Who: William Hayes What: Another day of watching and waiting. Where: A family-owned warehouse in Boston. When: Friday, May 27, near midnight. Warnings: PG for cursing and ableist language.
The shipment had arrived after it was already full dark. If that wasnât enough to give away the fact that all wasnât well, the fact that the boys in charge of unloading were all twitchy about it would have been. Well, all the boys unloading it but one, one that was too old to actually be called a boy at all. The large, light-haired man that was hauling the boxes off the truck and passing them to another two, carrying together what the one could manage on his own, didnât seem to be all that worried about whatever it was they were doing. In fact, he was whistling, completely oblivious to the tension of everyone around him. Two other men were supervising, one another blond, the other red-haired, directing the workers that the big man handed the boxes to into the warehouse, with instructions on where to stack them, and how to stack them. The rest of them were quiet, nodding their agreement and keeping their heads down. A few of them glanced nervously at the large man slinging boxes off the truck with ease, like they were questioning what he was so cheerful about when the rest of them were hard at work.
They must have been new, if they didnât know that Doyle Hayesâs oldest son wasnât quite right in the head, after heâd taken a crack on it when he was a teenager. Theyâd learn soon enough, if not by watching him themselves, listening to the slow, halting way he talked, then by the whispers that they heard from the rest of the familyâs employees. It was one of their favorite stories, that the oldest Hayes boy was slow, the younger vanished into thin air, and the daughter⌠well, she was just a girl, wasnât she? Better hope that Hayes could find someone to marry her off to that would be a decent addition to the family business.
It was bound to happen eventually, the way that the man was slinging the boxes off the truck with reckless abandon, like he was completely unaware of his own strength, or the fact that whatever was inside the boxes could have been fragile. One of them slipped out of his hands before the men walking up to the truck for their next load were ready for it. They scrambled out of the way as the heavy box crashed down to the ground, the wood of it creaking ominously. It didnât break open, but there was a cracking sound that wasnât very encouraging when it came to its hardiness should the maneuver be repeated. The workers gaped, the blond man stared at the box on the ground like it hadnât quite occurred to him how it had gotten there, and the overseers took note and started stomping toward the scene. Finally, the blond man looked up, blue eyes wide and guileless as he announced, for the whole unloading crew to hear, âOops.â
âYa feckinâ retard!â The red-haired man reached them first, hand drawing back like he was thinking about hitting the large blond man. Just looking at the difference between their sizes was enough to remind him that it was a bad idea, though not enough to keep him from scolding him. âDo ya have any idea how much the gravel in that box is worth? And here yâare, tryinâ to spill it all over the ground.â His face was almost as red as his hair, and the larger man stared at him, as if he was fascinated by the whole process.
The other fair-haired man reached them before it could escalate, giving the redhead a warning jab in the side with his elbow. âYouâve gotta be more careful, Will. Your dadâll be pretty unhappy if you break the boxes, right? We donât want him upset.â He talked slowly, carefully, giving Will plenty of time to understand him. Then, he turned to the redhead. âAnd we donât need to go yelling whatâs in the boxes for everyone and their mother to hear, either, do we?â
âSorry, Niall.â Will did look contrite, when he stared at the other blond man. Slightly less so when he turned to the redhead and repeated the apology. âSorry, Rory.â Then, when they both watched him, apprehensive, he told them, âThatâs a lot of rocks.â He didnât question why theyâd be getting in a shipment of rocks, or why they were storing it so carefully in a warehouse. Just leaned over and picked up the box, holding it out to the two workers again, much more carefully this time.
Niall and Rory stayed to watch while he unloaded the next, as well, then Niall clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder with a reminder to be careful, and they were off. âHe might be a retard,â Niall told Rory, âbut if he can throw a crate like that, think what he could do to you if you pissed him off.â
Maybe the box hadnât broken open so Will could see what was inside, but heâd thought he could count on Rory being hot headed enough to let information slip that he shouldnât. Gravel. That meant cocaine, and heâd already unloaded a half dozen of the crates by the time heâd decided it was safe to try to âmissâ and see if he could get a better look at what they were unloading under the cover of darkness. There were at least that many more still in the back of the truck, and Will would get an accurate count once he was finished unloading it all. He could guess at the weight from how much effort it took to haul the boxes down and hand them off, and from that he could figure out exactly how much of the drug they were moving. Not that it was all going to stay in the warehouse long. His father was too smart for that, theyâd be moving it out as soon as they could find buyers, or someone to transport. Anyone on the lookout would have to move fast. They probably wouldnât manage to move fast enough.
If Will was lucky, heâd be the one called on to load the shipments back up, too, so he could get some idea of where theyâd be going next. It wasnât as if he had any job other than lifting and towing whatever his father was smuggling in and out of the city. Last time, it had been counterfeit pharmaceuticals. The time before that⌠there were a lot of times before that, and Will had been there for every single one of them. Watching. Counting. Doing his best to get the information on exactly what was inside the boxes, down to the smallest details he could manage. There wasnât much he could do about the fact that it was being unloaded in the first place, but when it came to taking note of what, and how much, and where it was going, there was probably no one that knew as much about Doyle Hayesâs business as his oldest son, probably not even the old man himself. Most people would say that was the way it should have been. That was, if they hadnât heard those rumors about the cognitive abilities of that oldest son. Funny how those spread. Funny how Will had never done a damn thing to make anyone consider that they might not be true.
He felt a little bad about deceiving Niall, sometimes. As far as the cousins went, Niall really wasnât all that bad⌠when you didnât consider the fact that he was voluntarily working for his uncle, one of the most organized of the major players in the world of organized crime in Boston, after the Winter Hill Gang had disbanded. Most of them, they were smaller scale now. Doyle was holding on to former glory days, and taking as much of his family with him as possible. Niall might be like Will, feel like he didnât have a safe way out. Then again, Niall might have just liked the easy money that came with smuggling, with crime. He was still fairly kind to Will, when it came right down to it, if you considered that he believed that Will didnât understand all that much of what was going on around him. Even more important to Will, Niall was kind to his little sister. He was inclined to like anyone that was nice to Kait.
So far, he didnât feel all that bad about giving Rory whatever shit he could manage, though. Rory was fresh off the boat, a distant cousin, and a little too eager to impress Doyle for Willâs taste. He picked on Kaitlyn, too, which really sealed that, for Will. He was a little sorry that Rory had thought twice before heâd hit him, because nobody wouldâve thought twice about it if Will had retaliated, after that. Everyone knew that Will lost his temper sometimes, but no one really blamed the retard for that kind of thing. He wasnât responsible for what he was doing, after all. It was the one part of the charade that was really satisfying, the one heâd almost regret giving up when the game was over and he was ready to get himself and Kait out of there, as far away from their father as he possibly could. Two more years, though, before she was eighteen. He had time to punch a few more assholes in the face, first, if they just gave him a reason.
Shit, heâd lost count, too distracted by the thought of punching Rory in his smug, pointy face. Thatâs eight, Ward reminded him. At least one of them had been on task. Will could count on Ward for that, the times that he managed to slip. It didnât happen much, anymore, not like it had when he was in his twenties and actually had the hot temper that he pretended, anymore. At least he had backup. At least he wasnât doing this, trying to gather whatever information he could on his fatherâs operations, entirely alone. His backup might only be in his head, but he wouldnât trade Ward for any number of people on the inside with him. Eight boxes, so far, and that was nine⌠Will started whistling, again, once the tension had faded, putting on a show of being totally happy with the work that he was doing, not questioning anything about it at all. Why should he? This was just another day of business as usual.
Once he got back to the safety of his room, heâd tally them all up, make note of the date, of the number of boxes, guess at the weight enough to figure out about how much the entire load would be worth. Heâd leave room underneath for more notes, on any of the crates he helped hand off to buyers, figure out as much as he could about where they were going. He was about halfway through the book that he was working in, right then. There were more of the books. Enough that it was starting to get hard to hide them from anyone who might get nosy and poke into his room. They shouldnât. His act was perfect, as far as Will knew nobody suspected that the knock on his head hadnât done as much damage as they all seemed to think. You could never be too paranoid when you were trying to destroy a mob boss from inside the house, though. There still wasnât enough, though. Not enough to bring down the empire that his father had built. Not on his own. Not without the right person alongside him, working from the outside. Someone smart. Someone tough. Someone who wouldnât be intimidated by his father.
Until then, heâd watch. Heâd wait. And someday, when his father least expected it, heâd move.