2. Torin
TWO
torin
“Do you think this helps me gain a relationship with her, boy? Everything I’ve been working toward, you may have just blown out of the fucking water!”
Emilio launches his bourbon across the room, the glass exploding into shards across his hard hardwood floors.
This is all his fault.
We didn’t ask to babysit his newly acquired gang and show them the ropes. In fact, they don’t need to be here. The Landings are handled by the Forsaken Crew, but we all know what this is. It doesn’t take a brain scientist to conjure up what Emilio is doing and how he’s cushioning himself with power and safety.
Cairo is about to grab the Wharf Bay Titan seat.
Which means Emilio doesn’t have much say on the Forsaken Crew after that. However, he should’ve spent more time vetting out who he initiated into his soldiers, because if they can rat themselves out on what they did to Bay Astor, imagine what they’d do if they were caught by the enemy.
Mainly, Levi Wallace.
The dumb fucks bragged out loud, drinking and doing lines as though they victoriously ran a train on her, and that’s when he found out.
And saved me the trouble of murdering half of them.
“I outta fucking kill you next,” Emilio barks out, glowering at me as though he has the balls.
He doesn’t.
And his little threat goes right over my head, because I’d be more terrified of a barking puppy than his old cocaine slinging ass.
“I’d love to see you try,” I deadpan, running my index finger up and down the leather armrest of my chair. “You might want to shut the fuck up, because it’ll be the last time I save her for your ass.”
“Save her?” he mocks back. “That little sister-fucker fucked my daughter!”
I bite the tip of my tongue to keep me from rising and flipping the table over on my father. “Mention Reeve one more time, and you’ll be walkin’ out of here with a few more holes in your body.”
“You silly, worthless little prick,” he leers, spit spewing from his lips. “You think you run shit around here? That he’s not going to pay—” My Glock is in my palm so fast that acquainting myself with it is second nature.
Always has been.
Especially when my father is tossing out real omens of touching one of my brothers.
That’s a no-no.
He can rip into me any day of the week he wants. Emilio can bitch slap me when he believes I’ve crossed a line. But when we start talking about putting out hits on Reeve or Cairo, that’s where I’m going to swerve out and stop that from becoming a reality.
“I’m the one with the hearing problem,” I divulge, pointing the weapon at his head. “I thought I said not to mention him again.”
“You have three seconds to drop the gun?—”
“I’ve already told you twice that Reeve didn’t fuck Bay. She understood what needed to happen.” I level him with a glare of my own because, man, I might be half-deaf, but this stupid fuck doesn’t want to listen. “But when she finds out it was your crew that wanted to gang-bang her…” I shake my head with a tsk. “It’s not gonna end well for you, is it?”
“You wanna explain to me how the hell half my men were lying out on that street?”
“No.”
His nostrils flare, and it’d be cooler if fire would’ve come out. Then maybe I’d start taking him seriously.
However, since that’s not the case, I’m already bored with this conversation and the strict orders of how quickly he made me come to his office.
Emilios constricted blue eyes narrow on me. “On your fucking order, you had my daughter humiliated?—”
“She ran through The Landings. After multiple warnings from all of us still running Wallace’s drugs.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck if she was doing it on a horse and prancing the shit in front of you. You don’t touch my daughter.”
I could roll my eyes into the back of my head right now at this wack-ass Father of the Year role he’s playing.
It’s definitely new because it was never portrayed with Ramsey and I. But now that he has his own blood and DNA running through someone’s veins, he’s trying out for the role.
“Are we handing out special privileges now?” I press, holding Emilio’s stare behind his desk, because he doesn’t scare me anymore. He’s not my boss. He’s just the man who half-ass raised me and left me a crew because he couldn’t stay. Too many hits to his head and Levi Wallace was leading the charge. “Because I need to know, since I’m the one running this side.”
“You’re not runnin’ shit, Torin.” He gives me an unimpressed look, as if I’ve been delusional this whole time and he was never really gone. “You may have kept The Landings from burning down or Wallace to march across the line, but you’re not king. I am with my Titan seat.”
It’s at the tip of my tongue to call his ass out.
If I kill this motherfucker, half my problems are solved. However, it’s never been on my list of shit to do. Ramsey was always supposed to have it, even though that’s worse. And for some dumbass reason, I could never murder my older brother for it.
But he’d have no issue slaughtering your ass.
“Your problem, Pops, is that The Void doesn’t know she exists. If you want to throw some respect and fear on her name, you better announce her now.”
“That comes with consequences.”
“Then I guess you better let me handle it the best way I know how. Because I saved your daughter from some shit that could’ve fucked her up in more ways than one.”
And I’d fuck up everyone who ever laid a hand on her.
When Reeve called with the problem, I knew how to handle it. The phone call I made was the only one I needed to make as I made my way to Marine Bouldvard to meet him there.
All my boy and Wildfire had to do was to hold on for me until we got there so we could start shaving down the problem.
Now, it’s Emilio’s issue.
Because half his gang is dead and the other half are terrified of even breathing the wrong way to acquire Emilio’s wrath.
Emilio runs his thumb and index finger along the gray stubble of his jaw. “Maybe I’ve been too lenient on her. If Wallace turns on her, it’d only leave me to protect her.”
“You think that’s going to make her love you?” I scoff before leaning over my knees to pin my dislike of this whole idea back on him before I lower my gun. “That girl isn’t stupid and sure as hell isn’t desperate. I think she’d rather swallow nails and drown herself in a puddle before crawling to you for any help.”
“I’ve offered Bay the Titan seat,” Emilio conveys, staring off at the spot he threw his drink. “With it will come protection.”
“With you hovering over her like a helicopter mom. And, even if she did, that leaves the chance of you being cut out of the equation.”
He quirks a brow. “You don’t think I’d still keep my eyes on her? I find any bit of her trying to plot a plan to kill me, I’ll do it myself.”
Of course, he would.
However, this is becoming more dark and twisted the more we talk about this shit, because I don’t get why Emilio needs her at all.
“You’d kill your own daughter? The one you’ve been trying to get me on board with since you announced her?”
“I’d do to the same to you.”
Then good thing you haven’t found out yet.
“You’re trying to get a whole of the fifth Titan seat,” I emit. The mysterious and unnamed seat where someone sits on it, but no one knows who. “With Bay under you, you think you’ll have two.”
The door to the office opens then, revealing Ramsey spinning a knife in the air and catching it by its handle. God has given up on this crazy prick so the devil allows him to play with death or pain like it’s going out of style.
“Sorry I’m late,” he greets flatly. “I was busy playing.”
I notice the blood on his knife and the distinct wipe of it on his red tee. The dark red crimson is his favorite color and his biggest bragging point that he’ll wear his victim’s blood on him.
It makes his dick hard, what can I say?
“Torin and I were just discussing Bay.” I watch my brother remain unfazed by her name, appearing more bored than me as he takes the seat next to mine. “Have you finished?”
Ramsey nods. “Almost. There’s one who’s still alive who just won’t bleed to death yet.”
“Punishing men for your orders,” I say placidly. “I thought you two assholes told them to be vicious to outsiders.”
“I’m thinking about proclaiming that she’s my daughter,” Emilio surmises, ignoring my comment. “Cut ties with Levi once and for all.”
“Isn’t she fucking Levi Wallace?”
My fingers ball into fists at my brother’s question. That the girl I’ve wanted for years is permitting my enemy to sink his small dick inside her, but I get shit every time I see her.
“She won’t be when he finds out I’ve been talking to her,” Emilio says confidently, rising from his chair and rounding his desk. “How would you be able to trust her after that?”
Honestly, one look into those blue eyes and you’re pretty much fucked.
“How would we be able to trust her?” Ramsey retorts, still spinning his knife in his hand as Emilio strides to the minibar in his office. “You’re asking Torin and I to put our lives in the hands of a girl who hates The Landings.”
He forgot to add in and you.
Apparently, I’m the only one around here who can call this like it is. Emilio has been terrorizing South Shore since before we’ve all been alive and Bay isn’t the kind of woman who’s just going to forget that.
“Desperate times call for a different mindset,” Emilio replies with a bit of irritation in his tone as he reaches for his brandy. “Without Wallace, she has nothing.”
That woman doesn’t need anyone.
Though, I can’t say her living in South Shore after Wallace finds out about Emilio is something that’s going to sit well with him. But, I don’t take Levi as being someone who would easily turn his back on her.
“You two think I’m being over-trusting?” Emilio states, not bothering to look at either of us. He can sense it. The fucker seems to have a psychic ability to read the room, or maybe it’s just Ramsey and I.
“I think you’re living in a state of denial,” I counter because, even if she did take it, he’d lose everything.
And maybe that’s a good idea.
However, it still wouldn’t work out in mine or my boys for our future plans because I’d be safer to bet that she’d rip my dick off before providing me any leniency under her rule.
“Yes, well…” Emilio stares at the minibar in his study, passing the stone fireplace and rolling his shoulders underneath his pressed black suit. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I throw out that she’s my daughter and force Levi’s hand.”
“You’d have her kicked out of her own town and away from her family?” There’s zero shock in my voice when I pose my question.
Not an ounce.
It’s typical Emilio Wildes to fuck someone over into a state of pure desperation.
“I’m her family.” He pours himself another glass of liquor. “And not necessarily. If she wants to keep that waste of space, Roger Astor, in her life, then so be it. It’s not like he’s worth anything right now, anyway.”
“You think she’d go to war with Wallace?” Ramsey asks, glancing over at me, but posing the question to Emilio.
“If he casts her out, maybe. She’d be disposing the biggest pain in my ass since Roger stepped down and handed his seat over to that ghetto-ass teenager.” He shrugs. “Who’s not a teenager anymore, but still in my way. There’s nothing like a woman scorned and I think Bay has enough of a temper to act on it.”
“What makes you think you’re going to be able to assassinate Wallace after all this time? She’s a woman. They have feelings and all that worthless shit.”
“I never said kill, son. I said takedown. That piece of shit, Muncy, can handle that for me.”
“Take away the muscle,” Ramsey muses. “But keep the emotional support. Roger could always have an accident later on.”
Emilio points at my brother. “Exactly what I was thinking. However, she’s not so easily moved. I was hoping with a few more visits”—he steers his focus to me—“someone could win her over to this side.”
“Me?”
His brows clash together before his face skews up. “No. You’re too like her, and all you do is fight. She’d break up with you within a week.”
I tsk. “The bode of confidence is just astounding from you, Dad. Thanks.”
Emilio smiles at me, but it’s full of malevolent thoughts and plans to destroy everything around her. “Ramsey may be a better fit for her needs.”
I expect my brother to tell him hell no. That he’s gay as shit and he doesn’t like pussy, but he loves to torture women because they’re more scared of him.
Again, he surprises me and doesn’t retort Emilio’s words.
“How so?” he solicits. “We’ve only had two brief encounters.”
Absolutely fucking not.
There is no way I would hand Bay over to my brother on any cold day in hell. If the sun was about to fall from the sky and land on our heads, he’d be the last person I’d let have her.
Not that he’d have her in the sense of fucking her, but that he’d break her. He’d shatter her spirit and dismantle that beautiful, annoying-ass mouth of hers.
She may be South Shore and I, the other side of this violent equation, but when it comes down to it, Bay Astor won’t ever belong to my brother.
“And let’s keep it that way for now,” Emilio vouches. “I need to work a few things first before I decide on the best course of action.”
“I hope you’re not expecting grandchildren because your son loves dick,” I express because, again, asshole . And, as I said…no brother of mine, straight or gay, is going to fuck Bay Astor.
And, even then, anyone fucking else.
“You’re playing with fire, Pops,” I divulge through my clenched jaw. “Bay Astor isn’t some stupid chick who’s going be chomping at the bit for a Landings boyfriend.”
“Then maybe I’ll just keep myself as the only man in her life then,” he replies with a smirk. “We’ll see if I decide to declare to the world that Haven Wildes is back from the dead.”