Chapter Ten #2
“I have security up the wazoo.” I gestured to the two bodyguards manning the door, who were standing very close to the Ferrantes’ own security detail. “Doubt they have the stamina to jump through all the hoops necessary to reach me.”
“And you don’t care much either way,” Vello observed in his thick Italian accent.
“No,” I agreed.
Life was a temporary inconvenience. Though I enjoyed good food, good liquor, and good pussy, I didn’t fear death.
“But you have a future wife to think about now,” Vello pointed out. “She’ll need security too.”
“My future wife has nothing to do with this.”
Luca shook his head. “Once she becomes your family, she is fair game. You need to make sure she is secured twenty-four seven. We can assign Filippo as her bodyguard. He’s our best.”
A better man would relieve Gia of her commitment.
Let her go.
Set her free.
Too bad I wasn’t that man.
Nonetheless, I could think of plenty of ideas I liked more than pairing her up with a six-five Italian stud. For instance, ripping out my own testicles and using them as a shower cap.
“No, thank you.”
“I’m gay,” Filippo said, reading my thoughts. “She’ll be safe with me.”
“I never pegged her to be dumb enough or you suicidal enough to cross that line.” I offered him a mocking smile.
“Fine.” I tossed an impatient hand. “I’ll have her guarded by Filippo and your men.
I want them around my building, around my apartment, around her room, inside her room.
I want them every-fucking-where she goes. Understood?”
They exchanged wry looks.
“Are you catching feelings, Blackthorn?” Luca asked.
“Au contraire.” I snarled. “I know how much she loathes the idea of marrying me. Death would be a punishment too light for what she did to me.”
Achilles tugged the waitress’s top down, examining her bare tits as you would a piece of raw steak before tossing it onto the grill. “I’d ask what she did, but life’s too short to pretend to give a shit.” He pushed the woman off his lap, waving her away. She didn’t make the cut.
“Do you have the Callaghans’ ear?” I asked.
“And their other bodily parts, if we wish to own them.” Achilles smirked.
“I want you to relay this message to them.” I leaned forward.
“I am a man of infinite darkness and no shadow. If they so much as breathe in my wife’s direction, forget touch, breathe , Hell’s Kitchen will earn its name.
Their businesses will be demolished, their women raped and slaughtered, their children sold off to the highest fucking bidder.
It’ll make the Battle of Towton look like child’s play.
I will take no prisoners. There’s no red line I wouldn’t cross. They better remember that.”
Heavy silence fell across the room.
Achilles was the first to speak. A gleam of amusement tinted his onyx eyes. “Message received and will be conveyed. Now, enough chitchat. Let’s reveal our hands.”
Achilles exposed an impressive flush. Luca spread three of a kind onto the fuzzy emerald table. I took my time before I flipped my cards, unveiling a royal flush.
Vello and Filippo exchanged knowing grins.
“What are the odds?” Vello clucked.
“Did you know that there is a 0.0001 percent probability of getting a royal flush?” Achilles’s low voice skulked out of his mouth, along with cigarette smoke. “If you had that kind of luck, you wouldn’t have grown up to be this fucked up.”
“It’s incredibly convenient,” Luca agreed. “Even more so when you consider Blackthorn put his empty glass of whiskey on the credenza behind our backs before the game to act as a mirror so he could see our cards.”
I offered them a sly smile but no words.
They saw through my tricks. I found more common ground with them than I did with CEOs and hedge fund managers.
“He won’t admit it.” Achilles studied me, baring his teeth. “Just as well. I want to give him his prize. I’ve been meaning to get rid of it for a while now.”
“The jackpot is all yours.” Luca gestured toward a terrified-looking pasty boy, no older than fourteen, who sat in the corner of the room, huddled with the rest of their human currency. “Fresh off an Irish boat and ready to be worked to the bone.”
I took one quick glance at the child. “Throw him in a boarding school. I’ll collect him when he matures. I’ve no use for him now.”
The kid belched and hiccupped with relief.
I turned to him, raising my finger in warning. “Study hard. Don’t do drugs. Do not fucking contact me unless you’re bleeding out. Do you have a family?”
He shook his head hysterically.
“You can’t spend the holidays with me,” I announced dryly.
He nodded.
“What’s your name?” I demanded.
“Brayden.”
“I’ll see you when you’re eighteen, Brayden.”
Luca tapped his chin, still mulling the game over. “That royal flush of yours, Blackthorn. Make sure it doesn’t happen again. We’re men of honor, and when you betray us, we become very unfriendly.”
“What can I say?” I stood up, snapping my fingers. One of my bodyguards hurried with my coat, ready for me to slip into. “I’m a lucky bastard.”