Chapter Thirty-Eight
OCEAN
My father’s failed attempt to frame me for Roshaun’s death had forced me into the offense just as he wanted.
Instead of cutting down everyone in my path to get to him and dying in the process, I started by cutting off his cash flow.
It had taken months and copious amounts of bloodshed, but I’d finally weakened my father enough that he’d lowered himself to request a meeting.
For days, I’d been keeping him on ice.
Now that my plan B and leverage—Michael fucking Black—was stripped, gagged, and bound to a chair in my basement, I extended my father an invitation of my own. If he wanted to meet, it would be on my terms.
It had taken a lot of time and manpower to hunt the shady pimp down since he was under my father’s protection. I thought it was dirt Black had on him, but my father would have simply killed him and been done with it. Instead, he’d been protecting him.
It meant Michael had something my father wanted.
And what my father wanted above all was Chicago. Michael’s old stomping grounds.
It was currently in control of the Knights.
They weren’t mafia. They were a force far worse.
A family twice as old as ours, who only dealt in secrets and blackmail and couldn’t be bought.
The Knights did the jobs that no one else had the stomach for and had toppled organizations like the Fola as easily as snapping a twig.
It pissed my father off to no end that he couldn’t run them out.
Securing Black had become even more vital after learning how he planned to help my father take over Chicago. It would be an act of war and one we couldn’t win.
My phone rang, and seeing who it was, I cursed and checked my watch before standing and leaving the floor. Ignoring the call was not an option, but so was answering it. I pretended not to feel Abel’s frustration at my lack of focus as he shadowed me down the dark hall.
I closed myself inside Roshaun’s old office at the Diamond Lounge and sat at his desk.
I’d still been his silent partner at the time of his death, so shutting the club down for fumigation had been easy.
Roshaun’s share had already been transferred to Coby.
I planned to gift her mine as well, giving her full ownership to do whatever she wanted with it, including burning it down if she chose.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” I asked after answering the video call.
“Nothing,” Coby mumbled with a fist on her cheek. She was pouting as I knew she would be. “Just bored.”
I hummed. “Where’s Hunter?”
“Playing cards with Kellan. Where are you?”
“Around,” I said, not wanting to reveal too much on the phone.
“You’re safe?” she asked absently. Her gaze was busy searching my background for clues, so I brought the phone closer to my face.
“Always.”
“We haven’t seen you in days,” she whispered while pouting still. “So, how would I know?”
We’d finally gotten to the crux of this phone call.
I kept Hunter and Coby updated whenever I was in the streets as promised, but Coby was spoiled as fuck. Anything less than seeing me every day was unacceptable. I couldn’t fault her, since I felt the same way. “I know, baby. I miss you both, too. Did you get my gifts?”
She rolled her eyes. “Gifts aren’t you.”
I grinned at that. “I know. Diamonds can’t fuck you like I can. Can they, pretty girl?”
Coby blushed and fingered a ginger curl behind her ear to slyly show me that she was wearing them now. Her hair had grown a lot in the last few months, reaching toward her shoulders. I could even see the natural light brown color taking over the copper. “That’s not what I meant, nasty.”
“Sure.”
Coby changed the subject, and I gave her my undivided attention as she talked a mile a minute, her brown eyes glowing as she updated me on the rest of our secret plans.
I was content to listen, even though I hadn’t caught most of it because I was more fixated on watching how her pink mouth moved as she talked.
When Coby mentioned making a trip into the city tomorrow to meet with the caterer, it snapped me right the fuck out of my trance. I told her it would have to wait until I returned, which sparked an immediate argument.
“Well, when will you be back?” she whined.
Before I could answer, there was a knock on the door. I glanced up to see Abel poking his head inside the office.
“He’s here,” Abel informed me.
“Who’s there?” Coby’s nosy ass questioned.
I looked down at the screen. “Baby, I got to go.”
“Why?”
“Coby.”
She hung up the phone without saying goodbye, I love you, fuck you…nothing. I made a mental note to check her little ass about it later.
Right now, I had a meeting with my father.
“He’s alone,” Abel announced as soon as I stepped out of the office, and we started back down the hall.
I stopped in my tracks. “What?”
“The smug fuck actually came alone. No guards. And he wasn’t armed when my men checked him.”
Sure enough, my father was sitting alone at one of the VIP tables with a drink already in his hand.
My men were visibly nervous to be in the same room as the Boss of the Fola, which only pissed Abel’s cantankerous ass off even more. Most of these guys were newly made and hadn’t been hardened to the life yet, but under my head of security’s guidance, they would be soon.
I could see my reflection in the glass partition behind my father, which separated this booth from the next one. He was wearing a brown suit, one of his finest, and his eyes were surprisingly subdued.
I relaxed my body into a lazy lounge when I sat across from him because I knew it would offend him.
“Son,” my father greeted first.
“Why are you here?”
“You were trying to get my attention, were you not?” He waved his hand. “Now you have it.”
“So you consider commandeering sixty percent of your operations in a matter of months, wanting your attention?”
My father visibly bristled at the reminder of how easily I’d cut off his nuts. “Don’t get cute, boy. You think still being alive is your doing? You think you’re protected? Careful? Hidden? I could have walked into your little love nest at Glainne and ended you and those whores anytime I wanted.”
I perked a brow as I sat back and signaled one of my associates for a drink. Kellan was my usual go-to, but right now, he was the only one besides Abel that I trusted with my girls. “So why didn’t you?”
“You are my heir,” he answered, glowering into his drink. “And I’m too old to make another.” When I said nothing, he lifted his glass before swallowing the last of the contents and slamming the tumbler back down. “Enough. Let’s get this over with.”
“Get what over with?” I still didn’t know why he requested this meeting. Malcolm Kilpatrick was not one to beg for mercy or make deals.
“You were more ruthless these last months than you’ve ever been your entire disappointing life,” he said instead of answering my question.
“You didn’t let familial attachment get in the way of seizing strength.
Watching you destroy me has been the only time since you were pulled from your mother that I’ve been proud to call you my son. ”
I scratched my chin and merely said, “I had plenty of motivation. You met them once when you tried to take them from me.”
“Then you should have no problem killing me.”
I didn’t think it was possible for my father to stun me. “Excuse me?”
“I’m offering myself up for execution on one condition.”
“And that is?”
“You rid yourself of those whores. They are your weakness and a distraction. Walton’s daughter,” he said, referring to the oldest captean of the Torrance family, “is young, fertile, and knows her place. Marry her.”
“Not happening.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” my father snapped.
“You’re right. It’s not,” I said, pulling my gun. “Because living without Hunter and Coby for one moment is not up for discussion. You came here for nothing. You were a dead man regardless, but at least you would have gone down swinging.”
“I didn’t come for nothing. Regardless of what happens here, my wishes will be carried out.”
A cold like nothing I’d ever felt washed over me as I stared at my father across the table. Malcolm Kilpatrick wasn’t one to mince words, which meant he was stalling. I didn’t have to question why.
“What did you do?”
“I sent someone to take care of the problem.”
I shot to my feet, but my father wasn’t done. Luckily, Abel had overheard every word and was already calling for a charter. It would take hours by car to reach them.
And even then, it might be too late.
“My final act as Boss will be to rid this family of its greatest threat. I gave you a chance to send them back to that hovel they came from, and you refused. You have only yourself to blame.”
I had my gun to his head before he even finished speaking. “Call them off.”
He slammed his fist on the table. “You think death scares me, boy? I came here to die. This was always how it was going to be. It’s been our legacy since James killed Rory.”
“Rory was hanged by a lynch mob,” I said through clenched teeth.
“He was murdered by his brother because even James knew love was for the weak. Your great-grandfather turned his grief into power, and his sacrifice is why we’ve thrived.”
“So everything I’ve been told about the Brothers of Rory—”
“Was a lie. I killed my father for the throne, and my father killed his. One day, your son will do the same and kill you,” he said with no small amount of glee.
My punishment for committing patricide would one day be meted out by my own child, and he wouldn’t know the vicious cycle he’d been born into until it was too late.
Until I gave him no choice.
“Blood in, blood out,” my father roared when I hesitated. “Now make your sacrifice!”
They were the last words he ever spoke. My face was the last he ever saw. And my growled, “Never,” was the last thing my father ever heard.