Rake: A Dark Boston Irish Mafia Romance (The Carneys Book 1) - Sophie Austin Page 0,3
success of the casino, at least over the next five years. It’s in our best interests to keep our father happy and distracted until that goal is met.
“Well, I have to give him this anyway.” I hold up the red folder with the full bar liquor licenses.
“Good luck,” Patrick says. “I’ll wait here for you.”
For the gruesome details of what I’ve done wrong. I’d do the same, though.
I push out of the chair and head up to my father’s office.
The casino itself is two sprawling floors that include slots, table games, dining, and an events venue. The attached hotel is much grander—twenty stories, and, according to the local newspaper, a blight on the historic Charlestown skyline.
I don’t disagree.
My father’s opulent office is on the second floor of the casino, and I take the stairs, two at a time, not from excitement but from habit. Some people might look at the grandiose space my father carved out for himself and say he was compensating for some kind of lack, or maybe some kind of smallness. But I’d never say that, of course.
I knock on the door and wait for him to call me in.
He always makes us wait. The longer you wait, the angrier he is.
It’s a full sixty seconds before he shouts at me through the door.
That bad? I don’t even bother wondering what it could be this time as I stride over to his desk.
“Patrick said you wanted to see me?”
He looks up from the pile of papers on his expensive mahogany desk, his electric blue eyes boring into me. “Tell me again why I have you on the payroll, Finn? When you can’t even do the simplest of tasks?”
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.”
I was 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.