Callous

Dio’s plan to flood the country with meth was nearly over before it began. Seven houses had been set up and were preparing for shipment when the DEA hit them.

Twelve men arrested.

None of them Irish, which was a relief to the local authorities. Tracking who owned the houses led to a series of shell companies with a base in the Caymans.

Dio had insulated his own name, which kept him from being identified.

But he was mightily pissed.

Dio had another apartment in Ocean Towers, right across from Galway Bay. The view meant nothing. He didn’t ever look at it; his only motivation was power/money.

He had summoned Keegan there after the raids. He was dressed in just sweatpants, his torso covered in sweat and scars. Dio didn’t so much work out as endure a grueling fitness regimen.

Keegan was dressed in Guns N’ Roses T-shirt from 2001, a bad year for the band and now looking like a real bad day for Keegan.

Dio asked softly,

“How many houses did we lose?”

Keegan preferred it when his boss acted out.

The roaring.

Spitting.

Screaming.

But the quiet tone, fuck, that was unbelievably bad news.

Very.

Dio asked in a near whisper,

“How many houses did we lose?”

Dio looked at his own hand, then with the other began to crack the knuckles, managing to make the action both sinister and threatening, asked,

“How did we lose them?”

Fuck.

Keegan knew exactly how. He’d called Mason the week before. He moved back a step from Dio, whose mouth was showing traces of spittle, which was usually the beginning of annihilation for some poor bastard.

Keegan said,

“There is a German guy, one of the chemists, who has been inciting the others to demand more money.”

Keegan knew this was a deadly move, but he was truly between a hard place and Dio. Dio said,

“Burn him.”

He meant that literally.

Later that evening a man would be discovered in a burned-out Audi. The car and occupant were eventually identified as German.

Three more houses went down. Ireland’s CAB, the criminal assets bureau, led these raids with the U.S. DEA as backup.

  Dio was, as the Irish say,

“Spitting iron.”

It is a stage beyond rage, with brutality riding point. Dio grabbed Keegan by the shoulders, shook him, screamed,

“What the fuck is going down?”

Keegan was almost tempted to say,

“Going down?” The fucking houses are.

Keegan was not the kind of man that people put their hands on, at least not twice. The first guy who touched him he stabbed in the throat. That was in New Mexico, what Keegan saw as their glory days.

Now fading fast.

Dio intuited something in the energy between them, let go of Keegan, sneered,

“So, what do we do? Burn more Germans?”

Keegan was not a fan of that race, as he’d been in a jail in Frankfurt for a time. Clean though; an exceptionally clean jail.

Brutal too.

But if there was one single thing in the crazy world that Keegan understood, it was brutality.

He said to Dio,

“Might be time to move the caravan, hitch our goods to somewhere the officials we buy stay bought.”

Dio, never a fool, hated to admit that it made sense, his success to date having relied heavily on his ability to disappear at a moment’s notice. His gold-plated cell phone contained everything he needed.

He gave Keegan a friendly tap on the shoulder, Keegan didn’t flinch, though his blood did boil. Dio said,

“OK, let’s begin a wrap-up, but first I have to crucify that Mitchell bitch.”

Keegan was on for that. Be glad to see that puta howl.

But.

They both knew Dio wasn’t quite ready to quit on Kate/Maria Callas just yet. He said,

“I’ll dance with her a little longer, then the cross.”

Keegan thought,

Yah weak fuck.

Said,

“Good thinking.”

Dio stared at him, asked,

“Don’t you have two brothers to kill?”

Indeed.