1. Micah
Iwander along Wall Street in New York City and scan the road around us. I watch the cars that putter by, and study those parked in timed slots.
Some folks drive clunkers and wear thousand-dollar suits, while others drive a fuckin’ Maserati but wear sweatpants. It’s all relative, really. But it’s easy to tell who has actual money and brains, and who pretends they do.
I walk beside Felix, because he has a meeting today we must attend, which means I’m strapped to the nines, and my eyes get no rest. Our father is dead, and Lix is the new don, and even if he was not the perpetrator of the crimes Timothy committed while in charge, grudges run deep—not only among rival families, but within the Federal Bureau.
Felix is a target for many. So I am his protector. His enforcer. His front line, and the first that will fall when the time comes.
“Remind me again why we couldn’t do this at the house?” I wander closer to a parked panel van, closed up and seemingly empty. But I slam the side of my fist to the steel door and chuckle when those listening inside scramble backward and rock the vehicle on its chassis.
They think they’re slick.
With today’s technology, and the money flowing through the Feds’ building, it boggles my mind that they haven’t yet switched out the pedo vans for something a little more… discreet.
“Want us to bring you some coffee?” I turn and walk backwards, grinning when Special Agent Trueman slides the door open and pokes his head through the gap. He’s a fat, balding, older man, looking to make a juicy collar before retirement. But he won’t take Felix—not for as long as I remain a free man and guarding his back. “Strudel, maybe?” I suggest.
Trueman flips me off, his cheeks and jowls an ugly shade of red that implies blood pressure issues.
He should probably talk to his doctor about that.
“You’re an asshole,” Felix sniggers, grabbing my sleeve and spinning me back around so I can do my job properly. “You’re gonna be the reason he slits his own wrists.”
“Why? Because he’s a trained agent who hides behind telephone poles for a living?” I drop my hands in my pockets and scan the street once more. “Dude’s a fuckin’ dud. I’d say it’s time he turns in his badge, but I’m not sure I want them to assign a new suit to your file.”
“You don’t wanna get to know a new agent?”
“I don’t want to meet new people, period.” I clock Dustin at the end of the block and stand taller. “People annoy me. And leaving the house pisses me off.”
“You need to socialize more.” Felix straightens his spine, too. His words sound jovial, but his clenching jaw is proof that he understands the risks we take today.
He’s the second most powerful mafioso in the fucking country; with that role comes certain dangers. We’ve conducted business inside our clubs for decades. We’ve struck deals at our dining table more times than I can count. We’ve controlled our world, and as such, we’ve remained safe.
But Dustin wanted a meet on the street. And call me a fuckin’ cynic, but that feels like bad juju.
“I don’t wanna socialize,” I grit out, low enough that only Felix can hear. “Why are we in public?”
“Pastore’s with the fishes. Folks are feeling a little jittery right now.”
“Pastore was a bitch who came for your girl. Men don’t survive that.”
“No.” Maniacal, Lix peers across and grins. “They don’t. But we still have business to conduct and a lifestyle to maintain. Especially now that we’re restructuring.”
He silences as we approach, then broadens his shoulders and allows his lips to curl into a faux-friendly smile. “Dustin Delamont.” He doesn’t offer his hand, but comes to a stop when four feet still separate him and the other man, and sets both hands on his hips.
Felix has this way of being entirely friendly, but deadly at the same time.
It’s a skill I’ve never quite mastered.
Dustin’s eyes come to mine, his face paling when I don’t offer the same smile my brother does.
“M-Mr. Malone.” He brings his focus back to Lix and dips his chin in submission. “I really appreciate you coming to meet with me today.”
“Yes, well…” Felix’s jaw clenches behind the week-long growth he permanently boasts. “You owe me money, Delamont. And you’ve found yourself in a situation of hardship.”
“I-I owed your father money.” His eyes are milky blue, like the universe couldn’t decide whether to bless him with a perfect blue sky in the summer, or a muddy puddle after rain. Either way, they remain downcast. Afraid. “I was in business with your father, Mr. Malone.”
“And now he’s dead.” Felix drags his hand from his pocket and pulls out the silver blade I know he holds merely for something to fuss with.
Rarely, if ever, has he used it to slice a man’s flesh. It’s just a fidget to keep his restless hands busy. But those who stand opposite him don’t know that. All they see is a threat. A bowel-liquifying promise.
“Timothy is gone, Dustin. So now you’re dealing with me.” My brother studies the guy before us with his shrewd, green stare. “I’m certain you understand that your debts remain, even after Tim’s death.”
“Well, I’d hoped?—”
“Don’t,” I cut in. “Don’t hope, Delamont. Honor your obligations.”
“Y-yes, of course.”
Word has traveled already, I know, of what happened to the last man who thought his overdue bills would disintegrate the moment Tim’s body was tossed into the ground.
Fucking idiots.
“This is why I appreciate you coming today.” He angles his body, almost turning away, though he doesn’t commit to the full one-eighty and give us his back. “If you wouldn’t mind following me? I have what I hope is a payment that may satisfy you.”
“What did I say about hope?” I slap my hand to Felix’s arm to keep him in place before he starts off to follow the weaselly Delamont. “How far, Dustin?”
“Just a hundred feet.” He glances back and swallows, the shift of his Adam’s apple visible, even audible. “I can see it from here. But it would be best if we got closer.”
I look to my right, to the street that bustles despite the danger in the vicinity—the danger my brother and I represent. Then I look to the van at our backs that films every step we take.
They can’t read our lips from this angle, and even if they wanted to record our words, we carry our own equipment that scrambles anything they attempt to intercept.
The beauty of being us, and knowing the people we know, is that we have access to tech not even the Feds have yet. Felix made a deal with a she-devil to accomplish that.
So far, it’s a deal we’ve yet to regret.
“How many men do you have watching you, Delamont?” I tilt just my head and scan the buildings that stand tall around us. Catch the glint of guns from windows. The beady stare of a man who could kill my brother in an instant if he was on another’s payroll. “Dustin?”
“I’ve come alone.” Shaking, he peers down to the knife still in Felix’s hand. “I swear, I have no one looking over our shoulders.”
“Then come on.” Lix starts off, way too fucking relaxed for a guy who sits at the top of countless shit-lists. “I have somewhere I need to be in an hour. People are expecting me home for dinner.” He flips his knife closed and drops his hands into his pockets. “Talk to me about my new club. I want all the details.”
“O-okay.” Nervous, Dustin wrings his hands and trots along beside my brother. So I do my job and take up their flanks. “It, uh… it was originally a newspaper warehouse, actually. Most recently, a French restaurant. It’s, uh, not being utilized currently, because I don’t know how to run a restaurant, and I have no other need for it.”
“Wasteful,” Felix chides. “If you’d learned to better manage your assets, you wouldn’t be in debt to my family.”
“Y-yes, sir. Um… Fifty-five hundred square feet per floor, five floors total, plus a rooftop terrace. It was built in nineteen-twenty-one, and has a rich history, including celebrity visits by?—”
“I don’t care who has dined in your restaurant.” Felix glances across with a lifted brow. “Unless it was DeNiro or some shit, I don’t give a fuck. Market value?”
“It’s on the market for fifteen million dollars, Mr. Malone.”
Felix scoffs. “I could put my dirty skivvies on the fuckin’ market and ask for twenty million. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna get it.”
“I see your point, but a similar building only a few hundred feet further along the street recently sold for twelve-point-three,” he rushes out. “The market is commanding these prices easily.”
“Twelve-point-three…” Contemplating, Felix rolls his bottom lip between his thumb and finger. “You owe me ten.”
“Y-yes, Mr. Malone. So even though it’s on the market for fifteen, I’m willing to meet you at twelve. Since market history dictates?—”
“I’m not giving you change!” Felix laughs, dropping his head back and drawing attention from a couple who wanders by. “Fuck me,” he sniggers. “You actually think I’m going to hand you a wad of cash?” He shakes his head, eliciting a shame-filled droop in Delamont’s narrow shoulders. “The balls on you, bud! If I accept your offer—a building for your debt—then I’ll do so cleanly. You won’t get a fuckin’ payout, and I won’t slice your tongue off for disrespecting me.”
He comes to a stop outside the building that will soon become another Malone club, and looks up. “It needs work.”
“It-it’s a hundred years old,” Dustin stammers nervously. “But quality workmanship. The original ceilings endure throughout, with handcrafted designs, and all the windows—all but a small few, anyway—remain. Kitchen facilities are state-of-the-art. The fridge is industrial and functional. Living quarters make up the top two floors, and rooftop access belongs exclusively to those. There’s a security center in the?—”
“It’ll be replaced,” Felix cuts in, like a hot knife through cold butter. “Basement?”
“Designated parking. It’s secure, Mr. Malone, accessible only to those with clearance. There are bathrooms on each floor, and a vault on the ground floor, impenetrable by outsiders.”
“Password protected?”
“Passwords, keys, and fingerprints.” He swallows nervously. “This was a gentleman’s club for a short while. Uh…” Anxious, he drags his bottom lip between his teeth. “Tony Mancino once occupied this building, sir. He ensured it was secure for his needs.”
“How’d that work out for him?” Felix taunts, chuckling. “Mancino is dead. That why you’re no longer using it?”
“Pretty much.” He drops his hands to his hips and studies the ground beneath scuffed shoes. “I mean no disrespect when I say this, sir, but when the mafia occupies a building, that building takes on a certain reputation, making it difficult to sell later to a regular Joe Blow. They fear that the wrong kind of people might come around.”
“Kinda shrinks your target market, huh? You can only sell to the mafia. Mancino’s dead, Pastore’s dead… Cordoza doesn’t want it?”
Delamont shakes his head. “He has not expressed an interest in it, no, sir. Do you, uh…” he brings his focus up to the brown brick building jutting up between two others. “Do we have a deal?”
Delamont owes our family ten million dollars, and in the last six months alone, Felix has cost us hundreds of millions more as he’s shut down certain income streams our father enjoyed… because they offend my brother and the women who are slowly but surely sliding into our family. The studious Doctor Mayet—Archer’s wife—and Christabelle Cannon, who recently came along and took Lix’s heart for herself. Truly, she wields almost as much power over this city as the man she’s declared hers.
Neither woman wishes to change the man they fell in love with—mostly—but they sure as fuck frown upon certain corporate ventures. So instead of doing as Timothy did, taking girls against their wishes and selling them for a tidy sum, Felix has decided he’ll own clubs instead. Provide a stage that the willing can dance upon.
“Mr. Malone?” Delamont presses. “Do we have a deal?”
“We have a deal.” Felix turns to Dustin and shakes his hand, even though the latter didn’t offer. “This club belongs to me now. Sign the title over within the hour and walk the fuck away. You’ll never again step foot inside, and if I catch you around here, you’ll be dealing with my men, not me.” He releases Dustin’s hand and clicks his fingers, summoning a half-dozen armed soldiers from the shadows.
They’re his army. I… well, I guess I provide personal bodily protection, in addition to consultation.
“Stovic,” he glances across and meets the eyes of one of our men. “Escort Delamont to his home and secure the paperwork to transfer ownership of this building. Ensure you get the security center specs and the codes to both the garage and the safe. Then meet me at the house.”
“Yes, boss.” He grabs Delamont’s arm and pivots, his stance rigid and his movements robotic. “I’ll report back ASAP.”
“Good.” Then to me, “Come on.”
Felix starts forward, only to stop at the closed front door and the chains wrapped around the steel handles. He merely has to glance over his shoulder before Michaels steps up and plants his boot in the middle of the doors so the wood splinters and our building is officially, unceremoniously opened for us.
“This makes seventeen, Micah,” Lix murmurs.
With a nod, I follow him inside, through dust particles floating in the rays of daylight spilling into the otherwise dark club.
“Are you bringing Ace on board to redo the security center?” I meander at my brother’s side, my eyes scouring the club, the bar on one side and the tables sprinkled throughout. Many are overturned. Chairs are stacked against the walls. Glass litters the hardwood floor, and the tang of musty water tickles the depths of my nose. “Secure the building properly?”
“Yeah.” He reaches into his breast pocket and takes out a pack of cigarettes, his movements automatic.
He smokes out of boredom. Or stress. Or routine. Not necessarily because he has an addiction. He smokes because our father did the same in the boardroom, and just as I was trained from boyhood to fill my role in the family hierarchy, Felix, too, was placed at a table filled with grown men conducting business, and taught to copy them.
He lines his lungs with tar out of sheer habit. And pisses me off with every inhalation he takes.
“I’ll call her,” he flicks his lighter to life and sets the end of his cigarette ablaze. “See what she says about it.”
“And you’re cool dealing with…” I stop on his left and try not to breathe at all, “another family? We hardly know them, Lix. We don’t trust those we don’t know.”
“Doctor Cutie Pie seems to know them. And they’ve had our backs in the past when shit has gone sideways.” He brings the cigarette between his lips and draws a long line into his lungs. And while he strolls the first floor of his newest asset, the remainder of his security team runs a check throughout the building to ensure we’re alone.
They don’t need to be told what to do. They just know.
“Minka says they’re solid.” He brings emerald eyes my way, and through a plume of filthy smoke, his stare stops on me. “I trust Minka with my life.”
I turn away and laugh. “Brave.” Because I’m pretty fucking certain that Minka—aka Doctor Mayet, aka Archer’s wife—constantly walks a tightrope between wanting to keep Felix alive, and wanting to be the one to slit his throat. “You’re a brave, brave man, Lix.”
“Whatever.” He wanders toward the bar, which is essentially a divider cutting through a fifth of the entire bottom floor. “She loves me. And Christabelle would throw hands for me.”
He sets his hands on the bartop and leans closer to look over to the other side, while between his fingers, he holds the smoking cigarette. “You think this was a good deal, right?”
I roam between tables, studying the floor intently, or risk tripping over a chair and breaking my leg. But as a throbbing ache works its way through my hand, spontaneous, and yet, so fucking predictable, I press the pad of my thumb into my palm and work to massage the pain away.
“Micah?”
“Yeah.”
I bring my gaze up and find my older brother leaning against the bar, his eyes on my hands, and a single brow perched high on his forehead.
“Good deal?” he prods.
“Yeah.” I drop my arms and step around a toppled table. “I think Delamont is heading toward bankruptcy and was never gonna pay us back anyway. May as well take his club before he loses it to someone else.”
“You think it’s worth the ten million he owes us?”
I slip my hands into my pockets and grin. “I think it’s worth twelve, easy. He had other buyers ready to hand over the cash, but a little pressure applied in all the right places has left this open for us to benefit from. Let’s consider the two-million surplus his fee for late payment.”
I stop ten feet from where my brother stands and meet his eyes. “Get your paperwork in order today. Things may become complicated by tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a good investment to me.” He nods over my shoulder, beckoning a soldier forward so I feel the guy’s warmth to my left. “Report?”
“There’s no power to the building right now, boss. But Michaels is already on the phone, dealing with that. We’ll have a cleaning crew through here by the morning, and I’ll get permits within twenty-four hours so the city doesn’t make a fuss. After that, you’re all set to open the place up to the public.”
“Good.” He brings his cigarette closer and sucks on the end so the tip glows orange in the muted darkness. “We’ll call this place CeCe’s.” He exhales again and smirks behind the cloud of white smoke. “Christabelle will hate it.”
“Sounds like your relationship is built upon mutual respect and healthy boundaries.” Shaking my head, I chuckle and turn away. “Let’s go home. I have things I wanna do tonight. Ya know,” I glance over my shoulder and grin, “normal, legitimate, legal things.”
“Pleasant change of pace.” He takes one last long drag of his cigarette, then he drops it to the dirty floor and steps on it to kill the bud of fire. “Nerd.” He blows smoke in my direction and walks straight through. “How does it feel to be a fucking square in a family of badasses? You’re second only to Archer in the loser-lane.”
Archer is a cop. And I… well, I long ago learned to not take Felix’s immature barbs personally.
“I’m comfortable with who I am. And I’m making us money lawfully. Decent people would appreciate that fact.”
“Yeah, well…” He comes to stop by my side and claps my shoulder. “I think we can all agree I’m not a decent person.” He looks down at my hands once more as we start toward the doors. “You hurting?”
I pull my thumb away from the opposite palm, killing the massage I wasn’t conscious I was giving again, and dig both hands into my pockets. “Hurts when the weather is being weird. We just had that storm roll through last night, so I guess it’s adjusting to that or whatever.”
“Or whatever.” He squeezes my shoulder as we stroll onto the sidewalk outside. “Let’s get our names on these deeds and call it a day well spent.”
He peeks along the street and flashes a smile for the Feds who are, frankly, not very good at their jobs. “You should go inform them we didn’t even do anything illegal today.” He releases my shoulder and presents one middle finger for the van. “I’m proud of us.”