Page 10 of Brutal Collateral

“Kai Powers. Lawyer. Check him out,” I tell my brother, staring at the guy.

“Two minutes,” Shane says smugly, proud of what he can pull off on a moment’s notice.

“I got my JD at NYU Law,” Kai calls out, grinning. “Save Shane the trouble searching the New York State Bar registry.”

I freeze, wondering how the hell he knew I called Shane. But for years, our business website listed us all as executives with our specialties to make us look civilized. After dark, brutal beatings and ruthless kills are the real story of this life.

“Did you hear that?” I put my brother on speaker.

“Narrows it down,” Shane grumbles, sleep still in his throat. “Aye, a Kai Powers graduated from NYU. Is this him?”

A text comes in with a photo.

“Aye, that’s him,” I say, pissed off because I’m pretty sure this guy doesn’t have good news in that briefcase.

I picked a hell of a day to quit smoking. Fucking New Year’s resolution is already gnawing at me.

“Have Shane meet us here,” Kai says, still grinning. “Connor, too.”

Aw fuck.

I worried something else would crawl out of the woodwork. Years ago, we met a half-brother we never knew about.

“Listen, Powers. Cool name, by the way. I don’t jump because some random dog barks.” I put this arsehole in his place.

The man quirks an eyebrow, surprised at my tone. But he doesn’t quiver as most people do when I raise my voice. “What if I tell you I have life-changing news, Mr. Quinlan?”

“Did you hear that?” I say to Shane who’s still on the phone. “How soon can you get here?”

“Give me thirty minutes,” he says, like perhaps there’s a woman in his bed.

I shake my head, staring at a bulging briefcase and whisper into the phone, “Where’s Connor?”

“He’sfinishing upsomething with Riordan.”

The lack of details voiced in front of a lawyer, who can hear him, means Connor just killed someone with the O’Rourke underboss.

“Come on in, Mr. Powers,” I say and hold the storm door open for him.

Within the hour, my brothers arrive,includingmy oldest brother Ewan, who’s married with two kids. I called him because heisstill the head of our family. Although, the lawyer didn’t mention him, leaving me to wonder why.

I shove Kai Powers into the hot seat in my da’s office where he swallows nervously watching my brothers storm in one by one. One minute we were simple Irish bumfuck names on a piece of paper. In the flesh, with our six-foot, broad builds, Kai looks like he wishes he phoned in this meeting. And no longer wants to be within striking range where I can lunge and rip out his throat.

The massive secrecy worries me. The lawyer’s promise of something that is so important and life-changing has my blood moving.

I’m just not sure my life will be for the better.

“What the bleedin’ hell is this about?” Connor asks, rubbing his sore knuckles, still high from his recent kill.

A good fuck helps him take the edge off, but I cut into his stress-relief time. He’s still smoking, waiting to see if quitting gives me a heart attack, then he’ll give it a try. Ewan quit when he moved in with Darcy and their daughter. Shane never smoked.

“We’re all here, Mr. Powers,” I say, taking a seat at my father’s desk, my brothers in chairs around me. “Please get on with whatever the hell you’ve come to talk to us about.”

“You sound very authoritative.” Ewan nudges me, not sounding jealous.

We’re all in jeans and leather jackets, except for Ewan who’s polished in a waist-length cashmere coat. Ewan lives in a fancy townhouse on the other side of town with the wife he put his life on the line to marry.

It wasn’t until we moved my sick father into an assisted living facility that I became the true man ofthishouse.

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