16. Lafe
LAFE
I shoveled a bite of eggs in my mouth as I stared at the spreadsheets. This had been my life for so long, I barely remembered anything before it. It hadn’t mattered that Vicente had trashed one of my best-performing warehouses.
The family already had it back up and running, and I was already getting daily updates from my other manufacturers. There were hundreds of texts from the runners squabbling about one issue or another.
These people, arguably my people, though I had no love or connection to them outside of distant business, understood life in the Institution and carried on no matter what tragedies happened. Even when they happened at the hands of the Castillo leader.
I hated it. As much as Killer detested this business, I hated it almost as much. No, actually more. Especially since this was everything I hated about myself, and there was no fucking way out.
Not if she wanted us to take over. I gripped my hair and bent my head over the counter.
It made sense. As much as it probably irritated Andre, Parker and Amorette were both right. This was a decent plan where all the others had failed. It was the long game.
My attention was pulled to the drawer next to the fridge. I had an assortment of drugs on hand there. It wouldn’t take much just to take the edge off. I’d been at the compound far longer than normal, so it had been a while.
I salivated at the thought of a hit, but fuck that.
Killer was right. I needed to kick the drugs.
I wasn’t sure if I would be strong enough when we left the island, but I was going to try.
If I had any chance of being successful, I needed to shed the business altogether. But then what would I do with it?
My phone chimed, and when I glanced down, Andre’s text scrolled across the phone.
Andre: come to my place
I rubbed my forehead and shut down my laptop. There wasn’t enough drugs on the planet to make me care about this fucking business. The more the days dragged on, the more I needed to get out from under it.
Killer had put the thought in my head. She’d be thrilled to know how much the idea circled my thoughts. Why was I working so hard on it if Vicente was no longer our boss, for lack of a better term? I just needed my brothers to see that I couldn’t do it anymore.
I tossed the laptop on my bed and headed toward Andre’s place. Grey was locking up his door when I stepped into the hallway.
“Where’s Killer?”
He grunted. “She’s already there with Parker. They’ve been working out their plan. Or trying to convince Andre that this is the only plan that’ll work.”
I wasn’t convinced it was the only plan. But how many chances could we take that Vicente would destroy ours first? Not many before my brothers were as beaten down as I was.
But…if they did get shoved down, that didn’t mean they’d stay there. I hoped.
The door checked my shoulder as I followed behind Grey. He turned around when I cursed under my breath.
“What’s your problem?”
“Lost in my thoughts,” I muttered, closing the door behind me.
Coming to Andre’s apartment was becoming a new routine. I’d been to his apartment more in the last few months than I had in years. Looking back, I’d avoided my brothers as much as possible, Andre especially.
Then Vicente had to open his fucking mouth about that girl to Killer. With Andre looking on, I never even learned her name before I had to kill her. His gaze had been intense, apologetic, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d forced my hand.
I rounded the corner, and when he glanced at me from the chair, those feelings from years ago came rushing back. Self-hatred, disgust, shame. All things I struggled with to some degree on a daily basis, but nothing like what I’d felt at that moment.
My gaze skated over Killer sitting with her legs crossed on the couch, Parker trying not to crowd her obviously. ‘Obviously’ being the key word.
Could we keep her safe? I’d fucking kill myself before I killed her. I couldn’t. Not even to save my brothers. But hadn’t I already proven that?
That was the whole reason there was a hit on Andre. It didn’t seem real yet, not while we were tucked away on the island, but from the slump of Andre’s shoulders and the scruffy beard, I doubted it ever left his mind for very long.
It wasn’t in his nature to push things aside.
Andre narrowed his eyes at me as I sat next to Killer. Grey grunted and ended up taking the other chair. What the hell had he been doing? He was ahead of me and could have snagged this spot if he’d wanted to.
Why hadn’t he wanted to?
With too much exasperation, Andre flopped back in his chair and said, “It’s decided. We’re taking over the Institution. I hope like fuck you all know what you’re doing.”
Parker grinned like the Joker as he reached out to play with a lock of Amorette’s hair. She slapped his hand away, and he scowled then just as quick wiped off the expression, but we all caught it except for Killer.
“This is the best decision. And the safest for us. We can even position Little Love in the center as untouchable.” He cut his gaze to her. When she stiffened, his black eyes lost their shine. “You don’t think we can make it happen?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you’d try, but look at the track record so far.
This life you all are so intent on living is dangerous from all sides.
Don’t let that cut at your pride. I’m not complaining, but I’m being realistic.
I want Vicente to pay. I want him not to be a threat to my sister.
I’m agreed that this is the best the way to do that, so stop trying to fill my head with empty promises and bullshit, all right? I’m on your side.”
I sat back, wide-eyed. Her sweet voice wrapped around such harsh words was shocking. It shouldn’t have been. This was the Amorette I’d met at the Gallery. But she’d lost some of that along the way. Maybe she was lulled into safety, but whatever fire she’d initially had was coming back.
Twisting on the cushion to face her, Parker bared his teeth.
“I told you before I took you to the warehouse that your involvement was going to mean something different from that point on. You’re going to be untouchable.
Not just because we make it so, but because you’re going to gut any man or woman who threatens you. ”
She recoiled into me, and I grabbed her shoulders to steady her.
“Don’t fucking run away. You cut up a man to save Lafe a little pain. Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it,” Parker dared her as he curled his body over hers. I couldn’t see her face, but Andre could, and he was ensnared, completely rapt and unblinking as he leaned forward.
Killer started trembling and I glared at Parker.
It didn’t fucking matter if she enjoyed it or not. It was me she tarnished herself for, and I wouldn’t let him push her on the subject.
I looped an arm over her chest and pulled her back against me. “Leave her the hell alone.”
Parker flicked his gaze to me. “Dear brother, the sooner she comes to terms with the person she is and lets go of that fucking ridiculous hero she was, the safer she’ll be. The safer we’ll all be.”
She twisted in my arms and I immediately pulled her into my lap to cradle her. Before she was settled well, fat tears hit my neck. Fuck him for forcing the issue. He was just pissed she’d slapped him away and he was pouting.
“Either stop sticking your foot in your goddamn mouth, or I’m going to take her back to my place.”
Killer squeezed me against her, then climbed off my lap. I tucked my fisted hands under my thighs to keep from forcing her back to me. The urge was so painful I almost couldn’t breathe, but I watched her walk to the other side of the living room while dashing her hands across her face.
When she spun, her eyes were on fire, and she speared Parker with such contempt, I leaned back. Her ire wasn’t even directed at me, and it made me want to crawl behind the couch. If I were Parker, I’d feel two inches tall.
“I will do what I have to do. But don’t ever—not fucking ever—insinuate that I enjoy it.”
He didn’t have the same reaction I did. Instead, he bent forward with lust and longing stamped all over him. “Oh, Little Love—”
“Enough,” Grey barked, snagged Killer around the waist, and then situated her across his lap.
“We’re going to take down Vicente by taking over the Institution.
I was never going to give my business up anyway.
Or my hotel. Parker wasn’t either. So what do we need to do to make this a viable solution? ”
“We need to start diverting all payments to Vicente’s parent company,” Andre said, rubbing his finger up his temple. “Nothing gets back to him. We need to put more security on the warehouses and hotels and ensure your teams are extra vigilant.”
“They need to change their encrypting system and switch up the routines,” Parker added, still watching Killer blatantly ignoring him.
Andre glanced at me for a time or two, expecting me to offer my opinion, but I didn’t have one. I didn’t want to run drugs anymore, but I also didn’t have a better solution. They talked round in circles for the next thirty minutes and completely ignored the elephant in the room.
“This still doesn’t cover how we’re going to overthrow the other factions we don’t control,” Grey argued.
“That’s going to require more—” Andre’s phone interrupted Parker mid-sentence.
He glanced at it, pinched his lips together, then turned the ringer off.
“Care to share what that was, dear brother? I mean, I did put Dae on speaker so you all could be included in our conversation.”
“It was a video call. Of course, it was on speaker,” Killer scoffed. This was the first time since Grey pulled her into his lap that she’d addressed Parker. Fuck, the tension between them crackled, and another argument was about to break. I could feel it lifting the hair on the back of my neck.
“It’s Matías. He’s been texting me almost non-stop since the warehouse.” He hesitated and skated his gaze around the room.
“Just tell us. No more acting alone from now on,” I said, my one contribution.
“Fuck,” he sighed. “He’s alternating between telling me we’re idiots and he doesn’t know how we’ve lived this long to practically begging for a meet. He keeps asking what it will take to prove that he’s on our side.”
Killer perked up. Not for the first time, I wondered exactly what happened while she was with him. She swore they hadn’t fucked, but there was something there. With my screwed-up emotional meter, it could be lust just as easily as it could be hate.
The way she glared at Parker when he turned away from her was closer to hate than the expression on her face now. So it wasn’t that.
“Do you really believe he’s not on your side?” She measured her words carefully.
Grey palmed the nape of her neck and turned her to face him. “There are no sides, mamí . Everyone has their own agenda, and at the first chance to get ahead, they stab everyone else in the back while burning their houses down.”
She shook her head, not wanting to believe that. “Even you all?”
He nodded slowly as his gaze roamed her face. “Especially us. We’ve just decided we’re on one side. And you’re on it with us. But everyone else? Fuck them.”
“But he’s your brother,” she argued, twisted to see him more easily.
“Family ties mean shit. Vicente is our father, and you don’t see any love lost between us.” He dropped a hand to her thigh.
Not ready to let it go, she curled her fingers over his shoulder. “That’s because he hurt you all from a young age. You banded together, and I can’t believe that being brothers had nothing to do with it. Was Matías really as bad as Vicente?”
“He didn’t have to be,” I said. When she turned back to me, I ached to get closer.
But that had to be the withdrawal talking.
If I couldn’t have drugs, I wanted her. Like she could help me forget it all.
And she could, until the pain became too unbearable.
As much as I had consistently if sporadically, used, I was very familiar with the detox process.
“Vicente targeted him to take over as head of the business. When Vicente dies, or decides to hand over power, it won’t be to us.
Matías has been mentored and molded into the person Vicente wants him to be, whether he shows us that side of him or not. ”
“You’re all wrong.” Her big blue eyes gazed back at me with so much sadness and pity; I wanted to lash out to make it disappear. “I don’t know if he’s innocent or that he has the best motivation, but I know he hates Vicente. That is the one thing I’m absolutely sure about.”
No one wanted to rebuke her, and we all found something interesting about our laps. Then Andre redirected the conversation again.
“Lafe, how secure are your warehouses? What kind of security do we need to give them?”
Because I was a coward, I answered him. “More than is at our disposal.”
My insides screamed for me to tell him just to fuck it all and let Vicente keep the drug business. But I knew without uttering the thought that he’d shoot it down. It pulled in too much money and had too broad a reach.
“I don’t understand. If he could turn on you so easily, why did he give you all so much power in the Institution?” Killer asked.
Smiling sadly, I tried to think of the best way to get this across to her.
She’d grown up in a loving home, in a world where the worst men were abusive husbands and fathers.
As bright as she was, this was so hard for her to comprehend.
“No one has any real power under Vicente. He gave us these shit jobs because he could control us. It’s nothing to him to make examples out of us.
Ask Grey. He’s been tied to the whipping post more times than you have fingers, and that was partly to discipline him, but mostly it was for his entertainment. ”
She dropped her gaze. There was no way she wouldn’t have seen the scars. Or that no one had told her about them. Hell, I could have mentioned them, but sometimes my memory was fuzzy.
“It’s hard to hold any kind of power against Vicente when he could so easily have us publicly whipped.” Parker traced circles on the arm of the couch. “The power of public opinion, right Little Love?” He smiled sardonically.
“Right,” she muttered, rolling her lips together and thinking way too hard.
“Let’s work on securing our own businesses; then we’ll work on a strategy for the other businesses one at a time. Lafe, do you have any contacts for extra security?”
I glanced at Andre, hoping that my real thoughts burned in my eyes. “Not security, but I have a connection that might help.”
Like hell would I actually call him.