Chapter 15 - Devin
DEVIN
I was running late. Again.
The double doors to the conference room loomed ahead like judgment itself, and the muffled sound of voices inside told me the all-hands-on-deck, dick-swinging Butera family meeting was already well underway.
Anthony Butera didn’t tolerate lateness—he called it “a sign of disrespect,” and those usually came with physical violence and worse humiliation.
He wasn’t wrong, technically, since I often showed up a few minutes past time just to piss him off.
Like a goddamn teenager disappointing their father at curfew just to make a scene.
At least, that was what I assumed it was like, since I’d never had any real parents to speak of besides Jonathan’s father.
Sometimes, disrespect was the only power I had left in this family. Only this time, I hadn’t meant it that way.
I’d lost track of time trying to deal with Lois Taylor—Frankie’s mom. The woman was barely getting by even before she’d been unknowingly threatened. Frankie hadn’t said it outright, but I could tell it was eating her alive to not be with her mom every second since the letter.
So I’d called in a favor.
Found someone who could check in on Lois daily, help her around the house, get her groceries. Hell, I even arranged transport if she needed to get out of town in a hurry. It wasn’t part of my job. But lately, the job wasn’t exactly my top priority.
I pushed open the doors, late enough that every head turned.
Anthony Butera sat at the head of the long mahogany table, his fingers steepled like some kind of priest about to pass sentence.
Jonathan was on his right, sharp suit, calm eyes, trying to look older than he was.
On Anthony’s left sat his old warhorses—Milo Conti and Vincent Serrano—men who’d seen more blood spilled than I’d seen birthdays.
“Devin,” Anthony said, his tone flat as steel. “How gracious of you to join us.”
I slid into an empty chair near the end of the table, offering a smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, boss.”
Vincent chuckled quietly, but Anthony didn’t bite. “You think this is funny? You stroll in here fifteen minutes late—again—and expect me to believe you take this family seriously?”
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. The quiet was worse.
I felt the weight of their eyes on me. I knew my place—near the bottom of this table, despite how many jobs I’d done, how many times I’d taken hits for the Buteras. I was muscle with a brain, a man they used when charm or violence was needed, depending on the hour.
But it seemed sometimes like I’d never be one of them. Not really, not to anyone but the two men I was closest to, not just in our organization, but in general.
Who else on this Earth could I trust enough to fuck a gorgeous woman alongside them? No one.
“Got caught up in something,” I said, maintaining a nonchalant tone that I knew would piss him off more. “Won’t happen again.”
Jonathan’s gaze flicked to me. His eyes narrowed a little, remembering all the times he’d covered for me in the past. Telling me, “You know I can’t cover for you all the time.” Good thing I wasn’t asking him to.
Anthony leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing in a way that looked oddly similar to his son’s. “You’ve been getting caught up in a lot of things lately, Dev. Personal things. What would you call it, Vinny? Ah, right. Distractions.”
That word hit a nerve. Frankie wasn’t a distraction—she was the only thing that felt real anymore, and all this bullshit felt like a distraction from her.
Protecting her. Spoiling her. Making her come.
“I handle my work,” I said. “Always have.”
Anthony’s stare didn’t waver. “You handle it because I let you. Don’t forget who brought you in from the gutter, Devin. Without this family, you’d still be running petty cons on street corners.”
That stung, mostly because it was true.
I leaned back, feigning a smile. “And yet here I am, sitting at your table.”
He didn’t reply. But Jonathan’s jaw tightened, the way it always did when things got tense between me and his father. I caught his eye for a second, and for a flash I was seventeen again, dirt under my fingernails, wearing a jacket two sizes too big, staring down a clean-cut kid in an Armani coat.
The sky was spitting the kind of cold, greasy rain that made the city smell like rot and gasoline, or maybe that was just how I remembered everything back in those days.
I’d just finished lifting a wallet off some drunk outside a bar—a regular grift and hardly the worst I’d gotten into as I tried to survive—when a black Mercedes rolled up to the curb beside me.
The door swung open, and in front of me was Jonathan Butera. A few years older than me, in his twenties, but that wasn’t the only way he was above me.
Filled out with muscle where I was wiry in those days from lack of consistent access to food and the occasional dabbling in drugs. With his hair slicked, his tie straight, he looked like he belonged on a magazine cover.
“Devin,” he said, not asked. “Devin Lay.”
“Depends who’s asking,” I said anyway, keeping my voice steady.
My heart was pounding, though. I’d been warned not to mess around on Butera turf, and I was tuned in enough to the underground scene to know that was exactly where I was.
I’d been playing with fire for weeks, always searching for a thrill that made me forget every dark, fucked up corner of my past.
He smiled faintly. “Alright, maybe Devin Lay. I’ll let you guess who I am, too. You know whose neighborhood this is?”
“Yours?” I guessed, injecting heavy derision into my tone because I doubted this young guy was anyone too powerful. Irreverence was my specialty back when I was a teenage dirtbag. My first real talent before I got good at everything bad.
“My father’s.” A smile flickered at the corners of his mouth, and my stomach dropped, knowing this was the heir to the area throne. Authority figures had never been my forte—too many abusive half-assed foster families had passed me around before I ended up striking out on my own.
But there was a measured quality to Jonathan’s voice that softened the edge of my fear. “And he doesn’t much like people who…encroach on his territory, stir up trouble without his explicit permission.”
I shrugged. “Guess he won’t like me much, then.”
Jonathan stared at me for a second—really looked, maybe right through to my bones. Then he did something I didn’t expect. He fucking laughed.
“You’re smart. I’d heard you were, but…” He shook his head, still half smiling. Then, those dark eyes found mine, locking hard. “But smart doesn’t count for much when you’re alone. Consider that, maybe.”
He handed me an honest-to-god business card, and he was gone. Two weeks later, I was working for the Buteras. I’d never gone back.
I blinked, the memory fading as Anthony’s voice pulled me back to the present.
“Are we boring you, Devvy?”
“Not at all,” I said, ignoring the demeaning nickname one of my past foster siblings had used for me.
It was the kind of personal barb I should never have let Anthony have on me, but back when Jonathan found me and pulled me into his father’s orbit, I’d still held onto the tiniest bit of naivety of a teenager, even after going through hell.
“Just thinking about how far I’ve come. You always said it’s good to remember where I crawled up from, after all. ”
Vincent, the highest-ranking man in the room who wasn’t Anthony’s direct heir, smirked from the latter man’s side. “Careful, kid. Pride’s a dangerous thing around here for the likes of you.”
I grinned, all teeth, knowing my sharp canines would flash just right. “So’s underestimating me. But I think everyone at this table knows that.”
Anthony’s eyes hardened for a second. Just long enough to make me worry I’d gone too far this time.
But it turned out my power play landed better than I thought—a sign, maybe, that our don was getting soft in his old age. It was a whisper I’d heard in a few dark corners.
One I didn’t want to believe, even as the hold Anthony had on me grew tighter, less comfortable, all the time.
“Fine,” he spat, sounding tired. “Sit there quietly and listen. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
I bit back my retort.
There was a time I’d have taken that kind of talk as gospel.
A time when this family was my home, when I thought I owed Anthony everything.
But lately, since sweet Frankie Taylor blew in, it all felt hollow. The only place that felt like home anymore was wherever Frankie and the guys were—Alex, Jonathan, and me, circling around her like idiots.
I knew damn well they both felt the exact same pull, the same undeniable magnetism in her touch and her presence, that I felt.
That thought was still turning over in my mind when the doors burst open.
A low-level grunt whose name I didn’t remember stumbled in, breathless, his normally-ruddy face pale as paper. “Boss,” he wheezed, staring wide eyed at Anthony. “The job—we’ve got a problem.”
Anthony wasn’t the type to shoot to his feet, but the quick jump of his brows implied that level of alertness. “What kind of problem?”
The man swallowed, caught his breath for half a second. “It’s the shipment at Pier Nine. We were ambushed. Someone tipped them off.”
In an instant, my eyes locked to Jonathan’s, the same way they had all those years ago on the streets. We’d learned to communicate just in looks, and this look sent a stone to the pit of my stomach. It was a look that said, Alex.
Alex had been leading the charge with the job tonight. He was always at the helm with the most dangerous, the most crucial missions of the Butera family.
And now our friend, our brother in the Butera family, and now in this deeper, strange connection we all shared with Frankie, was in danger.
Fuck.