Chapter 2
Chapter Two
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F linn
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S o I guess this is who we are now: the newly minted bosses of a multi-billion-dollar empire, Nix Enterprise on the surface, lords of an age-old, ruthless, and formidable mafia family, Nix Consortium, in the underground world. All at thirty.
William understands us well enough to know the instant we agreed with no words spoken between us. He encouraged the bond, wanting us to be a trio of the most powerfully trained men alive. He shaped us with one goal: to take over when he stepped down and remain invincible.
William throws his head back and laughs with pure happiness before he gets up and pours us each a drink.
“Thank you,” he says as we stand in a circle, clinking our glasses together. I don’t think we’ve ever seen the older man happier.
He takes a healthy sip of his drink, then sets it down. “I can’t keep Ginny waiting any longer.”
We set our own drinks down and shake our mentor’s hand. He draws us in for a tight, heartfelt hug.
“Oh, I almost forgot. The helicopter is ready to take you to Nix Pardus. Pierre Anderson has been sentenced to offering one of his two unmarried daughters for the consortium’s pleasure—yes, the Inner Circle called up a pleasure debt.
And since you three are now the heads, the girl is yours. For three days, I believe.”
“Has this got anything to do with your sudden retirement?” I ask, although I already know the answer. And everything makes sense now.
“Yes. I’m an old man, I have no business accepting a pleasure debt.
Besides, Ginny will chop my nuts off and stuff them into the engagement ring I got her.
But there are certain traditions that must be followed, and this pleasure debt is one of them.
According to the Inner Circle, the punishment fits his crime. ”
The Inner Circle is made up of ten men and women of the Nix Consortium who dictate laws and mete out punishments within the organization. They maintain order and answer only to the heads of the consortium. They’re stubborn sons’ of bitches too, upholding archaic tradition like it was their air.
“What did he do?” Sinclair asks.
“He badmouthed the handling of the issue we’ve had with the Yakuza to the Bratva, and the Bratva ratted him out to me. He’s very remorseful, of course, but again, a price must be paid,” William says, waving his hand dismissively.
Pierre Anderson runs one leg of our money laundering systems from his ranch out in the country, a few hours north of the city. We may have visited him once or twice before, although we never saw any of his daughters.
He keeps them under lock and key. They’re his most prized possessions apparently and he has plans to offer them up to a bank executive and an oil prince. This must hit him hard in the nuts. A pleasure debt also mars the family.
But in our world, people die for far less, so he’s lucky.
“We’re in the middle of the Keppler merger,” Kian says. “We don’t have the time to take three days off to go to the mountains.”
The difference between legitimate business and underground business is you can’t go around plowing bullets into your opponents’ heads—an oversight that irks Kian to no end, just like this merger does.
He’s also always all work and no play, although technically, leaving our mark on one of Anderson’s daughters is considered work.
“Well, that will have to wait,” William says, exercising his tone of authority over us—the only man in the world who can tell us what to do.
“It shouldn’t be a hardship with a beautiful woman so have fun,” he adds, grinning as he heads out again.
He hasn’t smiled so much in one day in all the time we’ve known him.
Before he can slip out of the door, he turns around and faces us one more time.
“Don’t forget,” he says. “Kian, now that you’re the head and carry the seal, you can’t fuck the girl. Put her on her knees or spank her to leave your mark, but don’t fuck her. I doubt you need that kind of tie right now.”
And then he’s gone.
Just another one of the Nix Consortium laws we’re forced to uphold. Not that Kian is affected by it at all. There hasn’t ever been a woman he wanted enough to fuck in about forever, even when he could do so freely.
Either way, a pleasure debt must be collected, and we’ll be doing the collecting.