Chapter 28
I arrive forty minutes early.
That's not unusual for me. I don't walk into rooms I haven't had time to read first, and I don't sit with my back to a door if I can help it. They’re old habits from a world I left behind that turned out to be useful in every world that followed.
The Rosewood Bar on K Street is exactly what Luther's choice of venue tells me about him — dark oak, leather banquettes, a bartender in a white shirt who doesn't make eye contact unless you want him to. It’s a bar that costs enough to feel exclusive without being obvious about it.
The kind of place a man chooses when he wants to signal that he belongs somewhere above where he actually came from.
I'm in a corner booth with sightlines to the door, the bar, and the street beyond the window. Anton is at a table near the entrance, nursing a coffee. Gabriel is at the bar, back to the room, watching the mirror behind the bottles. Neither of them looks at me.
Forty minutes is a long time to sit with your own thoughts.
I've spent most of my adult life making sure I don't have to. Stillness has never been something I sought out.
Sitting here now, in the quiet before this showdown, I can't get her green eyes out of my mind. Everything I see in them is different now.
I'm going to make sure she’s free no matter what I have to do to make that happen.
Her quaint and humble plans surprised me. It says so much about her, so much about how little she was trained to want.
Somewhere along the way, on the balcony, in that hotel, hell, probably before, I started wanting to show her how to take up the space she fucking deserves.
That's what I want for her.
The only way I get anywhere near that is if I walk out of this bar today with Luther Vaughn as a problem I can manage separate from Marcus.
Luther walks through the door, and I glance at my watch. Ten on the nose.
He's younger than me by a few years. Blond. Good-looking in the way that comes from never having had to fight for anything. His jacket is expensive. It says he's been spending toward a version of himself his father never got to be.
Ray was a man of means, but not of luxury.
Luther clocks Anton at the door without looking like he noticed him. He absorbs Gabriel at the bar the same way.
His mouth curves slightly, knowing I was careful enough to bring men. It shows my vulnerability. But I’ll be damned if I choose to stroke my ego over returning to everything that matters in one piece.
Luther slides into the seat across from me and signals the bartender with two fingers before he's even fully seated.
"Rio," he says, like we're old friends.
"Luther," I say, like we're not.
He leans back in the banquette and takes me in with the ease of a man who has been the most powerful person in every room he's ever walked into. The problem with that kind of confidence is that it doesn't prepare you for rooms where that isn't true.
This is one of those rooms.
The bartender arrives with two glasses of amber liquid. Luther didn't ask what I was drinking; the bartender clearly knows his schtick. He ordered whiskey at ten in the morning.
He's either trying to impress me, or he inherited more than just good looks from his father.
Ray used to drink twenty-four seven.
Luther takes a sip, unhurried, and sets it down carefully.
"I appreciate you coming," he says.
"You didn't leave much room for a no," I reply.
He settles back like he owns the booth. "You look good. Better than I expected, given you’re almost forty.”
Pinche pendejo.
"I'm managing."
"I'm sure you are." He turns his glass slowly on the table. "You always did, from what my dad told me. My dad had a lot of respect for you. For what you built." He glances around the bar. "Though I imagine GhostEye looks a little different from the inside than it does from the outside."
GhostEye. He opens with what I am to him.
Not Delilah.
I thought for certain he’d immediately ask for her back. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe it wasn’t his man at the party.
Hopefully, this meeting only tries to solve one problem, not two.
The question is whether I'm a resource to him or an ante in his gamble with Iron Covenant. I need to know if he's told anyone else about what I've done. Particularly Marcus.
"It must have been strange inheriting all of Ray’s arrangements. Takes a certain kind of trust to hand priceless information over.”
Luther's mouth curves. "My dad trusted me with everything."
"Everything's a lot," I say. "Your father had a lot of people around him. A lot of ears. Maybe even a few contenders for succession.”
He laughs wryly. “As if.”
“The Ray I knew was a man of his word. We made a bargain. I kept my end.” I lean forward and stare into his soul. “Did he keep his?”
Who else knows about me besides Luther? Ray shook on it. This deal was between two men and two men only. If he told Luther, and only Luther, Ray would consider the deal honored.
“My dad was an honest man.” He says it, almost aloof, before becoming more serious. "And I understand information is only worth something when it's rare."
Rare isn’t good enough. My mother’s grave is rare, and still, we share it.
"Let me make this clear, Luther. I don't answer to every patched man in Sacramento. If this arrangement has an audience, it doesn't have me anymore. I’m out.”
Luther considers me for a moment, assessing me, deciding what to give and what to take.
He sets his glass down.
"I’m the only one who knows about you and what you’ve become," he says simply. "That's how my dad set it up, and that's how it stays."
I study him hard for any tell that he’s lying.
I believe him, not because he's trustworthy — he isn't. But because a man like Luther understands leverage, and leverage only works when it's exclusive. The moment he tells Marcus or anyone else about Jackal, it stops being his card to play. It becomes a shared asset. And then, the control slips.
Ray made sure the only person who could inherit this was someone who'd understand that.
And thank God Luther does. There’s one person who knows about me. One manila folder. Hopefully, one chance to find something just as substantial on Luther. He’s greedy. There will be something he doesn’t want out in the open as much as I want that manila folder buried.
Now I need time, but I have a feeling that’s exactly what I won’t be given since he set up this meeting.
He continues, easy and unbothered by the tension crackling between us.
"I'm not here to make your life difficult, Rio.
I want you to know that upfront. What my father had with you worked because it was mutually beneficial.
My dad got what he needed. You got your freedom.
" He pauses. "I want something similar."
"Your dad asked for names," I say. "Locations. Occasional intelligence on people he was looking for, and he didn't do it often."
Luther nods. "I want more than that."
My jaw clenches so hard it turns to stone.
He leans forward slightly, forearms on the table. "I want no restrictions. Not favors. Not the occasional name. I want to understand the landscape. Drug networks, distribution chains, who's moving what where. I want GhostEye's intelligence on my competition."
“Last time I checked, pot was legal.”
“Which is why it isn’t lucrative anymore. I’ve had to move into another area.”
Like meth. Like heroine. With Marcus.
He’s out of his mind. "That's a significant ask."
He sits back again. "I'm a significant person.”
He's going to use whatever I give him as currency with Marcus. Look what I bring to the table. And in return, he gets the reliable supply, Marcus’ wholesale prices. The territory will grow along with the drug crisis in Sacramento.
That men, and let’s face it, specifically men, because drug rings of any size aren’t run by women, can do this to innocent people around them is beyond me.
"You're asking me to give you intelligence on drug networks," I say evenly.
"Which means I'm not involved in petty crime anymore. I honored the deal I had with your father but this isn’t what I shook hands on. Why should I extend myself any further than I have? You burn me with the press, and you lose me at the same time.”
I want him to tell me about the alliance. I know it’s a long shot, but I have to try.
He considers me. And as expected, gives me nothing.
"Rio, if I burn you, I might go to jail.” His nostrils flare.
"But GhostEye loses faith and becomes a joke. You don’t think I know that every single Mendez has stock in that company?
Your family won’t be recognizable after a scandal like the one we have sitting between us here. ”
His threat makes me seethe. "You burn me, I take you down on my way out. I don't leave messes behind."
He shrugs as though he's already thought of it. "Make your move." Then he leans in closer. "But if you've operated as you have over the years to save your family, I can't see why they're suddenly meaningless to you."
This is a game of chess, and he knows it. I’ll let him believe he has me cornered. For now.
I need out of here. I got what I came for. He confirmed he’s the only one with information on my past. He doesn’t know where Delilah is, and he’s escalating with me to align with Marcus. That’s enough for now.
I placate him to finish the meeting, but make one last effort to see if he knows about the women.
"Just drugs," I lie. "I’ll extend it to that."
I study him. The buffed nails. The expensive jacket. A man who grew up in his father's shadow and spent his whole life deciding he deserves more than what the shadow offered.
He's allying with Marcus because he's watched another man's success from afar. Black Ridge wasn't built on the darkness Iron Covenant lives in. I need to know how far Luther is willing to go for more, and if he's in on the human trafficking.