I knew Conor had marks on his back from a beating he refused to speak about. Then there was Brennan. He had a weak wrist because his father had a habit of breaking that wrist.
Without speaking, I grabbed the envelope and passed it to her.
She frowned down at it and asked, “For me?”
I smiled at her. “Open it.”
“What is it?”
“Leverage.”
That had her eyes flaring wide as she pulled out some of the photos. A gasp fell from her lips as she grabbed the photos when she spotted herself in them, jerking so hard the envelope tore. Some of the pictures spilled to the ground, but I didn’t care about that.
Leaning back against one of the dainty tables once I was satisfied it would take my weight, I watched her cheeks blanch, all that delicious color dissipating as she took in everything the photos revealed.
“Y-You’ve been stalking me. Why?”
The question was high-pitched, loaded down with panic. I’d heard it often enough to recognize it easily.
I didn’t get involved in wet work anymore. That wasn’t my style, but along the way, to reach this point, I’d had no choice but to get my hands dirty. Panic was part of the job when you were collecting debts for the Irish Mob. And the Five Points were notorious for Aidan Sr.’s temper.
He wasn’t the first patriarch. If anything, his grandfather was the founder. But Aidan Sr. was the type of guy that if you didn’t pay him back, he didn’t give a fuck about the money, he cared about the lack of respect.
See, you owed the mob and didn’t pay? They’d send heavies around, beat the shit out of you, and threaten to do the same to your family, and usually, that did the trick. You didn’t kill the cash cow.
Aidan Sr.?
He didn’t give a fuck about the cash cow.
Only the truly desperate thought about borrowing money from Aidan, because if you didn’t pay it back, he’d take your teeth, and your fingers and toes as a first warning. Then, if you still didn’t pay—and most did—it was death.
Respect meant a lot to Aidan.
And fuck, if it wasn’t starting to mean a lot to me. The panic in her voice made my cock throb.
I wanted this woman weak and willing.
I wanted it more than I wanted my next breath.
Ignoring her, I reached for my phone and tapped out a message to Paul.
Need housekeeping crew to clean this place.
I attached my live location, saw the blue ticks as Paul read the message—he knew better than to ignore my texts, whatever time of day they came—and he replied: Sure thing.
That was the kind of reply I was used to getting. Not just from Paul, but from everyone.
There were very few people who weren’t below me in the strata of Five Points, and I’d worked my ass off to make that so.
The only people who ranked above me included Aidan Jr. and his brothers, Aidan Sr. of course, and then maybe a handful of his advisors that he respected for what they’d done for him and the Points over the years.
But the money I made Aidan Sr.?
That blew most of their ‘advice’ out of the window.
The reason Aidan had a Dassault Falcon executive private plane?
Because I was, as the City itself called me, a whiz kid.
I’d made my first million—backed by the Points, of course—at twenty-two.
Fifteen years later?
I’d made him hundreds of millions.
My own personal fortune was nothing to sniff at, either.
“W-Why have you done this?” Aoife asked, her voice breathy enough to make me wonder if she sounded like that in the sack.
“Because you’ve been a very stubborn little girl.”
Her eyes flared wide. “Excuse me?”
I reached into the inside pocket of my suit coat and pulled out a business card. “For you,” I prompted, offering it to her.
When she turned it over, saw the logo of five points shaped into a star, then read Acuig—in the Gaelic way, ah-coo-ig, not a butchered American way, ah-coo-ch—aloud, I watched her throat work as she swallowed.
“I-I should have realized with the Irish name,” she whispered, the muscles in her brow twitching as she took in the chaos of the scattered photos on the floor.
Watching her as she dropped the contents on the ground, so she was surrounded by them, I tilted my head to the side, taking her in as her panic started to crest.
“I-I won’t sell.” Her first words surprised me.
I should have figured, though. Everything about this woman was surprisingly delicious.