Chapter 3
Reid
My brothers and I meet in our Chicago office a few days later, and their expressions are grim.
Ash and Mace have been crisscrossing the country to visit some of our key business partners, and dealing with a number of cyberattacks from the Russians. Hunter, meanwhile, has been spending time at the paper mill in Brimstage, which was brought under the Griffin portfolio when he married Maddie.
It’s fair to say we have an eclectic mix of investments.
If Ash identifies a struggling company with untapped potential, particularly one that a small town relies on for employment, we step in if we can.
Our work isn’t completely altruistic – we profit as much as the communities we serve – but watching towns thrive again is good for the soul.
It eases our consciences. Ash’s most of all.
My mom had been diagnosed with cancer not long after he’d graduated from college, and the medical bills were beyond our dad’s means. James Griffin was a melting pot of brilliant ideas and good intentions, but they rarely took solid form. Dad was an eccentric by anyone’s standard.
I wish I’d had time to explain to Quinn how Ash had been forced to step up as the eldest son, and in the early days, his alliance with John McConkey had been born out of necessity. We’ve each inherited an element of dad’s genius, but it was Ash who built the Griffin empire from scratch.
My brother’s hard work kept Mom alive for five years beyond her prognosis, and we have nothing to feel guilty about. Well, almost nothing. There are certain grey areas, as I’ve discovered since joining the firm.
My brothers are not men to be crossed, and the atmosphere is tense as we gather around the conference table.
“I’m sick of putting out the Russian’s fires,” Mace says. “It’s time Ilya found out exactly what we’re capable of.”
“And what exactly is that?” I ask. It’s a genuine question despite the scowl Mace gives me.
“We’re not in the same league as the Bratva.
We don’t have an army. And we don’t have the backing of the one ally that does.
There’s only so long we can hide the fact that John McConkey is sitting this one out.
And we shouldn’t be entering a fight we can’t win. ”
“No, we shouldn’t,” Ash says. He eyes me over his coffee cup as he takes a sip. “Which is why we’ve been building our numbers.”
“Since when?”
“Since Ray Forsyth warned us that the Russians were planning on putting us in our place,” Hunter says, referring to one of the men in Barrett’s inner circle who owes us his life. “As much as I hate the guy, Ray’s turned into a reliable source.”
I run my fingers through my hair. “The cyberattacks are in retaliation for messing around with the architect’s drawings and setting back his plans. So far, it’s a tit-for-tat game. If our next move is to build an army, that’s one hell of a way to declare outright war.”
Ash holds my gaze. “It is.”
“We’re not ready,” I insist. Skirting around the edges of the law is one thing, but talk of armies has my nerves twitching.
“You mean you’re not ready,” Mace says.
He’s four years older, and nearest in age. We’ve fought each other mercilessly over the years, but this jibe isn’t simply to annoy me. Mace has pushed the hardest to keep me away from this side of their business. He’s looking for an excuse to exclude me.
I glare back at him. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Mace does have a point though,” Hunter says, taking our brother’s side. There was a time when he’d argue with Mace just for the fun of it, but now they’re both blissfully married, they’ve become this annoying double act. “You could have got yourself killed at Poulton Springs.”
“Do you think Mace would have fared any better?” I ask. “If we’d done it his way, he would have been breaking and entering in the middle of the night, and that would have been asking for trouble.”
Mace snorts a laugh. “I wouldn’t have let the fucking housekeeper sneak up and put a gun to my head.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you too.”
Ash sets down his cup. He’s the one who entrusted me with this mission, and I need his support because I’m feeling outnumbered.
“You were lucky,” he says, and my stomach lurches. It’s not a direct criticism, but Ash doesn’t like relying on luck to achieve his plans. I’ve let him down. “You were caught attacking an unarmed woman, and if the housekeeper had been trigger-happy, you’d be dead.”
“The gun belonged to the unarmed woman,” I clarify. “And I was restraining her, that’s all.”
“You don’t get to put forward a defense when there’s a bullet in your head.”
I go to remind Ash that I was also unarmed at that point, but it’s a moot point. He’s right. I was lucky to come away unscathed, or as unscathed as I can be after Quinn clamped a fist around my heart.
I can’t look at my oldest brother. “Sorry. Maybe I was a bit overconfident.”
“Or too distracted by Quinn’s tits,” Mace throws at me. “Nice move taking her top off.”
“It was a fucking accident.”
Mace hadn’t realized what I’d done until Clara accused me of stripping Quinn. There are so many reasons why I wish that housekeeper hadn’t interrupted us.
“Was it her rose scent that overpowered you?” he continues.
“Just shut up, Mace. In case you’ve forgotten, you were distracted by a woman not that long ago.”
Mace fell hard for Lily, and he hasn’t let his new wife out of his sight since they married last month. Even now, she’s in the glass-fronted office on the opposite side of the corridor, working alongside Maddie. Both my brothers are deliberately sitting in chairs that face their wives.
And I’m the one who’s easily distracted?
“Boys!” Ash says sharply. “We’ve got more important things to do than trade insults.
Our next move will decide our fate.” He rubs a tattooed hand over his beard, and addresses Mace when he says, “Reid makes a good point. So far, all we’ve done is cause Ilya a little inconvenience, and he’s responded with like.
If we hit him harder, we have to be prepared to face the consequences.
Jake’s busy recruiting more men, but at some point, we have to decide if we’re going to use that extra manpower to undertake an offensive, or hold back and defend ourselves if necessary.
” He slumps back in his seat, looking far older than his thirty-two years. “I for one don’t have an answer yet.”
“Is the cause worth it?” I ask, posing the question we need to tackle first.
Mace stares at a fixed spot behind me, and I know he’s looking at Lily.
“If Ilya’s plan had been to set up a distribution hub similar to the one the McConkeys lost, I’d happily leave Barrett to deal with his own mess,” he says.
His mouth twists. “But we’re not talking about the movement of drugs, or any other contraband.
We’re talking about people being traded like they’re just another commodity.
And given Barrett’s connections with the upper echelons of government, it won’t be easy for the authorities to investigate what’s happening on his land. ”
“I hate that we’re related to that prick,” Hunter adds. “I’m going to feel guilty simply by association.”
“Could we cause another delay?” I ask, looking to Mace. Barrett’s architect has strengthened his online security, but my brother can still hack into the construction company’s systems to track progress. “Do we know where the build’s up to?”
Mace drums his fingers over the printouts in front of him.
“The main structures are up, and Quinn’s sent an instruction to have everything completed by the end of the month.
But even if work stopped tomorrow, I don’t imagine Ilya would care if the buildings are finished to an acceptable standard, or not.
They’re usable as is. We’d have to burn them down to cause any meaningful disruption. ”
“At least this time we’d actually be responsible for starting the fire,” I grumble.
“Do Barrett’s staff really believe we burned down the factory?” asks Ash. His eyes bounce between me and Mace. We’re the ones who heard the accusations leveled at us.
“The housekeeper’s hatred was visceral,” I reply. “They believe whatever he’s told them.”
“Clara and her husband moved to Poulton Springs last year,” Mace informs us. “He was a security guard at the factory.” His lips thin and I have a horrible feeling I know what he’s about to say. “He’s the one who was killed in the fire.”
“Fuck,” says Hunter.
I recall how Clara’s hand had been shaking with fury. I’m only now appreciating how close she came to ending me. “I was pissed off at the time when she called me a kid, but maybe I did have a lucky escape. She said if it had been any of you three, she’d have pulled the trigger.”
Ash shakes his head. “Barrett really has done a hatchet job on our reputation.”
“While he plays the hero by offering to employ the grieving widow,” Mace adds. “A woman who wouldn’t be a single mom now if he hadn’t been playing with matches.”
“There’s no doubting her loyalty to him now,” I say. “She was ready to kill for the bastard.”
“If you want to know how close a call it was, you should listen to the recording,” Mace offers Ash. There’s a glint in his eyes when he adds, “I have all the edited highlights.”
Of course he does. And I know his carefully selected edits will include my exchange with Quinn while she was trying to grab my hardening dick.
“We could review your technique, Reid,” Hunter suggests a little too innocently.
I look between my two brothers. They wear matching smirks. “Mace has already played it for you, hasn’t he?”
Hunter struggles to keep a straight face. “Ash hasn’t heard it. Yet.”
My second oldest brother used to be a surly bastard like Ash – who’s presently grinding his teeth as he watches us. There was a time when I’d feel blessed to get a smile from either of them, but Hunter’s stupid grin irritates the hell out of me.