Page 69 of Bedazzled
“That doesn’t make sense,” she pondered, “you could have done that here. He didn’t need to fly you to Dublin and in the middle of whatever is about to happen. There’s got to be more to this favor.”
“Yeah,” I said uncomfortably, “that had occurred to me. But once the guys take over the distillery, leaving the O’Connell mob broke is the best ‘fuck you’ ever, right?”
“Honey… you don’t think that they’re just going to… take the distillery, right?” Ella says.
It feels like my body temperature just dropped twenty degrees. “What?”
I hear her sigh softly, that anxious little sound she makes when she’s really stressed out. “They’re going to kill the leaders of the clan. Between what happened to you and me, and what happened to Yuri? Their father sounds like a complete bastard to me, but he taught both of them that when someone hits you, you beat them to death. Any strike against the Bratva must be met with ten times the violence.”
“How do you know that?” I said, trying to make my numb tongue work properly.
“I’ve been… aware of the inner workings of the Bratva longer than you have, Tan. You need to be ready for this, okay?”
I thought about what the O’Connell’s had done to Yuri. What they had done to Ella. “I’ll be ready.”
We do our “love your guts” sign-off and I hang up, putting my head between my knees and trying to catch a full breath. Who gets used to this? How does anyone get used to this?
The laptop ‘pings!’ helpfully and I see that the thread I’d been pulling on from one of the O’Connell accounts has unraveled. I pushed away the thoughts of death and fear and concentrated on something I know how to control, my numbers.
It’s 2 am when O’Rourke’s image pops up on the laptop screen, making me yelp. “It’s quite late, Tania dear. You should be asleep.”
“You’re the one who gave me all these leads to follow,” I reminded him. “By the way, the O’Connell’s aren’t even trying to hide all the mining shares in New Zealand, and their accounts in the Cayman Island banks are unsecured.”
“I am very pleased with your progress. However, you have more work to do today, so get some rest.” He looked perfectly put together, from what I could see, still in a suit and tie.
“Do you ever sleep, Nolan, or just hang upside down like a bat?”
He chuckled indulgently, “I do just fine. Now, to bed with you. There’s much yet to do.”
“Yeah…” I said, “do you want to share what’s next with me?”
He gave me a smile that, had he been in the room with me, I would have punched right off his mouth. So smug, enjoying the anxiety and uncertainty he was causing me. All part of his little game.
“Not tonight,” he said gently, “go to sleep, Tania.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
In which Tania learns about single pot stills and third-best jets.
Yuri…
Maksim was stretched out on the couch in the house Thomas had considerately provided for us; a large stone cottage that he and his wife, Lauren used occasionally when business took them to Dublin.
“Let’s go over the plan again,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“Men from The Corporation and the Toscano’s will be dressed as waiters, busboys, and parking attendants at the distillery’s event center,” Patrick said. “We’re making sure to plant men that the O’Connell clan wouldn’t have seen around before.”
“The chemist who helped us compound the gas that Ella isolated has the dosages ready for the whiskey tasting,” I added. “The drug is odorless and tasteless. On an average 200-pound man, it takes effect within three minutes. Specialty dosing the bigger men is problematic, so we will have men stationed closer to them if they have to be taken out quickly.”
“And O’Rourke?” Maksim asked in the same tone he would use to enquire about a flesh-eating bacteria.
I scowled, “Following through as promised. He will be making the third toast and will give the signal.”
“Where is he now?”
Shrugging tiredly, I said, “When I spoke to him this morning, he was at his castle in Malahide.”
Tania…
