“Alright,” Cormac said, jaw rocking side to side.

He had to be close to his eighteenth birthday. He was probably planning to use the marble money to get his own place where the kids could be free of their father’s influence. Where the fridge and cabinets would be full. And free of roaches.

“I want you to help with that,” I said. I could feel Bastian’s gaze on my profile, but ignored him. He might be working with me on the club project, but I was the one in charge. I could make this decision.

“What kind of help?”

“I’m gonna be putting up a security system. But I’d like it if you and your brothers could keep an eye on the place while it’s being renovated. Let me know if you see anything suspicious. Report it to me—or Bass here—immediately.”

“What’re you paying?”

You had to respect his guts.

Most criminals, once they realized they’d fucked around on the mob, would be begging for leniency, not demanding money.

“It’s a round-the-clock kind of job,” I told him, knowing he had other brothers home to keep an eye on the younger ones while he pulled a night shift. “Two hundred a day.”

It was chump change for me.

It would be enough to keep his family afloat. Without he or his siblings needing to risk arrest or retribution from other local crews by stealing over and over.

“No strings?”

“Not outside of not stealing from the place anymore yourself.”

“Won’t need to,” Cormac said with a shrug.

“Alright. Starting tomorrow. You got a phone?”

He gave me a tight nod, reaching for his pre-paid cell, then taking down my number, then Bass’s number too—just in case.

“If anything at all seems suspicious, give one of us a call. If whoever is there has access to a phone, take pictures.”

“Got it,” Cormac said. “No,” he added when I reached for my wallet to hand him money. “Don’t need your pity.”

“It’s not pity,” I said, handing him a fifty. “I am not pushing that fucking thing all the way back to the club. I hope you stretched. Don’t want you pulling a muscle.”

With that, we made our way back across Brooklyn, with me stopping to grab a damn baseball cap to tuck my hair into before getting back to the club.

The cops had likely been and gone, and Soren was standing there in his stupidly nice suit that fit him in all the right ways. The jerk.

Gav was saying something to him, but broke off mid-sentence, raised a hand, and pointed toward us as we got closer.

Soren turned, eyes going wide as he looked at Bass and Cormac pushing the dumpster. Then, as his gaze slid to me, a smile was hiding in the corner of his lips.