Page 56 of The Celtic Resolution
Stephen’s far too winded to answer. As Cian’s men secure the rest of the building and keep the two Triads under armed guard, Cian drags Stephen into an adjacent room and throws him to the ground.
“Who the fuck is this guy?” he demands, breathless from the shootout.
“Stephen. McCillon. I know him from uhm… a few weeks back when Cormac was trying to soothe some tension with smaller families after Rocky’s wedding. Stephen was here with his brother, Angus and they were so pissed off about uhm…” The memories are hazy with how many people Cormac had meetings with. “They run that bar, the Clover down near the docks? Apparently the Italians like to drink there and the current situation affected their income.”
“Then why the fuck is he here?” Cian looks past me to where Stephen is still panting on the floor. “I’ll take him, you take the Triad. Let me know what you find.”
“Alright, be careful.”
Our shoulders nudge gently as we pass and the doors close on our respective rooms. The two Triads I have to interrogate are badly injured, and one only has a few curse words left before they succumb to their gunshot wounds and die right in front of me. The other is much stronger but he doesn’t hold out for long.
Not many people can when I start digging around in their bullet holes and wounds. There’s something sickeningly unnatural about having someone pry apart your body with their fingers and as strong as the Triad are, this guy gives out after three of my manicured fingers rip a wound across his ribs wide open.
He doesn’t have much to spill, only that he doesn’t handle the drugs. He deals with the weapons. He swipes them from our trucks and redirects the shipments back overseas, only instead of them returning to one of our facilities in Mexico, they get sent further abroad, like China and Saudi Arabia.
By the time he finishes talking, he passes out and I order him to be taken back to one of our warehouses until we can get more out of him. Cian joins me in the hall ten minutes later. Stephen sits on a chair in the middle of the room with his head hung low and his face beaten.
“Well?” I prompt. “What the fuck was he doing here?”
“Honestly, no fucking clue,” Cian mutters, shaking pain out of his bloodied fist. “Fucker claims he’s in debt and nothing can make him talk. Triads don’t offer debt relief as far as I know.”
“The last Triad I interrogated mentioned the Irish. Could that be the connection?” Is this fucker, our own blood, working with these fucks against?—
“Cian, phone!” I lunge past my brother as Stephen bolts from his chair with a phone in his hand.
“What the fuck, I searched him!”
“Not well enough!”
Cian reaches him first and tackles Stephen to the ground. They land with a clatter and the phone shoots from his hand, sliding across the wood and hitting the far wall. I reach it a half-second later and pick it up.
“Who were you calling?” Scrolling through the recent calls I find one and only one.
“Who?” Cian yells, slamming Stephen’s head against the floor.
“No one!” Stephen chokes out.
“Bullshit.” Hitting redial, I press the phone to my ear.
“What the fuck is it, Stephen?” barks a thick, female Irish accent. “Domenico wants these girls now, I don’t have time for your bullshit!”
My heart drops and my eyes meet with Cian’s as the woman’s enraged rant is so loud I don’t even need a speaker phone. Stephen sags under Cian, defeated.
“Shit,” Cian pants. “We gotta call Cormac like, right now.”
25
SAOIRSE
It’s all the confirmation we need that Irish blood is wrapped up in this whole mess. I’d clung to the hope that the Triad were lying and simply trying to sow distrust among our own ranks but there’s no denying it now.
“What girls?” I bark down at Stephen. “What fucking girls?”
He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he spits a mouthful of blood in my direction as Cian hauls him to his feet. “Ain’t telling you shit.”
“Oh.” I can’t wait to get my hands on this guy properly. “You will.”
Cian drags him outside while I head back into the other room with the Triad and two of our guards, but a scene of carnage greets me when I open the door. Both our guards are dead and the Triad, previously thought unconscious and too weak to do anything but bleed, stands over their bodies with blood drooling from his lower lip and a glistening blade in his left hand.
