Page 5 of Rake

A million snide remarks cross my mind, including remarking on the liquor licenses I’m holding in my hand, a replacement for the ones he fucked up. Instead, I tilt my head and grin. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Always so smug,” he snarls, standing up and leaning across his desk. “And for what?”

He sneers at me, taking in my plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and Irish Scally cap. “You look like an extra from some dumb fucking Whitey Bulger biopic. Maybe you should do that instead and actually bring in some money.”

Extras don’t get paid enough to spend the amount of money I did on these jeans, but my father doesn’t need to know that.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, still smiling. “Until then, what can I do for you?”

He tosses a pamphlet at me. “Handling the staff is supposed to be your job.”

It’s for the local SWU 105 union.

“The staff are organizing?” I ask.

“Figures you wouldn’t know.” He scowls. “Back in July, when you were on the Vineyard fucking things up with your sister and the land I wanted to buy, I received an anonymous tip about this.”

Iwas fucking things up with the land he wanted to buy? That’s not what happened – he’d never really stood a chance of getting the land he’d coveted for decades This man’s ability to self-delude is incredible. Fucking things up for Siobhan though? That part is fair. I’d done my best to keep her from hooking up with Kieran Doyle, not that it had mattered in the end.

“I’m guessing you had someone talk to the lead organizer?” I venture.

“How dare those people—lucky enough to be employed by me—want a union?” He glares at me. “Well, they found the organizer tied up to an old chain-link fence and beaten to a bloody pulp in Doherty Park. As I told the police, must’ve been a coincidence.”

“Poor guy,” I venture. I bet he sent Hamish. Hamish is our family’s best fixer.

“Girl,” he snarls, snapping the pamphlet out of my hands. “Their organizer is a woman. Sasha Saunders.”

Damn. I’d assumed it’d be a man. A small shudder of horror ripples through me at the idea of a woman being tied to a chain-link fence and assaulted. Low, even for James Carney.

With our family’s reputation, any organization going toe-to-toe—especially a hardened Boston union—had to know the risks. I can’t fathom why they would have assigned a woman to such a dangerous job.

I keep my face neutral. Can’t let my disgust at my father’s actions show. There was no reason to beat this woman half to death. I could’ve handled it less violently, and without involving the police. He’s despicable.

If anyone thinks the Carneys—any Carneys, but most especially James Carney—have let morals, ethics or basic human concerns get in the way of getting what they want, think again.

I know that as well as anyone.

But there are gradients between what I’m willing to do and what my father is. Right now, though, I can’t let him sense that, because he’ll see it as weakness.

My place here—everything that I value about my life—relies on one thing: if not making him happy, then keeping him calm until my other ventures pay off.

I swallow any discomfort and hit my father with a level gaze. “So she’s trying to work with the staff again?”

“She’s resilient, I’ll give her that,” my father hisses. “And dedicated to her work, which is more than I can say for you. Handle this, Finn. And I want you to do it directly.”

I shrug off the hypocrisy of my father’s words. He barely handles anything directly, deploying his fixers and his children like soldiers, but that’ll bite him in the ass soon enough.

“I’ll take care of it,” I say.

“Don’t fuck this up, Finn. Not like you fucked up in July. Kieran Doyle isn’t even the smartest of that trash family and he still bested you.”

I flinch at that.

My father hates the Doyles but gives them legitimacy by treating them like rivals, even though they’re losing power in the community as we gain it. Still, he’ll never win against them as long as his obsession with them lasts. My sister’s relationship with one of the Doyle sons, Kieran, has renewed my father’s tendency to throw them in my face.

It’s a truth I need to learn too. Being constantly compared to the Doyles in a negative light burned a hatred in me, too, that caused me to make stupid mistakes.

In July, I’d gone to Martha’s Vineyard to visit Siobhan, who was doing an artist’s residency on the island. When I walked in and found her in her rented home, in bed, with Kieran Doyle standing over her, I thought he’d assaulted her.

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