10
I t’s damn good to be back. I ran my hands across the maple wood desk and relaxed back into the leather chair that’s soft like butter, then opened the top drawer of my desk, took out a cigar, and struck a match as my boys watched on, waiting for me to speak. My cousin Gunner took his spot leaning against the wall by the gold-plaited framed painting of a voluptuous 19th-century woman lying on a bed with the white sheet fallen away from her left breast.
It’s the first breast I’ve seen in three years that wasn’t ripped out of a porn magazine and glued onto a cellmate’s wall. But it’s still not better than the real thing.
On the other hand, Ronan sat opposite me, looking nervous, as if he wanted to make a good impression after overseeing this place for the last three years. So far, so good. As long as there were no surprises for me because he knew how much I despised surprises. There was nothing I hated more than important information kept from me, only to be revealed when I least expected it.
Freddie and Betty stood by the nearest exit, probably because they couldn’t stay long, as they needed to get back to the club. They were smiling, pleased that the boss was back, but I knew Ronan had done a fine job because he wouldn’t move a stapler without my say-so.
All eyes were on me as I took a therapeutic pull of my cigar, enjoying the sweet, smoky flavor before blowing out the smoke. Betty stepped to the drink cabinet and poured me a whiskey, like old times, as if I’d never been away.
“Looks good,” I finally admitted, although I hadn’t been downstairs in the club yet since I came in the back entrance, eager to reclaim my office while Ronan moved back to his office next door.
“We’d need to go over a few things with you,” Betty smiled with those scarlet-painted lips. She wore the same perfume, and her jet-black hair was pulled tightly back into a long ponytail. For some reason, she always had a thing for pinstriped suits with ties. She placed the crystal glass before me and brushed fake lint off my tie and jacket before giving me a peck on my cheek and whispering, “Good to have you back, Mikky.”
We poached Betty from our Larsson club, infuriating my Aunt Sylvie, who ran that club, but we didn’t regret it one bit. Ronan updated me every prison visit about how fantastic she was for the business.
“Thank you, Betty. It’s damn great to be back,” I swallowed back my anger with whiskey, but it was less satisfying than I had hoped. Cheap, overly sweet orange juice had ruined my tastebuds.
“We’ll be downstairs. " Betty was masterful at reading the room, and she knew I’d want to speak to the boys alone before I attended to club business.
I waited a couple of beats for the door to close after them before offering Ronan and Gunner whiskey and cigars. Gunner took a cigar while Ronan helped himself to a whiskey. Some things never change.
Relaxing back into the chair, I was trying to get my head around the fact that it’s been three years, and I didn’t have to smell or see the concrete walls of a prison cell ever again. Nor did I have to see the faces of the prisoners. Most were lowlife losers who needed discipline and a purpose, but that world was behind me, and there was no way in the cesspit of hell I would ever go back there again. But I couldn’t get past the fact that a little traitor set me up.
Now where o where is the little traitor?
“So…” I began, signaling for Gunner to sit in the chair beside Ronan so we could conduct a meeting. “Fill me in.”
Ronan slowly shook his head. “Been running smoothly. Can’t think of any major problems that I haven't already told you about when I visited you in prison.”
“Yeah,” I focused my attention on Gunner squirming in his seat while taking another pull of my cigar, reminding me of the old days when I’d sit on the opposite side of the desk, speaking confidently with Lars, my uncle. “You visited me more than my own family, Ronan.”
“C’mon, Mikky,” Gunner groaned.
“Forget it,” I stated, removing my jacket and placing it on the back of the chair. “I don’t hold grudges.”
Ronan frowned in disbelief.
“That was a joke,” I replied, loosening my tie as the office filled with smoke. “Prison humor.”
I hadn’t worn a suit for three years, and although the luxurious fabrics felt like a dream against my skin and I relished the authority an expensive suit gave a man, the restriction around my neck from the tie might take a while to get used to again.
An awkward silence fell, which I detested as if my boys struggled to find the words to fit the situation. “I’m the same man I was before I was screwed over…just maybe a little less trusting and a little more enraged.” I shrugged, took a deep pull of my cigar, and blew the sweet smoke out in ringlets.
“You look like you’ve lost weight, though, Mikky,” Gunner finally spoke, making me smile.
I relaxed into the chair and cocked my head at my cousin, who carried a sinisterness that I hadn’t noticed on the rare occasions he visited me in the slammer. “Sticky fucking porridge and wet, tasteless cauliflower does that to you. Besides, I didn’t trust that the food wasn’t spiked with something.”
“Yeah? Fuck,” he hissed, those dark eyebrows dropping low over his brown, narrowed eyes.
Now, he’s older, and all that puppy fat was gone; I could see his father in him. Mr. Kaiser, my uncle, was loyal to a fault and expected the same in return and damn good at siphoning out the defectors under the guise of allies, and I suspected his son was similar.
“Enemies within,” I stated, pulling my cigar as they watched me closely. “And enemies without.”
“No enemies in here,” Ronan assured me. “We made sure of that.”
“As Mr. Kaiser always said…there’s only one distinct difference between an enemy and an ally,” I reiterated as Gunner nodded his head in agreement, eyes gleaming in pride at the mention of his father, my uncle.
“How easily they’re bribed,” Gunner answered.
“That’s right,” I sipped my whiskey, still unimpressed with the flavor, although the alcoholic kick was needed.
“It was shit, Mikky,” Gunner hissed, preoccupied by the memories.I’ll never forget the look on his face when the first time he visited me in prison, and I was brought out in the orange jumpsuit, chained wrists and ankles. That look of dismay and shame on his young face almost fucking killed me. “What went down was fucking shit.”
“How old are you now, Gunner? Eighteen, nineteen?” I asked my cousin because he’s shot up, almost as tall and broad as me.
He has the same raven black hair as his father and I and the same sharp brown eyes that turned predatory in a flash.
Whereas Ronan had Irish features – thick brown hair swept back, green eyes, and a sharp jaw that pulsates when he’s suppressing his fury. His calm demeanor was a welcome addition to the hot-headed Kaiser temperature, and I was confident he would come through for me.
While I was otherwise disposed of for three fucking years, Ronan’s cool and rational temperament helped harness Gunner’s compulsiveness. He’s clean-shaven and neatly dressed for work in a white buttoned shirt tucked into black dress pants, whereas Gunner was a little rough around the edges in sweatpants, a T-shirt, and black tattoos crawling down his arm.
“Yeah, nineteen,” Gunner replied in that deep voice, a man’s voice.
“How long have you had those?” Pointing my cigar at his tatts.
“Since…” he swallowed and looked away momentarily to compose himself. “My first piece was when…she…” His pupils dilated and clouded in rage, and he took a strong pull of the cigar, looking like he was gagging for something stronger, but liquor was not his vice. “When you got arrested.”
“She,” I exhaled as the base of my spine twinged from the thought of her. “ Her . I assume you haven’t found her, or you would’ve told me.”
Ronan turned to Gunner, waiting for him to answer, and my hopes rose. “Gunner reckons she’s at Gotland-”
“I’m not so sure,” Gunner interrupted.
“Really?” Ronan questioned in surprise. “Since when.”
“I’m not hundred percent sure anymore,” he clarified. “Most of her features are different…like different hair and eye color, but her smile and the way she walks…yeah, I don’t know. I need more evidence.”
“She’s a student at Gotland?” I pressed as Ronan shot me a doubtful look.
There were several conversations between Ronan and me behind bulletproof glass about Gunner’s infatuation at seeing Annika in every second girl who crossed his path. And then, on the rare occasion when Gunner would visit me, he’d tell me about some girl he started following and investigating, who he believed was Annika in disguise. The next time he’d visit, it’d be a different girl and the last obsession forgotten.
“Yeah,” he shrugged and took another pull of his cigar. “Sophomore, same as me, but I need to learn more about her.”
“Have you got a name?” I asked, not because I thought he had found her but because it prompted my sullen cousin to open up and talk to me.
She was working with the Larsson Police Department and FBI to set me up and organize her protections and new alias. It was likely planned months beforehand, which is why it hurt us so badly, but in the end, the police got it wrong, and with the best legal team money could buy, I was released and charges dropped.
He hesitated, and I read his mind about why. “Gunner, I’m not planning on hunting her down or sending a liquidator her way,” I reassured him. “I’m curious. What’s her name?”
“Riley Laws,” he finally replied.
“Apart from her ass, what else about her that makes you think she’s Annika?” I pushed, draining my glass and topping up Ronan’s glass, then my own.
“She does have a nice ass,” Gunner replied as a little smile wormed across his face. Finally, the conversation was warming up, and their postures relaxed, dispelling the awkwardness of history.
Ronan snorted behind his whiskey glass. “Sounds like you just need a girl to wet your wick.”
“I can get any girl I want, but I don’t want any girl,” he argued, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair.
“Do you want this girl? What’s her name again?” I teased.
“Riley,” he replied, slinging his arm behind his chair. “That’s all I’m saying.”
I swirled the whiskey in my glass. “Do you want Riley? Huh? Want some action with the girl?”
“I’m saying nothing,”
“As long as you both stay away from the staff. Number one rule…no fucking the staff,” I asserted as if they didn’t already know, but it was worth reminding clueless young men to keep their cocks clean.
“C’mon, Mikky, you know glitter girls are not to my taste,” Gunner replied, and I believed him. I suspected he put little value on jewelry, sequins, and scarlet lipstick.
“Now, I’m back. The rules will be reinforced under my watchful eye,” I warned. “Got it?”
“Absolutely, boss,” Ronan replied, and I flicked my hand at him.
“No one in this room calls me boss. Outside of this room…is a different story. Because the boss is back, and I’m taking no fucking prisoners.”
“Is that prison humor again?” Gunner hit, making me smile.
“Right,” I drained the glass, clapped my hands together, and pushed back my chair to step to the safe behind the painting. “Let’s get down to business. First, I want to go over the books. Second, we will take back what was stolen from us.”
“What do you mean?” Gunner asked with the cigar hanging from his mouth.
“For every hour of every day, while I was dehumanized in that fucking prison, there were two debts that plagued my mind. So I replayed the events over the last four years.” I paused a few seconds to remember the code for the safe that I opened three or four times per day, yet the numbers weren’t coming to me. Three fucking years had killed my memory.
Too stubborn and proud to ask Ronan, I wavered for a few seconds until the code finally hit me. I pressed the numbers, and the safe door popped open. Good. The code hadn’t been changed, and Ronan had kept everything as if I just left a moment ago instead of three years ago.
“One,” The books were neatly stacked, thanks to Ronan, and I took them out and shut the safe door. “Hunting down who killed your father, Gunner? Then, making them pay.” I placed the books on the desk and took my seat. “And two. Find the girl.”
“What are you going to do when we have her?” Gunner asked, probably because he was the only one trying to find her.
“Don’t know yet. Ask me again when you bring her in here,” I answered honestly, as my chest tightened even at the thought of that moment when I found it was her that snitched.
Ignoring the intense silence in the room and the pang of tension in my chest that became a permanent infliction while in prison and the only way I could relieve that brick-like sensation was punching the bag in the gym until sweat profusely poured from my skin and my muscles became fatigued.
I exhaled, trying to put everything behind me, but it was three years of my life. Three years wasted in that place condemned of something I didn’t do. It’s not going to be easy moving on when the real killer hasn’t been found, and the police don’t seem to be in a hurry to convict anyone. Apparently, the only suspect they had was me. They didn’t try to pursue any other leads.
It screamed a setup. Mr. Kaiser was a headache for the Larsson Police Department, so they were relieved to have him gone. The second person on their hit list, though, was me, and that’s why they cooked it up to make me look like the guilty party.
But I had an alibi they ignored, and I also had family, friends, and employees to vouch for me. Instead, they chose the word of a sixteen-year-old girl, Annika Kaiser.
Mr. Kaiser’s adopted daughter, who I suspected was being blackmailed all along, said she saw me there on the day of my uncle’s murder. She was allegedly the only reliable witness who saw the killer fire the gun. And if that was true, which it wasn’t, then she knew it couldn’t have possibly been me.
Yet, the Larsson Police Department took her lying word over a hundred others.
If it looked and smelt like a rat, it probably was a fucking rat.