12. Imry
12
IMRY
There’s a fine line between knowing I could get in too deep and having already moved beyond the point of no return. I never considered myself a man who fell for someone quickly or easily. Then again, I don’t know that this was quick. It certainly was easy, though.
Haze is just… sweet without trying to be. He has a great laugh that accompanies a killer smile. I love his strength and how he so fucking easily picks me up, but at the same time will just as willingly let me take control of him. He’s intelligent and I’ve always thought intelligence was sexy.
I like that we have a few things in common but a whole lot of interests that we don’t share. It keeps conversations flowing as we constantly learn about each other’s likes, dislikes, hobbies, and everything else under the sun.
And of course, our sex is fucking mind-blowing. I’ve had what I considered good sex before. I never thought my sex life with Darren was lacking. It was good.
Since then, I’ve simply redefined what ‘ good ’ means to me. Now, I think our sex life had been fine. Sex with Haze is on a whole different plane. I don’t know if it’s because we somehow innately like the same things without conversation beforehand, or maybe something else entirely. Each time, even the non-penetrative acts of sex, just feel more … everything .
I have this feeling in my chest that we’re going to explore things that might not have crossed either of our minds before. From the very first time when I kept him motionless under me while I railed him as hard as I could, I knew sex with Haze was never going to leave me. I would remember it for the rest of my life and compare everyone else to him.
Which might be contributing to the weird possessive, jealous factor that I admit surprised even me. Maybe it’s all these things combined that have me teetering on the edge of getting in way too deep. This is obviously problematic since it was me who promised no expectations.
I pretend it doesn’t hurt when I feel the way Haze keeps some distance between us. I’m not even sure he’s doing it consciously. There are moments when I think he’s aware, like when we’ve hung out for three nights in a row and the fourth night, he says he’s staying in or hanging with his friends or something.
Then there are moments when I’m sure it’s a subconscious decision, like when he gets up to go to the bathroom and sits a few inches further away from me upon return. When I reach for his hand or place my hand on his leg, he pulls me against him with a smile.
After Haze mentioned the family he left, I did some reading. I was aware of the Anaheim situation because Loren’s single friend in the entire world called and asked him for some help with a problem. Loren was practically giddy, which is saying something because I don’t think he has that emotional capacity.
He told us what he was doing and Voss performed all the background scanning on Jessup Prosser, verifying this guy deserved to die. Although, truth be told, since Loren’s friend asked him to, I have a feeling we weren’t going to stop him.
Which is the reason the Van Doren’s dark underside is as prevalent as it is today. Dad made a decision when Loren was young that he wasn’t going to try to mold Loren into something he’s not. People might disagree with that decision. Society might disagree.
But Dad knew something we all came to know in time. You’re not going to change a person fundamentally. A person with very specific anti-social disorders will be violent or, if forced to suppress that violence, turns into a very bad person in other ways.
This way, Dad controls the environment for Loren to express those violent behaviors, arguably for the good. That’s where me, Voss, and my two/thirds triplets come in. Loren is indifferent to murder. We are not. We serve as his conscience, pointing him at a target that, as far as we can determine, deserves to die.
He doesn’t kill because it’s a Tuesday and he’s feeling stabby. He kills people who have done great wrong. These aren’t criminals who have slipped through the cracks of the law.
I suppose that’s not totally accurate. Probably a great deal of them have. That’s why someone has taken out a kill contract on them. But we don’t kill people because they’ve worked the system. We aren’t vigilantes.
We’re contract killers and yes, there is a difference. This meeting today probably isn’t a good example of that since it’s one Uncle Noaz called, and they do actually do more vigilante work than most of the Van Doren killers do. Or they did anyway.
I stare at the art on the wall because, of course, there’s art here too. This is one of the few that isn’t of a person. It’s our underground bunker. I’ve painted it in such a way that it’s made to look like an old map. The kind you find buried in walls or used as insulation under the floor when, in fact, it’s a blueprint of the mini-city we have built under this property.
Why? Because our great-grandfather was a bit of a doomsday prepper. Granddad indulged him and built something that wasn’t going to hold up against anything at all, so when Dad moved us home, like everything else on the property, it got a major overhaul. Dad always says if we’re going to do something, even something ridiculous, we’re going to do it right.
Speaking of Dad, the door opens, and he walks in, looking as rich and powerful as he always does. I swear, even when he’s wearing sweats, he still has that air about him. Of his sons, only Myro can pull off the same vibe. I have a feeling when it’s his turn to take over the empire, he’ll be just like Dad.
Although there’s a part of me that wonders if the principal of Van Doren Technologies will skip a generation entirely and move right to one of Dad’s grandchildren. I don’t see Dad retiring anytime soon. Not that the man is old by any means. Fifty isn’t old in today’s world. If you look at Dad with his boys, he barely looks older than Myro. Ten years maybe, but not twenty years.
Dad squeezes the back of my neck affectionately. “Why’re you so early?” he asks.
I shrug, shaking my head. “I was wandering around and ended up here. Thought I’d hang around since we have a meeting.”
He nods, his bright blue eyes studying me. Seeing everything as if it were written on my face in permanent marker. “All right,” he says.
“Jeannette go home?” I ask to change the subject.
I’m not fooling him. The corners of his mouth tick up a little. “She did. Two days ago.”
“To be fair, I don’t live in this house,” I point out.
Dad inclines his head. “True. How’s work?”
I sigh. “You think Loren’s serious about his ‘ retirement ?’ Because if he is, we’re either going to have to turn down more contracts than we do or shuffle some around a little more.”
“Aunt Calico’s daughters are about ready to go out on their own. They’ve been training for years.”
My mind wanders back to Thanksgiving. Was Aunt Calico there? I don’t remember seeing her or any of her kids. Oh, wait. I remember one of her grandkids, so that means at least one was there. There were a lot of faces. I probably talked to them and simply can’t remember.
We have a very, very large family. The great-great generation is dead, of course. But my great-grandfather had ten brothers and sisters. Great-great-granddad Alann had thirteen brothers and sisters. Massive families were the thing back in the day, not just because contraception wasn’t a thing, but because you needed kids to run farms and back when the triple G generation was on this land, it was almost entirely a working dairy farm.
Needless to say, Double-G-Granddad had other plans. He saw a different vision for the Van Dorens and began building our empire. It continued to grow with his children and then his grandchildren. Then Dad took over and the rest, as they say, is history.
“That’s good,” I comment.
“Our goal today is to encourage Loren to at least look into this assignment. Ideally, I’d like to see you two take care of this. However, if he’s unwilling, we need to come up with another plan and keep something on the back burner for Loren.”
“Avory and Ellory have a few they’re hanging onto,” I tell Dad. “I’m going to guess that they rotate them, so there’s always something on deck for Loren, but send out the oldest when someone is ready for their next contract.”
“You haven’t taken a look at contracts in a while,” he comments.
I think about the last time I actually did my job and frown. “No. Sorry. I’m slacking.”
“You’ve been painting,” he says.
I nearly wince. “Yes.”
Once more, he grips the back of my neck affectionately. “That’s okay, Im.”
We look out for each other. We support each other. We love each other unconditionally. I know that diving into my painting almost entirely means one thing to my family—I’m mentally checking out as a means to escape something.
Mostly, they’re not wrong. Except right now, I’m not sure I’m trying to escape something so much as obsessing. Perhaps those two feelings manifest in the same way.
The rest of my brothers begin to trickle in. The group ends with Uncle Noaz and baby Emerson.
“Starting him young,” Myro says as Uncle Noaz drops Emerson’s bag by the door. Our little nephew is sound asleep.
“Briar and his friends are playing in the lake,” Uncle Noaz says. “We thought this would be safest for a three-month-old.”
“I’ve read that it’s best to teach infants to swim as soon as possible,” Voss says. “Let them grow up in the water and teach them not to panic immediately.”
Uncle Noaz nods. “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.”
Voss smirks. “Not that I’m instructing you on how to parent. I’m pretty sure you were created for this role.”
Uncle Noaz transfers Emerson into Dad’s arms. I’m not the only one who watches Dad lean back in his chair and gently rock a little baby on his chest. Dad might not be granddad to Emerson biologically, but in a way, he is more so than he and Uncle Noaz’s father.
Uncle Noaz gives Voss a smile and then takes a seat. “Okay, a little backstory.”
“Aren’t the other uncles calling in?” Myro asks.
“Not this time,” Dad says. “Because this is a little bigger and may take a little longer than a couple of days here and there, we need to keep Ara, Oxley, and Kairo in their own cities.”
“Lorissa is amazing,” Uncle Noaz assures us. “I promise, it’s not my absence causing the problem. You know my crew had been focusing on getting rid of some of the bigger, most dangerous hate groups in NYC when I abandoned them.”
“You didn’t abandon them,” Ellory says, frowning.
Uncle Noaz waves him off. “We were focusing on the Aryan Order, which is basically a KKK group under a different name. I’m not sure how much you keep up with what I and your uncles do, but generally speaking, we try to keep the cops involved up to a certain level. That way, they know we’re running around and doing shit that has their hands tied. In NYC, we’d been dropping some of the lower members of the Aryan Order on the doorsteps of two different precincts with all the incriminating evidence they needed. However, the cops had been expunging their records and letting them go. We’d begun to suspect, at least for a while, that these two precincts were maybe a little dirty.”
I glance at Voss. He’s nodding as he rhythmically bounces in his chair as if he’s on an exercise ball. Not wildly, but in a way to relieve his fidgets.
“My crew was eighty-strong when I left without losing a single member in the last six years. In the last couple of weeks, six have been murdered.”
“By the cops?” I ask.
“Lorissa doesn’t believe so. It appears it’s one of the crime families who run the city. Voss has taken a look at the police department in the city and believes he might have found some ties between two of the families and the police, which might explain why the police are letting criminals go without so much as a slap on the wrist.”
“Bullshit,” Avory mutters, huffing.
Uncle Noaz nods. “Very much. There isn’t a clear-cut solution. Hunting the families is not an option for a small operation like my crew, especially since we know if we begin hunting just one family, the others will see the threat and come after us.” They look at Loren, who, in true Loren fashion, is barely paying attention. Instead, he’s staring out the window, which happens to be facing the lake where Oakley is with the rest of their friends.
Eventually, Loren feels us watching him and turns his attention back to us. “I’m retired,” he says. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”
Myro sighs heavily. Dad doesn’t make any indication that he’s bothered by this. Uncle Noaz frowns at him.
“I’ll go,” Voss volunteers.
The entire room looks at him.
To be clear, Voss has gone into the field maybe a handful of times since we became adults and began working for Dad. He’s a trained killer, just like the rest of us, but he excels behind a computer.
“Oh?” Dad asks, turning his eyes from sleeping Emerson to Voss.
“I think I have a way to take them out without getting my hands dirty at all,” Voss says. “I’ll need a few days, and I’d like to talk to Lorissa to see if my idea will work, but if so, I think I can get rid of the majority of all three ruling crime families simultaneously.”
“Aren’t there usually five families?” Ellory asks.
“The Miranos and the Armilias integrated through strategic marriages and whatever. It was a power move that shook the underground crime rings for a few years, about seven years ago. The fifth family had been fucking around with the other three families—picking off their men and implicating them in crimes.” Uncle Noaz waves their hand in the air. “The three families banded together to get rid of the problematic issue.”
“Now there’s three,” Myro says, nodding.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Dad asks Voss.
Voss nods. “Yep. I’d already been formulating a plan for Uncle Noaz as soon as they indicated there might be something dirty with the police department. It’ll be easy. Promise.”
Uncle Noaz stares at Voss. It’s clear they don’t think Voss really understands the control and danger these families pose.
I glance at Voss and sigh. I think we’re all going to be freaking out a little bit until Voss comes home from this trip.
He better come home, or the next war will be the three mob families against the Van Dorens. It will be a bloodbath.