7. Hayden
7
HAYDEN
W hen I was a kid, my mother had peeped out the blinds every time she wanted to leave the house and checked the barrage of locks she’d had installed on the doors and windows. I’d grown up thinking it was normal for that mild level of panic to be present every time you stepped outside.
It made you pay attention to your surroundings. To check for danger at every turn. It was a habit that had only been reinforced when I’d grown up and joined a gang.
My mother might have been a bit paranoid, perhaps trying to protect two young kids from the dangers of our neighborhood. But I’d made it a thousand times worse by joining the Sinners. I’d made myself a real target. One people truly did want to hurt.
I had every reason to pay attention to my surroundings whenever I left my home. Even now.
So I noticed the sleek gray car outside my shitty apartment before I even stepped out of it. The car stuck out like a sore thumb because of how expensive it was, but I would have noticed it anyway. Because noticing changes like that was what kept you alive in a town like this. Even five years after leaving the Sinners, I still waited for the pop-pop-pop of a gun, sure that’s how my days would end.
There were no rounds fired, but the driver of the car opened the door and stepped out. “Chaos.”
My lip curled, and I strode past the man without acknowledging him.
“Chaos, come on. I just want two minutes of your time.”
I glanced over at Luca, a man I barely knew, but what I did know was enough that I didn’t want to know any more. “Got places to be.”
“Your job at the diner?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to tell him yes. I hated that he knew where I worked. But of course he did.
Luca Guerra knew fucking everything and everyone.
He didn’t move out of my way, so I brushed past him, forcing him back, refusing to budge just because he was one of the biggest crime lords Saint View had ever seen. Though I’d never seen the man get his hands dirty. Oh no, he had idiots like me to do that for him.
He’d had idiots like me. I was out. I didn’t work for him or for Caleb or for any of his other minions anymore.
Luca put his hands into the pockets of his expensive suit pants. I’d bet they could have paid my rent for a year. Fucking rich people.
“Do you actually like that grubby shithole you serve food out of?” he called.
I pulled my keys from my pockets. “Anything is better than my previous job,” I called back. “Last boss was a real fucking asshole. Maybe you’ve met him?”
Luca chuckled deeply. “Do you mean me or Caleb?”
“Why not both?” I threw back, hitting the beeper on my keys to unlock my truck doors and cursing the fact this damn apartment building only had street parking. If it were in a nicer neighborhood, I could have avoided this entire conversation with an underground garage. “Plenty to hate about both of you.”
Luca followed me down the road. “I’m insulted you’d put me in the same league as Caleb.”
Oh, that was rich. “Why? Aren’t you the one who had him finding women for you to sell?”
Luca shrugged. “Aren’t you the one who held them against their will for him?”
My fingers curled around the keys so hard I was sure it would leave imprints. “I didn’t have a choice. He blackmailed me.”
Luca tutted under his breath. “Well, if that’s true, then I’m sorry. If I’d known…”
If he’d known he wouldn’t have done shit, and we both knew it.
I turned to glare at him. “I’ve already had a fucking shittastic day, and you showing up here out of the blue sure isn’t fucking helping. So just cut to the chase, Guerra. What the fuck do you want?”
“I would like to offer you a job. Isn’t that great?”
I stared at him. “Are you fucking serious?”
He dropped the fake positivity. “Deadly.”
I shook my head, completely astonished by the balls on him. I stepped in close so we were nose to nose. I wasn’t some dumb kid anymore. I wasn’t scared. And I wasn’t falling for his smooth talk. “Hear me when I say, Guerra, I would rather hack my own dick off with a rusty blade than ever work for you again. Now leave me the hell alone and let me get to work. My boss will be pissed if I’m late.”
Luca nodded knowingly. “Simon is a cunt, isn’t he?”
I paused with my door on the handle. “You really did your homework on this one, huh?”
Luca grinned. “Always do. Want to hear what else I know?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Luca went on like I hadn’t spoken. “I know you’re way too good a chef to be working at his shithole.”
I froze.
Luca noticed. “I know all about your Instagram account. That’s not the food you’re making for Simon.”
“No, it isn’t,” I gritted out, hating that he’d seen my social media. Fucking hell. I should have never started that stupid thing. It had caused me nothing but problems.
“Making all those sloppy burgers and deep-fried potatoes can’t be very fulfilling for you when you can make dishes with titles I can barely pronounce.”
“My burgers aren’t sloppy.”
He chuckled. “Of course not. But hardly a test of your skill either.”
He was right there. It was completely unfulfilling work. But it was a means to an end.
At least I’d thought it had been. But I’d been outbid so badly at that auction that now I wondered if there was actually any point to having dreams bigger than running Simon’s kitchen. Even with my brother’s help, which was humiliating enough in its own right, I couldn’t afford to get into the game.
Not in Providence anyway. And there was no point serving up Wagyu beef in Saint View, where I probably could afford the rent. No one here had the money or the palette for the sort of food I wanted to serve.
“I heard you bid on a place in Providence today,” Luca mused.
I stared at him, anxiety creeping up my spine slowly and insidiously.
Luca Guerra taking this much interest in someone was never a good thing.
He continued, not caring that I wasn’t responding. “Great spot on the main street in Providence. Perfect for an upmarket restaurant and bar, don’t you agree?”
I agreed so fucking hard I wanted to cry just thinking about what I’d lost today.
“Such a big, beautiful space. Plenty of room for a huge, state-of-the-art kitchen. Low lighting over private tables. A bar serving all the very best top-shelf liquor. Even room for functions and parties in the back.”
I hadn’t even thought of using the extra space like that. But it was a good idea.
It hurt that all of that had gone to someone else. That I hadn’t even been close to being able to afford it. Luca rubbing salt in the wound wasn’t helping.
“If you’re done trying to get under my skin, I’m going to leave now. See you around.” I yanked open the car door and slid into the seat.
“What if I told you that restaurant could be yours?”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and gripped the steering wheel, willing myself to close the door and drive away.
But Luca grinned at me through the windshield. “Ah. That interests you. I thought it might after hearing how much you bid for the place. How the hell were you going to pay the mortgage on that?”
I refused to answer.
Luca nodded knowingly, like somehow, with just my silence, I’d spilled all my secrets. “Ah. You couldn’t. You were in way over your head.”
Anger boiled my blood. I hated that he knew exactly which buttons to push to make me feel like shit. It was the same way I felt every time my brother had been awarded a new trophy for outstanding excellence, while I came home with nothing but a detention notice my mother had to sign with a disappointed expression on her face. It was almost a fucking relief when Liam’s paternal grandfather had noticed his talent for everything and plucked him out of Saint View to raise in Providence as his heir.
It had only deepened the divide between my brother and me though. And it was one we were still actively trying to mend, decades later.
I wondered if Luca knew all of that too.
One look at his smug face said he probably did.
I switched the engine on.
“I was the winning bidder, Chaos,” he called over the roar of my engine. “And I want you to run the place.”
I turned off the engine.
Luca grinned. “It would be everything you want it to be. You’d have full control over the menu. You could make any dish you’d ever desired, in the kitchen of your dreams. You would do all the hiring, and I have a very generous budget in mind so you could attract some real talent to work alongside you. I’d pay you a top-level salary, and your sign-on bonus will include shares. Making you a part owner.”
The words hung in the air around me like pictures. Images of the life I’d so desperately wanted but had watched slip through my fingers just an hour before.
Luca was offering it all to me on a silver platter.
He tossed me an envelope, thick with the papers it enclosed. It had my name on it. Not Chaos, but Hayden Whitling.
“I don’t sleep on talent, Chaos. That’s contracts and shareholder documentation. A draft because my lawyers can only do so much in an hour, but it’s a solid deal. Have your brother look it over if you want. You’ll see it’s all above board.” He paused, watching me carefully. “Come work for me, Hayden. I think we both know you want to.”
I pulled out the top page of the contract, my gaze catching on the number printed neatly next to the word salary.
It was six figures.
And came with a ten-percent share in ownership.
Luca grinned. “You like?”
There was nothing about that offer not to like.
Except for the man it came from.
I pushed the contract back inside the envelope and stuck my hand out of the open window.
Then let it fall to the road.
Fuck Luca Guerra. My words held a barely concealed snarl. “You can take your offer back to whatever fiery pit of Hell you crawled out from. I wouldn’t work for you for all the money in the fucking world.”
I was done with that life. I was done with gangs and violence.
I wasn’t going to be dragged back in with the lure of everything I had ever wanted.
Regret burned bitter on the back of my tongue.
Apparently, I was done with dreams too.