running in other territories," I murmured as I tried to put myself in the place of a gambling addict. While I had a lot of vices, I wasn't addicted to any of them, so it was kind of hard to identify with that kind of dependency.

"That's possible," Noah said. "He might feel safe if he thinks that we can't or won't go after him while in Kotov or Sartori territory."

"Find him," I ordered again. "I don't want him getting away."

"Sure thing, boss," Desmon replied, knowing that I was serious.

When he walked away, Noah stayed behind, saying, "Even if it's not the full amount, we can still get what we can out of him before you kill him."

No longer caring about Kenneth Swanson's debt, I asked, "Do we know if he has a girlfriend or something?" I ran Kenneth's background check inside my mind, and there'd been no mention of a girlfriend, but that'd been months ago. "He might not have had a girlfriend when he first came to us for a loan, but maybe that changed."

"It's possible," Noah replied. "But you'd have to be a real piece of shit to involve an innocent woman in your bullshit like that."

"Why are you assuming that she's innocent?" I asked. "If a girlfriend does exist, then it's quite possible that she's just as shady as he is."

Noah grinned. "You got me there."

"Are we going to play or what the fuck?" Cathal called out, and it really felt like I had four fucking kids sometimes.

"Blind us out if you assholes can't wait five minutes," Noah told him, feeling the same eldest sibling stress that I did.

Eyeing my cousin, I said, "I want him found before he wanders into someone else's territory. The fuck if I need Kotov or Sartori thinking that I can't handle my own shit."

"You're not lying," he agreed.

"Okay, let's go clean these fucking kids out," I said, jerking my head towards the table. "It'll shut them up until next month, at least."

"Easier said than done," Noah snorted. "They're all corrupt little bastards."

I laughed as I finally made my way to the table. The dealer was already set up, and all we had to do was draw for the button at this point. We always all started out with a ten-thousand-dollar stack, which didn't last long when you considered that the blinds were one-hundred and three-hundred. Still, there was plenty more cash where that came from, and even though we were all related, we paid up. There was no mercy at this table, and that's what made it so much fun.

An hour later, I was still thinking about Kenneth Swanson, and not because he owed us a hundred-thousand dollars. The man had been running his mouth, and while I could forgive a lot, a motherfucker saying that he wasn't scared of us wasn't on that list.