19. Tyke
19
TYKE
My phone vibrates against my ribs as I pull up to the swanky fucking hotel Marco put the family up in overnight. I was in such a fucking rush to get out the goddamn door that I didn't stick the fucking thing in the Quad Lock, and now, what is likely an update from Minion or Hammer burns against my chest until I can get the fucking bike parked.
Fuck. What if it’s a message from my brother, assuring me we haven’t fucked things up too bad with Rae?
Or maybe it’s a message telling me he hasn’t, but my future is still undecided.
Shit. The goddamn overwhelm is real. So many fucking problems, all screaming out for me to fix them. And yet my mere mortal hands aren't enough to juggle the gazillion balls and have a hope of keeping them all airborne.
It's human to err. Divine to forgive. And yet, day after day, I expect myself not to do one and refuse to do the other.
I’m my own worst enemy.
Rigs finds a shaded park beside a jacked-up truck and tucks his ride against the curbing, leaving me to angle the bike just right so the fucking redneck who owns the overpriced behemoth doesn’t knock my Harley with his fucking door. The sun cuts through the cloud, unrelenting with its heat as it beat down on our backs on the ride here. I pray for more cover and retrieve my phone to find a message from Digger.
DIGGER
Rae's gone off-site. In the truck with Sweetie. Heading out to meet up with them.
Goddamnit. Girl really is pissed with us if she's taken a risk in leaving the compound. My lip snarls, and I swallow down the tirade of words that beg to be let free as we stride for the glittering entrance to the place. I bust my ass to keep her safe, and she flaunts it all with a goddamn temper tantrum. Maybe she is still younger than I give her credit for?
Young and reckless.
At least she has Sweetie with her.
“Issue?” Rigs winks at the doorman as we pass by.
“Rae’s gone for a fuckin’ drive with Sweetie.” I jerk my phone between us. “Digger’s on the case, though.”
He grunts in the back of his throat and then nods to our right, over my shoulder.
“You found her yet?” Deo strides across the polished marble lobby, a darn sight more relaxed in his fit today, sporting a worn dark gray T-shirt with some label I’ve never heard of and strategically shredded jeans. Still the pretty rich boy. Can’t escape his upbringing, even when he tries.
“You think I’d be here without her if I had?” Kid’s a fucking idiot too.
Perhaps blinded by love, although I don’t feel like entertaining that thought when I’m already frayed at the edges.
He sweeps a hand toward the ground floor bar. “My father awaits you in there.” Blond fuck jerks his chin in greeting toward Rigs.
My Treasurer drops his gaze the length of the kid and huffs a laugh.
It earns him a snarl in response.
"Old man day drinkin' already?" I shoot a sharp stare at the uppity receptionist, who scowls at our attire.
“Finding some solace from her ,” Deo returns.
“Bitch on site?”
“Occupied in the day spa.” He sighs. “Much to her reluctance.”
The sarcasm drips from his words. As always, Charlene capitalizes on the moment, doing what's best for her under the guise it's what everyone around her needs. Wouldn't put it past the bitch to have been in Marco's ear all night in the hopes he did precisely this.
"Never been inside this place before." Glass panel doors extend at least ten feet toward the higher ceiling. Veins of copper and black run in rivulets through the brilliant white marble walls.
The resort is dormant most of the year, barely making enough to keep the doors open. It's the winter trade that brings in its annual profit. Less than a month from now, the lobby will crawl with rich folk decked out in their latest ski and snowboard gear, influencers taking strategic photos, and YouTubers filming their newest escapade.
Part of the reason why I don’t mind being kept off the road when the snow falls; keeps me away from this shit.
“Tyke.” Marco slides from his low-backed bar stool. The fucking cushion is a plush black velvet, the metal copper to match the marble veins. “Three times within as many weeks. People will start talking.”
“You’d love that.” Egotistical bastard. “You sure this is the best place to talk?”
Trade may be off-peak, but there are still no less than eight people in here who I've got no background for—no idea what their interests are or who they could work for. Joe Public couldn't care less what happens to my daughter, but who's to say none of these fuckers is a plant by Terry.
“I’ve booked a private room.” The chiseled fucker waves the bartender over with two fingers raised arrogantly beside his head. “Drink?”
“I’m good.”
Marco drags his gaze the length of me, scrutinizing the man who stands before him. I get the cliche, the stereotype. Men operating outside the law should always have one or both of a whiskey and a cigar. I enjoy one, dabble with the other, but when my goddamn lifeblood is missing, presumed held captive, then it doesn't seem like much of a time for celebration.
Besides—I start to drink now, there ain’t no telling when I’d stop.
“You?” I have no doubt Marco fails to use Rigs’ name on purpose. A slight against the guy as though he's lesser.
“Pass.” Rigs snatches a toothpick from a gilded holder, popping it between his lips. “Might get something off the menu, though.” He snatches up the slim card, no more than four options typed in aesthetic intervals on the parchment. “Maybe two things.” He frowns, flicking the card to check the back for more.
The bartender arrives, decked out in a black satin waistcoat over a black button-down, melting seamlessly into the luxurious vibe of the joint. He passes Marco a keycard—also black—with the hotel's emblem centered and a gold number embossed over the top. "To your left, through those doors, gentlemen." The middle-aged man's gaze lingers a second too long on me for my liking, yet I let it pass.
I’ve never stepped foot in this place before now, and this is why. No amount of begging from Charlene could get me to change my mind. Didn’t care when she threw the whole ‘If you loved me, you'd do this for me' shit my way. I know how the general folk views our kind. Don't matter that I'm wealthier than half the fucks in here—if I don't dress the same, fit their ideal of what a cultured man is, I ain't welcome.
Can’t say I feel as though I miss out on much.
"Won't be long," I remind Rigs, hand resting against my concealed weapon on my side. "Twenty minutes, tops, and then we're out of here."
“I’ll get ordering, then.”
He talks with the bartender over the options as our remaining trio shifts through the doors on the far side of the bar and into a low-lit hallway. Swanky portraits hang in intervals on the black walls, lit by bronze sconces over each one. Men decked out in three-piece suits, their hairstyles and immaculately groomed mustaches tell me they're founding fathers of some kind. Maybe the men who built the place. Don't know and don't care.
Marco slips the keycard over a reader on a door second to the left, and the lock lets out a singular beep as it disengages.
“What sort of shit do ski bunnies get up to when they’re off the slopes if they need locked meeting rooms?”
Marco grins, moving to the far side of a square table. “It’s not the bunnies holding the meetings. It’s their husbands.”
I steal a quick final look at one of those fucking portraits as Deo shuts the door behind us and sigh when I note the man's heritage. "No wonder the place is so fucking palatial." It's a fucking Mafia operation. No doubt one of the many places they wash their cash in vast amounts over a short time through unsuspecting tourists, therefore mitigating risk.
“What can I do for you today, gentlemen?” Marco settles in the leather seat, leaning back and resting his hands in his lap, thumbs steepled.
“First off,” I turn to Deo, hovering by the seat opposite mine. “We got a list of properties to check out for signs of Maddie. The men are on it now." I run my eye subtly over how the kid's clothes hang and the places they hug his frame. No sign of a concealed weapon.
No reason to worry, although the longer I'm in here, the more the locked door itches in the recesses of my mind.
"I want to go help, too." He grabs the back of the seat before him, his forearms corded by the pressure he places on the leather through his fingertips.
Marco rolls his eyes at his son’s outburst. “Let the working-class men do the hard work, boy.”
His son looks ready to rip his father’s head from his shoulders. “Maybe you’re okay with sitting idle while your employees do your dirty work, but I’m not.”
I bristle at the insinuation we’re under Marco in any way, at his service.
"I'm helping," Deo says with a finality I admire.
“Fine.” Marco waves him off with the back of his hand before asking me, “How’d you come across this list? Why’d it take this long?”
"Had to sweet talk a mutual connection," I explain, opting for vagueness over a lengthy recount of my morning. "Secondly, I'd appreciate your help watching over things until I return from my trip next week." I refuse to sit, to let myself relax and be caught off guard.
Marco studies me for what feels to be the longest minute of silence in the history of man. "How?" is all he finally says, his arrogance shining in the pits of his deep brown irises.
“You got eyes on Terry?”
His lips hitch the slightest bit on one side. “I’ve got eyes everywhere.”
“But not where they took my daughter, right?” My heart rate kicks up, sweat prickling at my palms. Better the devil you know, except the devil before me is as unpredictable as they come.
He could be my friend one day, foe the next, and only he would know why.
Marco sighs, tracing a finger across the natural patterns in the stained tabletop. “Do you forget that I have a daughter too?”
“Of course not.” Gia. Absolute stunner of a girl—so much so that he sent her away to boarding school at age ten, and nobody's seen more than a passing glimpse of her since.
“Then you must know that I, of all people, understand the fire that runs hot through my veins when it comes to my responsibility for my family. For my daughter ." He smiles, wolfish and sure of himself. "If I had knowledge that could bring Maddie home, I wouldn't hesitate to share it with you."
I watch Deo's body language as he says this, his son's reaction to the promise from the devil's lips. And it's the steely resolve in the kid's hardened jaw as he tips his head in agreement that assures me Marco tells the truth.
Whether my ex-wife's husband loves his daughter or not, his respect for his son assures me he wouldn't knowingly place Maddie in harm’s way. Not when it would risk putting Deo offside and leaving him without a suitable heir for his crooked empire.
“Fine.” I give a tight nod. “Will you do it, though?”
“Already are, if you mean keeping watch over Terry.”
Smartass. “I mean, will you step in if he attempts to make a move on the club in my absence?”
"Why would he do that?" Forefingers pressed tight to one another, he brings them to his lips, studying me over the rise of his hands.
“Because these properties we’re searching? They’re his.”
“Provocative,” Marco murmurs.
“Isn’t it,” I say drolly. “Expectin’ a call from the asshole any moment.”
A slow smile spreads behind the arch of Marco’s fingers. “What’s in it for me?”
Deo sighs. “Seriously? They don’t have anything you want.”
Marco lifts a finger to silence his boy. "I know you're smarter than expecting a favor for free, Tyke, so what’s your offer?”
I roll my lips into a tight line. “What if it’s not me who has something you'd want? What if it's him .”
Asshole’s eyes light up. “What are you suggesting, Tyke?”
I scan the corners of the room and run my eyes along the lines of the table before me. I wouldn't put it past them to bug the place. For the assholes who use this place to want concrete evidence of conversations held, blackmail if you like.
But then again, they wouldn't want recordings of themselves for the same reason.
“Terry’s time is due.” I toe the leg of the chair before me with the cap of my boot. “I want him gone, but I don’t want the responsibility of the mess that’d create.”
“You think I do?” Marco raises a thick brow.
“I think you’re a little tired of playing with toys made for smaller boys than you.” He’s good at what he does, feeding on failing businesses like the vulture he is. But this man was raised for more, to be more than a petty investor. Like recognizes like, and I see that frustration coiled within him at being chained down, held back from his full potential.
In a perfect world, there would be no drug trade, but if I can't have that, I can at least have a man at the helm who's more friend than foe.
Deo watches his father with hawk-like intensity.
“I’ll consider it.” Marco sets his hands on the table’s edge, fingers splayed. “What do I get for babysitting duties in the meantime?”
I run my teeth over my bottom lip and eye the fucking exit in my periphery. “Your boy gets my blessin’ to keep seeing my daughter without me cuttin’ his fucking balls off.”
A silent beat passes before Marco's lips twitch in and out of a smile—twice. He narrows his gaze on me, a huff of amusement smothered in his throat before he drops his hands and emits a barked laugh. The guy grins a smile so fucking dazzling it has me question my sexuality for a split second. “Fair enough.” He shifts his predatory gaze toward his son and gives a single nod. “Off you go then.” The fucker shoos us from the room. “Go save your princess from the tower, Deo.”