I grinned at that. “We do. But we need people, Uncle. The more people, the more power. A rich man isn’t powerful if he has no people. He isn’t a king if he controls no one.”
“So what is it you’re thinking?” Uncle Declan questioned, turning away from the map to face us. “We can’t trust the Irish. We can’t trust the Italians. Then what?”
“Family,” I answered back. “We trust family. You know I’m not the thinker. That’s Ethan.”
Taking the remote, I held it up to the map and clicked it once, watching as the glass over the map highlighted our state of Illinois before zooming into Chicago, breaking up the city by zones. “Before leaving, Ethan apparently was thinking about this plan.”
They both looked but didn’t seem to get it.
“He wants to spend almost five billion dollars redoing these neighborhoods?” Uncle Declan asked, glancing at the costs that were calculated in all of the zones. The amount of money he was willing to spend was insane.
“Is he trying to run for governor in a few years?” Uncle Neal snickered, shaking his head. “He really doesn’t need to do all of this.”
“You all really don’t get it.” I chuckled, enjoying the fact that, for once, they were the idiots in the room.
“Do explain, oh wise one, why your bother wants to spend a few billion redoing the ghettos,” Uncle Declan snarked.
“With pleasure,” I replied in the same tone, finishing off my drink.
“He’s recruiting,” I didn’t have a chance to say, because in walked Darcy, dressed in an all-black dress shirt and black trousers. Behind him was Sedric, dressed in grey trousers and a navy dress shirt.
“You’re both late,” I said, more annoyed that they killed my moment than anything else.
“Apparently, I needed a haircut,” Sedric muttered, running his hand through his shorter and styled black hair. “I feel like I’ve aged.”
“That’s the point,” Darcy replied. He shook his head as he walked in, moving to the bar just as his father did. “No self-respecting man should be walking around with in his hair in a ponytail.”
“Someone is just jealous of my God-given good looks,” Sedric grinned as he threw himself on the couch next to me.
Darcy snorted, kind of the same way Nana had. “Yeah, that was the real reason… deep down I’m dying to be a twenty-five-year-old half-Korean man with a ponytail and no rhythm.”
“What is going on, and don’t you have workouts today?” Uncle Declan cut Darcy off as he sat on the arm of the couch beside me.
Darcy looked at his father for a minute and then back down at me. “Are you going to tell them or not?”
“Seeing you came late and cut me off before I could, have at it, Cuz,” I replied.
He drank first before saying, “I’m retiring from the NBA.”
“You’re what?” Uncle Declan repeated slowly.
“Dad, I’m retiring—”
“I heard you the first time,” Uncle Declan shouted at him. “I’m trying to figure out why a healthy twenty-four-year-old retires from something he loves.”
His eyes shifted to me. “Would you care to explain, Wyatt?”
“I can speak for myself, Father,” Darcy snapped back at him. “But I’m not able to answer your question because I don’t know why a healthy twenty-four-year-old retires from something he loves. After all, I don’t love basketball. I played because Ethan told me to do something outside of the family. I’m stopping because Ethan asked if I could come work with the family. It is my family, too, isn’t it? I have a right to choose whether I want to be in the family business or not, don’t I?”
Uncle Neal sighed, trying to cut in. “Darcy, this isn’t a game—”
“When has it ever been a game?” Sedric questioned, his tone much more serious as he sat up, looking to his father. “Father, you’ve been training us since we were children. How to fight, how to shoot, what it meant to be a Callahan…what it means to the family of the Ceann Na Conairte. You taught us to be loyal. So here we are. Why are you confused? You made us this way.”
Silence.
It was so thick and heavy that it was suffocating.
“Uncle Neal, Uncle Declan,” I spoke up, leaning forward. “You married outside of the Irish. Just like my father. Except the only difference was that my father worked to bring the Italians up, too. They spent millions to make sure no Irish or Italians found themselves living in the ghettos. They uplifted their people. Uncle Neal, you said things never changed in the mafia, that isn’t true. You changed them. Both of you did. The Irish and Italians keep thinking we need them. But the truth is, they forgot why they need us. Ethan’s plan is our parents. The Blacks and the Asians are our people now, too. Our family is mixed. Our people will be mixed. Sedric and Darcy already have the star power, people love them. No one will think twice if they find out they are retiring to dedicate themselves and their ‘inheritances’ to fixing ‘their communities.’ In fact, people will love them. While that is happening…”
I looked to Darcy to let him explain, but also to make sure he understood as well.
“While you all are taking care of the southern cartels, Sedric and I will be building our own…when you build up the community, gangs break up. A lot of them are lost, and society isn’t going to take them back…they’re going to need a new leader.”
“You’re going to have them follow you,” Uncle Declan replied, his voice emotionless. “You’re going to be the head of former Black gangs, and Ethan is going to be the head of you, making him control the Blacks, the Asians, the Irish, and the Italian. Is he going to have you marry a Spanish woman, too, so we can have the whole diversity spectrum?”
“No one is making me
