49. Cairo
FORTY-NINE
cairo
“Save some arancini for the rest of us, you animal,” my oldest sister, Carina, scolds, slapping the top of Reeve’s hand as he plucks another rice ball coated in breadcrumbs with his fingers. “You’re twenty, don’t you know your manners?”
Reeve pops the whole ball in his mouth and with his mouth full shrugs. “Nah, Luisa was supposed to teach me, but hers dropped out like she did in school.”
My second sister, Luisa, chuckles, used to Reeve fucking with her every chance he gets as he grabs another piece of arancini while still having a plate full of pasta in front of him.
“You’re unteachable,” Torin quips, across the table from us, eating all of Mamma’s homemade Italian cooking that she made tonight for us.
“And you’re so rude that not even God himself can’t right you, Torin Wildes,” Lusia jeers through a dainty bite of her risotto, her lips curled into a pink-stained smile.
“Luisa Black,” our mother chides at the end of the table. “Be nice to the boys. Why are you girls always starting arguments at the dinner table?”
“Because these boys don’t have anyone else to keep them in line, Avena,” my father professes at the other side, waving his fork between the three of us. “They run around, breakin’ hearts and causing ruckus.”
“They should spend more time here eating good food and going to school.”
“We do go to school, Mamma,” I claim—sometimes. I got no reason to hit the books and fucking study my ass off because I know what I’m going to be doing with my life and it’s not community service but illegal drug running.
“Lorenzo,” Mamma coos. “Is this what we’re teaching them?”
Pops shrugs. “What do you mean?”
“Marrying girls who?—”
“Aw, Ma, don’t start up that shit again,” I profess as Reeve chuckles next to me. “We’ve been through this.”
“And I don’t like it.”
“Ma, I’m not marrying Vivian Muncy.”
“Then why are you keeping her around?”
Because you won’t let me kill her like I want to.
“Don’t worry, Miss Black,” Reeve vows for me, gnawing on a breadstick. “We got everything worked out.”
Mamma looks over the sandy-haired, pain in the ass, and smiles at him.
She loves Reeve, always has. She’s taken him in when his mother wasn’t one and after his sister died, Ma has kept him under her wing. She loves to cook for him because everything she makes he eats like a human vacuum cleaner.
“Boys, meet me in the study,” Pops orders, dabbing at his chin with a cloth napkin. “We have a few items of business to discuss.”
Torin steals a glance at me, and I give a light shrug of my shoulders. He hasn’t said anything to me about anything new.
“Lorenzo, let them eat first. The boys look like all they’ve eaten is hamburgers and fries all week.”
Reeve nestles back into his chair, content with not breaking his meal for a meeting while Torin and I are brainstorming what the hell is coming down the pipe.
“You wanna hurry up?” I mutter to him. “I want to get this over with.”
“Chill, bro, your dad looks cool as a cucumber.”
“Torin, how’s football?” Ma asks. “You don’t talk about it much anymore.”
Torin shifts in his seat, fully aware that Ma loves listening to him speak about the game, and now that we’re older, he’s more focused on our plans than the sport.
Plus, he dropped out of college his freshman year and still hasn’t mentioned it to Ma yet.
“I don’t play anymore, Miss Black. I’ve been focusing on other pursuits.”
“Already screwed half the cheerleading team, huh, Wildes?” Luisa asks over her wine glass.
“ Luisa ,” Mamma chides. “You’re a lady.”
My sister laughs, because she speaks worse than Torin and Reeve combined. She actually reminds me a lot of Bay in a way with the way her mouth likes to push people’s buttons and moods.
Torin doesn’t answer my sister, always respectful when Mamma’s around, but he gives her a wink, which makes her chuckle with a slight shake of her head.
Pops rises from his chair, prompting us to follow him and Reeve takes his plate and fork with him as we excuse ourselves from the table.
“Dessert is in ten minutes, Lorenzo,” Mamma conveys. “The boys?—”
“We’ll be back in nine, Avena,” Pops calls out from down the hall toward his office.
Inside, we all take our normal seats—Reeve on the couch, sprawled out like a cat with his feet lounged over the whole damn thing. And Torin and I take the leather seats respectfully in front of Pops’s desk as he sits behind it.
“You boys doing alright in The Landings?” Pops asks. “I heard that abomination is back.”
Torin bobs his head, acquainted with the nickname that my father gives his older brother, Ramsey. “He’s back, working closely with Emilio on their new little crew of gangbangers.”
“The Void,” I fill in. “A bunch of assholes from the West Coast who only know how to do drive-bys and steal product.”
Pops clicks a pen annoyingly against the bottom of his thumb. “Any word on why he’s building another crew when he already has one?”
“I think Emilio thinks with two gangs, he has a better shot at South Shore,” Torin replies. “That…” He steals a quick look at me. “And I think he sees how loyal the men are to us three.”
“Good.” Pops bobs his head in satisfaction. “We’ll obviously need that. This leads me to my next point…Bay Astor.”
My next exhale freezes in my lungs, and I know Torin’s and Reeve’s bodies did something similar because the tension in the room is immediate.
It’s not a conversation any of us have been able to agree on.
“What about her?” I prod calmly. “Besides that, she’s becoming a problem.”
“How?”
“Stole our guns and she’s… Emilio’s daughter.”
Pops’s brow quirks, but he doesn’t look the least surprised at the last bit. “She’s trying to do what now?”
“Didn’t you hear the last thing I said?”
He nods. “I did, and I already knew that.”
Wait…the fuck?
“What do you mean?” I press. “Why wouldn’t you say anything about Emilio having a fucking daughter? That’s shit we could’ve stopped.”
“You were going to stop Emilio from searching for a daughter you weren’t supposed to know about?” Pops asks calmly with a lifted brow.
“Still would’ve been nice to know since my Titan seat is in the balance,” Torin grinds out.
Pops still appears undisturbed. “She won’t take the seat.”
Okay, I’m confused.
From where I’m sitting, he’s never met her before, nor have they spoken.
“I’m a little surprised that you’re so trusting of someone who can change the shift of power as we know it,” I quip as placidly as I can. “So, there must be something more you’re not tellin’ us.”
“Because she’s Levi Wallace’s girl,” Pops asserts evenly. “And I don’t have to tell you how important it is to stay out of Wallace’s way.” He keeps his hard scrutiny on Torin, already privy to what he did last week when he kidnapped the King of South Shore. “You almost blew the whole thing out of the water if you would’ve done more than what you did besides abducting him.”
“He stole from us,” Torin counters with as much edge as he always does when we speak of South Shore and, as of late, Bay Astor.
“And it was your dim-witted brother who had his shit transported onto their ports. Your days of being your dad’s errand boy are through. If you want your own legacy of kindness and community, you won’t work for Emilio Wildes, son. Because I’m here to tell all three of you, once and for all again, that I didn’t frame Penn Northcott. I don’t talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. And there’s been a lot of moving parts along the way to fix what’s been broken.”
“Emilio,” Reeve mutters from behind us then comes up to stand at Pops’s desk so Torin can see him. “Emilio did it and we’re still in the dark.”
Pops nods. “Yes. Your loyalty was to your family. I wasn’t about to outsource you just yet and fill your head with hate.” He slices his mocha eyes to Torin. “You…I had to wait to see what side of the coin you were going to land on. Your family doesn’t have a good track record, son. First Ramsey, then…” Pops stops and suddenly clears his throat. “Reeve, you’ve been through your own trials and tribulations with the disappears of your father and?—”
“He’s dead.”
Pops leans forward a bit. “You found a body?”
“No.” Reeve shakes his head. “I’m starting to look for him again. Something just…doesn’t feel right.”
“Then listen to your gut, son. I’ll enlist all the help and resources you’ll need.”
“Right,” I reply, wanting to help Reeve with everything I got within me, and I have, but Pops isn’t explaining the whole fucking story here. “We’ll get to the bottom of that, brother, and I’m not trying to cut you off here, but we need to discuss Bay being Emilio’s daughter. He’s trying to recruit her.”
Pop’s face of calm doesn’t falter. “He’ll fail.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Bay Astor is Roger Astor’s daughter, whether she’s his blood or not. He ran with that girl for years to escape Emilio’s wrath and took his own daughter with him as well. When The Nameless formed, Roger came back to South Shore and reclaimed his Titan seat. He gave up everything for that little girl.”
“Still doesn’t mean she won’t side back with Emilio to get to know him.”
Pops looks over at me. “What do you think she’ll do?”
Honestly, I don’t know.
I haven’t trusted any female as of late, but that has everything to do with Vivian and nothing to do with Bay.
Still, I’m not willing to risk it.
“I’m not sold that she’s not going to try to get her hands on The Landings,” I admit. “And with Emilio and Ramsey having The Void, it may start a civil war amongst ourselves.”
Pops glances over at Reeve. “And you? What do you think?”
Reeve stares at him, not willingly ready to nail her to a cross yet. “I think she hates Emilio more than we do,” Torin grumbles something under his breath before he continues. “However, if she is up to something, I think I can wear her down and get it.”
“Torin?”
He won’t look at Pops, his chin tucked into his chest. His own battle going on in his head. “I’ve known her to be with a man who doesn’t have our best interests in mind. However, I will say that at least Wallace isn’t a sleazy gutter rat. He mans up to what he’s going to do, and he has no problem announcing it.”
“But, the girl,” Pops returns, keeping his gaze locked on him. “Is she a threat?” Torin doesn’t answer him again. So, Pops helps him out. “Just because Emilio has power doesn’t mean she’ll want that kind. I knew when you blew up his cocaine warehouse in Newport that you weren’t going to bat with Emilio. I also never saw the same crazed look in your eyes like Ramsey. I’ve never seen you turn your back on your brothers”—he points to me and Reeve—“especially when Reeve dated that one blonde chick you had a crush on in tenth grade.”
Reeve snorts a little too proudly, as if reminiscing. “Annabella Sheridon.”
“I will beat your fuckin’ ass,” Torin leers, steering his famous glare at our best friend.
“Then there was that time Cairo wrecked your bike.”
“Clutch got stuck,” I mutter, and both fuckheads laugh because they both know I didn’t know how to ride the damn thing but did it anyway like a dumbass.
“Bay Astor stays off-limits to the lot of you until I say otherwise,” Pops declares. “I don’t want to shake up anything else in South Shore right now.”
Well, that rule is already broken, thanks to Torin.
“She’s runnin’ dope through The Landings,” I inform him. “And we don’t ever let that shit fly. That’s been the rule and Wallace knows that. Plus, we’re babysitting The Void to pull the Forsaken Crew deeper into Wharf Bay. She gets caught, she’s fucked.”
“I have no jurisdiction over Levi Wallace or South Shore,” Pops replies. “Roger has been very clear about that before he had his stroke. And Levi is extremely bitter over us working with Matteo De Leon.”
“We don’t work with Matteo,” Reeve argues. “We all fuckin’ hate him.”
“But Emilio is thinking about it,” I vouch, rubbing my fingers together. “And we look like a bunch of two-timing assholes.”
“Work your charm to get information, then,” Pops says.
“For how long?” Reeve asks, his mouth full again, and I don’t know how because his plate is empty; however, I wouldn’t be surprised if he loaded the pockets of his sweatshirt with breadsticks.
“For as long as it takes.” Pops glances over at me. “You stay out of it. We can’t lose Vivian. Muncy is going to lose his shit when we pull from Emilio, and you know what that means. Tack on that you broke his daughter’s heart, and you’ve already started your reign with two enemies on the side of the law.”
Irritation burns red hot in my veins, because we wouldn’t want to break the bitch’s pride or anything. “Got it. Anything else?”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep me updated on Emilio if he’s trying to make any moves on South Shore. And remember, if we want a place to stay Levi Wallace holds the key. I don’t want him to remember too many things that have your boys' names written all over it.”
Torin steals a glance at me, and I already know the story of him getting caught the other day in Bay’s garage.
He’s officially taken the spot of being worse than Reeve.
“Might be a little hard. He’s not gonna like us around Bay,” Torin growls out. “Dude has a boner for—” A loud explosion rattles the house and the windows from outside, followed by a second that’s equally as loud. Reeve is already sprinting to the source, with Torin and I on his heels.
Outside of Pops’s study, Mom and my sisters are yelling and shook by the veracious sound of violence because that’s what it is. No one would dare come to Lorenzo Black’s house and start shit.
Except for one person.
And that one person is currently taking bullets to the side of his navy-blue Chevy truck like it’s nothing.
Levi Wallace sits behind Torin’s black Benz that’s currently in a heap of flames, and I can feel his glower from yards away. How the fuck he got a pipe bomb or some other explosive under, in or on Torin’s ride without someone seeing it is beyond me.
Except when I see two dudes lying near the now burning vehicle.
I shove open the window to Pop’s study and yell out to the men running down the long driveway, too busy wanting to spill blood. “Get the dudes by the fuckin’ car!”
However, Levi doesn’t move. Not until Pops magically shows up behind us in the doorway of his house.
“I guess Levi Wallace wanted to make a point,” Pops says, almost musing as if he’s impressed with the motherfucker.
“And you said we couldn’t kill him?” Torin snarls out. “Because I have a feeling he knows what’s happening.”
Pops lays a hand on his shoulder. “If I asked, he’d deny it.”
Torin takes a step out of my father’s comforting gesture, his hands balled into fists. “I’m going to find out for sure.”
“Just don’t get yourself killed. You’re Emilio Wildes’s son and my protection only goes so far with Wallace.”
“ Stepkid . And I have no other loyalties but to my brothers…and that’s it.”