Undercover Read Online Free Page A

"United."
    "Right."
    "Always have been. No offence, like."
    "Hey, I wasn't always a City lad myself."
    The driver perked up a little. "Aye?"
    "I followed Liverpool when I was a kid."
    "Oh." He went back to his paper.
    Rory turned to Lydia and crossed his eyes, his signature expression of exasperation.
    "What are youse having?" The elderly lady's voice clawed its way out through a sixty-a-day ravaged throat. She hadn't moved from her spot behind the counter. Probably would have been too much for her lungs to handle.
    "Three fries," Rory said.
    Lydia cut in. "Make that two. I just want some tea."
    "Ach, come on," Rory said. "When in Andytown..."
    "I ate a big breakfast earlier."
    "But we might be—"
    "Just tea, please."
    Lydia turned away from Rory and fiddled with her phone. She imagined him giving his cross-eyed look to the driver. Let him put it down to PMT . Her phone vibrated in her hand and squawked the chorus to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance .
    Lydia stared at the display. Private number. It was them.
    "Jesus, Lydia," Rory said. "Lady Gaga? Do us all a favour and answer it, will you?"
    She jolted upright and was out the door before her toppled chair hit the linoleum.

Chapter 3
    ––––––––
    I t's hard not to feel sorry for some of the international players. A few of these guys really do miss the family they left behind. It can be tough. They must get at least a little comfort from drying their tears with fifty pound notes, though.
    Rory Cullen, CULLEN: The Autobiography
    ––––––––
    C ormac waited: controlled, quiet, calm. He was back at the round table in the kitchen, seated at O'Neill's instruction. The boss paced a short stretch of tiled floor on the opposite side of the table. His natural boxer's strut did not go unnoticed. Cormac predicted that fists would fly before the end of their chat.
    "I'm still trying to understand why you would pistol-whip my cousin." O'Neill said. "Do you want to help me out at all?"
    Cormac took a deep breath and sneered. He leaned forward to occupy more of O'Neill's field of vision. "I thought your cousin was going to kill the child."
    "Ach, wise up. He just got smacked about a wee bit."
    "The kid was on the floor and that fat shite was hoofing kicks into his chest. If Mattie's not got broken ribs I'll—"
    "Mattie, is it? Did you make friends with our wee hostage last night?"
    "I barely said two words to him."
    "That right?"
    Cormac sat back in his chair and folded his arms. He nodded.
    O'Neill planted his hands on the table and bent at the waist. He eyeballed Cormac. "Because you seem to be getting on better with the hostages than you are with the rest of the crew. You smart-mouthed Frank last night, tried to kill Paddy—"
    "It'd take more than a bang—"
    "Don't interrupt me."
    Cormac reeled in the urge to argue his case. O'Neill wasn't ready to hear from him yet, even if this was a questioning. Cormac realised he'd be better off shutting the fuck up until the boss man finished ranting. Cops or robbers, it didn't matter. When your superior got in a mood, it was usually best to say as little as you could until it let up a little.
    "You think you're a cut above the rest of us. Don't you? Just because you've a couple of dissident connections you reckon you should be running the show here. I've put you at the bottom for a reason, son." His decibel levels hit a sudden spike. "So why don't you lose the fucking attitude and learn your place here? Or do you want me to knock that smirk of yours off your smug fucking face!"
    O'Neill swiped a string of spittle from his chin with the sleeve of his sweater. His mono-brow had formed an obtuse v-shape during his ball-chewing. He thumbed the little patch of coarse hair that joined his two eyebrows as if they needed manual adjustment to level out again. It seemed to do the trick too. He rolled his head like he was working the strain of a full-on bout of sparring from his bunched shoulders.
    Cormac took this post-fight display as