Chapter 12
Rhys
Nearly a month after I met with the God of War, Ares finally gives me the green light to eliminate his problem.
Which is how I end up in his club. Music hammering my eardrums, I push through the crowd on cautious legs. The Zervas nightclub is the kind of place that sparkles from all the women in diamonds, but it’s also drenched in blood money from years of the Greeks’ reign of terror against the Irish.
I reach a table marked: Reserved for VIPs.
I look around and snort. This whole section is VIP.
But I’m not here to act like a big shot.
The only reason I’m doing a favor for the Greeks is because Ares recognized Griffin, my cousin and boss, as the head of the Irish Mob.
With the marriage of Griffin to Ares’s sister Ava, the long-standing war ended, and we were able to form Quinlan Empire.
What was supposed to be a six-month marriage contract turned into a real marriage that produced two sons for Ava and Griffin.
That legacy binds us to Ares Zervas for life.
Ugh.
I wish I had brought Blade and Jett, but Ares is already on edge, wanting to keep this a personal assignment between us. I don’t want to set him off. Still, my eyes scan the crowd for enemies I can’t see.
At the rounded banquette against a wall, I take a seat. I’m perfectly capable of taking down one man, but now that I’m here, all the bodies, all the noise, I feel uneasy being here solo.
A server stops at the table, and I ask for an unopened bottle of Jameson 18. I don’t trust anyone here, and it better be on the house. While waiting for the whiskey, I watch out for Ares, who is supposed to join me.
The bottle arrives before Ares, and I grunt.
Sipping my drink, my thoughts wander, like they always do lately.
Right to Fallon. The silent way she’s woven into my life.
Like she’s waiting for something. Waiting for me to make some kind of move.
It breaks my heart that I can’t. It’s not safe for her to be involved with me.
I’m darkness and ruin. Fallon is sunlight and the rainbow after a storm. She doesn’t sharpen me. She softens me. Makes me want to keep something alive instead of killing it.
Like the plants, even though I forget to water them.
I’m going nuts the way she looks at me like I’m her whole world. God help me, I like it.
I’m about to call Trace and ask him to do an updated background check on Fallon, like he offered, when I see Ares glide out of a darkened hallway headed for my booth.
He’s flanked by his brothers Atlas and Ambrose, but at 6’8”, Ares towers above most men here.
His bright white teeth look as sharp as knives, hungry for his next meal.
Which is usually a woman.
“Ares,” I greet him by his first name since calling him Zervas will send six sets of eyes my way.
“You see my persistent problem,” Ares says, voice like velvet dragged over broken glass.
I follow his gaze to the booth across the dance floor. The man he wants me to kill sits with a woman. Ice blonde. Big tits. Big lips. Long nails.
She’s giving him a hand job under the table.
“I see.” My mark leans his head back, his mouth tipped open, not even trying to be discreet.
Of all the things to notice next, I spot a gold band on his left hand. I assume that’s not his wife.
“Rarely do these leeches stick to drugs and weapons,” Ares bristles. “Human trafficking usually follows. No one is using my club for anything illegal. Without permission or payment.”
“It’s easy to launder dirty money with expensive liquor,” I tell him.
“Next, he’ll be making deals with other families. All without our blessing,” Ares hisses, taking a seat next to me, crowding me. “That ends tonight.”
“Why don’t you let me throw him out?” I suggest, reaching for my gun. “Make an example out of him, and maybe he’ll move on.”
Every person I don’t kill is one less burden on my soul. One less evidence trap I can fall into.
“If you make a show of kicking him out, the distributor or mafia boss he’s dealing for might show up next.” Ares looks around. “You should know powers are consolidating.”
I act bored at his comment. But Shane has seen the same thing. High Lords are emerging. Calling on smaller houses to bend the knee. “This man needs to quietly disappear.” Ares squeezes my leg under the table.
“Making people disappear is my specialty.” I throw back the one glass of whiskey I got to pour and stand up.
“I have my seven guards standing by,” Ares says, giving a signal.
“What happened to guards ‘guard’?” I ask.
“They are here to guard me,” he answers smugly.
“In case handsy-man over there has an accomplice planted somewhere?” I ask with a snort.
Ares grips my shoulder. “I talk. You destroy, got it?”
I resist an eyeroll and just nod. Then I follow the Ares toward the booth of trouble. The woman instantly removes her hands from between the man’s legs and flees, her big tits bouncing.
“How many times are you going to come here and embarrass yourself?” Ares speaks, his voice all ice and gravel.
“Fuck off, Zervas.” His disrespect stills the air, and it feels strangely personal. There’s more going on here. “Do you think I don’t know what you really want?”
At the right moment, I step out from behind Ares like a Targaryen dragon. The man’s eyes snap up to me. Goddamn… I see a flash of recognition in his face.
Fear. He knows who I am?
I smile without warmth to lean into the situation. “Do you want to tell me to fuck off?”
He opens his mouth, but he doesn’t get the one syllable past his lips. I’m across the table before the word forms, dragging him out of the booth by his jacket. His glass of vodka spills, and the glass shatters all around us.
A wall of Greek guards and the brothers close in, seamless and silent, shielding my wrath from the crowd. I drag him to the bowels of the club through a maze of narrow halls that stink of bleach.
We reach a soundproof room lit by one bare bulb, and I throw the guy into a chair.
Before I start rearranging his face, Ares pushes me out of the way and smashes the guy’s nose. “That is for her”
Her? This has to do with a woman? Not selling drugs. I knew it.
“You gonna just stand there?” Ares wipes blood off his knuckles.
“Hardly.” I brandish my knife and lick it. “Tell me when I can start cutting off fingers.”
“You won’t get away with this,” the guy snarls.
“I already have, mate.” I pull my fist back, and the first strike delivers a crimson shower that rains on his black suit.
My knuckles ache, but my inner wildcat is purring. I welcome the adrenaline surge. This is who I am. And why Fallon has to stay away from me.
The guy’s breathing is ragged, wheezing through his teeth.
I grab his jaw and tilt his face toward the flickering light overhead. “You done now, or do you want me to drag this out?”
He pulls out of my grasp and spits blood on my boot for an answer.
I sigh. “Guess not.”
But he moves. Fast. Before I can blink, he launches off the chair, legs twisting around mine like steel cables, knocking my own out from under me. I hit the ground hard, my spine slamming into the concrete.
“Fuck,” I mutter, dragging in a hot metallic breath.
The guy is up before I can recover, body moving with precision that doesn’t belong to some random asshole selling coke or H.
I draw my gun, but the guy throws a metal chair at me. I block it with a crash that echoes in the tight space.
Ares withdraws, letting me do what I came here to do. This guy is on me again, driving an elbow into my throat. Pain flares white-hot, and my vision tunnels.
I drop my gun.
What the fuck?
I grab his wrist so he can’t pick it up. I twist and hear the sharp pop of a joint giving. He grunts but doesn’t stop. He moves like he’s trained to ignore pain. Every strike is measured and clean. Not wild. Not desperate. Just calculated.
This is no low-life drug dealer.
This slimy bloke uses the wall as leverage, kicks off it, and shoulder-checks me. With Ares in the hallway calling to his most vicious guard Greed, the guy jumps out a fucking window, shattering it, and leaving only the drone of the heater and the echo of my own ragged breathing.
I push off the floor, swipe blood from my mouth, and look at Ares. “He was supposed to be just a drug dealer.”
Ares straightens his suit jacket like the entire thing was mildly inconvenient. “Well, he’s not,” he says quietly.
“Who the fuck was that?” I grab the God of War by the jacket, but immediately feel the barrel of a gun against my temple.
“?χι,” Ares hisses something in Greek to his guard. “Wrong person to shoot.”
Greed holsters his weapon and steps back. “He climbed the chain link fence. He’s gone, boss.”
I stare at the blood on my hands, shaking my head. That guy got a good look at me.
Whoever that bastard is, he’s not done with Ares Zervas. And something tells me, I just earned myself a new enemy.