Page 63 of I Would Beg For You

“It worked for him.” Reeves sounds angry. Still ice-cold, but the rage is palpably coming off him even across a screen.

“Over my dead body,” I assert, fists tightening. Wait until I get my hands on that prick. I’ll cut his balls first, then ram them up his ass followed by the barrel of a gun that’ll blow him from the inside.

“Same here,” Reeves says. “He won’t live long enough to hurt her, much less what that piece of shite did to her after Naomi was born.”

I hiss in a breath. “You know…?”

He nods.

We’re united in our outrage and disgust in this moment.

“She’s not safe with him,” I voice out quietly, tone deadly.

“She isn’t,” he confers.

Billings is just one disposable piece in Joel Smith’s sick game. He’d simply find another Old Money, down on his luck fuckwad who can give him their family name and a leg up, and he won’t hesitate to trade in his daughter in exchange. Bile is now burning its way up my torso.

“I don’t know you, Valentino,” Reeves continues. “Under different circumstances, our paths wouldn’t even cross.”

He’s right. I manage a crime family, in a world where the syndicate regents our scope of action and field of operations. Declan Reeves is the type who doesn’t get his hands dirty since he deals in intangibles like information, networking, influence. While this sort proves helpful at times in my world—for example my connection with Carson Felix in Salt Lake—we are at most mutual helpers should the need arise. The ‘better safe than sorry’ type of relationship.

“What are you saying?” I ask.

“The enemy of my enemy is always my friend. And we have an enemy in common.”

“Plus, we both care about Naomi.”

I need him to know this. I might not be able to put a title or a name on our relationship, but this I do know is certainly true.

“From what I’ve seen so far, I’m tempted to concur.”

I’ll take that as a win. “Good.”

“Did you know Joel Smith and his cronies sit on the board of a certain hospital which has been sweeping its dirt under the rug for a while now?”

I frown. “And your point would be?”

“Shareholders are getting antsy. Many want to sell before they get sullied when the broom comes out, but they don’t know who they can trust to come out unscathed.”

Some things are starting to click. “Go on.”

“An obscure medical equipment company called BeathaAnáil holds thirteen percent of the entire stock value. Its owner is Donal O’Brien. Doesn’t want to sell, but can be convinced.”

I frown. By this, Reeves means he has something on this O’Brien guy.

“And you need a buyer,” I state.

He shrugs. “I’m a man who works best in the shadows, Valentino.”

I’d figured as much.

I add two and two in my mind, borrowing here and there in my imagination to come up with the sum total of what he insinuated with his little exposé.

He needs a buyer—an ‘official’ face or entity to start the buy-out process and reach majority acquisition of this hospital’s ownership. Then, that person or entity would be free to take on the likes of Joel Smith and his buddies.

I’ve already looked into the cazzo’s affairs. There’s no straightforward or easy way to topple him from the position he’s claimed in the political strata recently. If this were a game of snakes and ladders, Declan Reeves just handed me an anaconda to place on the board. It wouldn’t sting, wouldn’t poison, but it’d slowly choke. Either way, death would be inevitable. Slow, but a sure thing. We’d just have to hold on in the meantime.

I lean forward on my forearms. “What do you need me to do?”

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