Chapter 2
Though the club was neutral territory, I knew we’d have business to deal with on the property, so I’d made the renovation plans with that in mind. We had offices upstairs for official visits from other family heads and the law, with smaller rec rooms on the main floor for more casual meetings with rivals or clients. But the real work went down in the basement.
Protected by biometric scanners, a twenty-four-seven video feed, and a dedicated armed guard at all times, Gilded’s lowest level was where the criminal part of the business came to play. Half the basement was set up for money laundering and securing client packages smuggled through the ports we controlled. The other half contained a row of holding cells. We’d remodeled the locker rooms of the old gym and created a soundproof freezer that doubled as an interrogation room. It even had a separate HVAC system to hide the smell of blood if we got searched by the Feds.
Zander was our first guest.
Moore and Tennessee sat his limp body in a chair, strapping down his extremities with zip ties so he couldn’t move. Grey took his place against the wall at my back, and I stood silent, mentally running through the things I needed to know. When I had a handle on the questions I’d ask, I held out a hand. Tennessee popped a small white packet out of one of the tool chest drawers and dropped it into my palm.
The second the smelling salts hit his system, Zander woke panicked, struggling in his restraints. He started to yell for help, an instinct that told me he remembered being kidnapped, but the frantic energy seeped away into nervousness when he saw me in front of him.
That’s not a good sign.
“You’ve been a very bad boy, Zander.” I clicked my tongue, pacing closer so I could get a good look at him now that he was awake. Clear eyes, no external bruises, no unnatural paleness to his deep olive skin—nothing to indicate he’d been held against his will.
I turned to my enforcers. “Where did you find him?”
“At home.” Moore shrugged. “He walked right in like he’d never left.”
But he did. So where had he been all this time? I turned back to Zander. “You were hiding. Why?”
“Of course, I was hiding. Someone put out a hit on the head of the city. I’m not stupid enough to get caught in the crossfire.” He swallowed thickly, eyes darting around. I wondered if he was rolling, but I didn’t think so. He had more fear than paranoia in him. No, Zander was hiding something and doing it poorly. “I know you can understand that, Ms. Marcosa.”
I ignored the reminder that someone had given their life for mine. Thinking about it would only make things harder. “You disappeared to save your own skin.”
Zander looked relieved. “Exactly!”
Moore and Tennessee shook their heads, and I knew without looking that Grey was doing the same. Zander had been trying to become family for years. He wanted in, but there was something weaselly about him. A little voice in my head that told me he couldn’t be trusted. Seemed I was right.
I stepped close, bending enough to whisper in his ear. “This is why you’ll never be one of us, Z. Your only loyalty is to yourself. My soldiers are loyal first to me, then the Marcosa empire, then themselves.” It was an oath they took when they swore into the family, one punishable by death if broken. There was no place for cowardice in my organization.
I stepped back, moving the conversation to something more productive. “What are the whispers saying?”
Z was already shaking his head. “I know what you want, but no one’s admitting to killing Rey. I’ve asked around already.”
The sound of my cousin’s name hit me like a physical blow, and when Z’s eyes met mine, the sympathy in his nearly crippled me. I hated it, and in that moment, I hated him. Rage and grief lashed through me in a painful wave, and the nightmares rushed to meet me.
Fresh kettle corn scenting the air, my cousin and I laughing as he tossed some toward my mouth and missed. Reminiscing about sneaking out at night, stealing croissants from the local vendors, and tagging my father’s emblem on the buildings nearby. The crush of the crowd in a local marketplace, making us feel like part of something normal for once, even with bodyguards creating a barrier between us and them.
It was a simple, idyllic day. Until it wasn’t.
The rest of the tactile memories flashed by quickly. The sweetness of the day cut open by a gunshot. The stickiness of fresh blood pouring out of Rey’s chest. The sound of Tennessee and Moore yelling. Grey’s voice on the phone telling me to get out of there. Me sitting on the ground cradling Rey in my lap, begging him to survive. To hold on. To stay with me.
He didn’t live long enough for the ambulances to get to us. He didn’t even last long enough for me to call them myself. All because he took a bullet that was never meant for him.
Dismayed at the reminder of yet another loss, I quirked an eyebrow at Z. “Nothing? You’ve been gone for over a week, he’s been dead for two, and you still know nothing?”
“I’ve been looking. I just?—”
“Haven’t found anything,” I finished.
Zander huffed in exasperation. “Of course not. You think someone’s going to admit to killing the Marcosa underboss in Marcosa territory? That’s suicide.” He stilled, realizing his mistake, and bowed his head. “Apologies for my rudeness. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”
My family had ruled the dark side of Seattle for almost a century by the time I’d taken over. It was a job I’d never expected to have and had only taken because I had no other choice. The mantle fell to me, or it fell to no one.
Instead of faltering under the weight of something I didn’t want, I thrived. I’d made us bigger and better. I’d carefully worked through the territory wars my father and brother had left behind, carving out a bigger piece of the city for our family until we ruled nearly all of it.
Zander was right. No one in their right mind would admit to killing a Marcosa in my territory. I also didn’t believe him fully. He was hiding something, and I intended to find out what.
There was once a time when death and violence had made me feel powerful. A time when beating the information out of someone would put me in a good mood. When I sat on my throne with blood on my hands and felt like I ruled the world. When men on their knees, bleeding and begging for mercy, made me feel strong. In some ways, it always would. The problem was, I knew the cost for that kind of ignorance, and I refused to pay it ever again.
Interrogation needed balance. You had to know exactly how much a person could take before they broke and what would cause just as much psychological damage as a physical attack. You couldn’t be unfocused or upset. You had to be calm. Even. Cool. Normally, I had no problem doing my own interrogations, but I was still too fresh and raw in my grief to be effective. This time, I had to let someone else soften Zander up before I let myself out to play.
Nodding to the enforcers, I took a seat in an ornate chair Grey had found. “Begin.”
Moore and Tennessee took turns on our prisoner, and the minutes ran together as they worked in harmony. When one needed a break, the other stepped in. They asked basic questions, guided by Grey and me when needed, and their interrogation styles complemented each other perfectly. Looking at Grey, I knew he noticed it too. We’d have to get them working interrogations more often. They had a knack for it, despite their participant refusing to give up what we wanted.
Tennessee gave up first, his usual affable nature nowhere to be found as he perched next to Grey to watch, but Moore kept at it. He and Rey had always been close, and the loss of his best friend had severed a little bit of his humanity. Zander was the only tie to answers we could boast, and the longer he held out, the more unhinged my enforcer became.
“I don’t know anything!” Zander repeated over and over, but Moore didn’t hear him. He didn’t back up either. He kept going. Slicing and hitting and punching. Small wounds that hurt more as they compounded. He took out his grief and pain on the only person he could.
Finally, when Zander was on the edge of being too far gone to help us, I had to call it. “Enough.”
Moore immediately stepped back, panting and gasping for air, and it wasn’t because he was tired. It was heartbreak. He was walking around missing a piece of himself. I could see it written on him the same way I felt the hole in my chest, and it killed me that it was my fault.
“Tennessee, take him upstairs for a drink.”
Moore glared at Zander, desperate for another turn, but didn’t argue. None of us spoke until the door slammed shut behind them.
“He’s crazy.” Zander’s nose was broken, and blood covered the lower half of his face, his voice muffled and wet because of it.
“He’s in pain,” I corrected. “Rey was like a brother to him.”
“I swear, I don’t know anything about the shooting.”
Staring down at the mess my men made of him, I believed him. Zander was selfish by nature. If he had intel that could save his skin, he would’ve said something. “Then why should I keep you around?”
His eyes widened. “Don’t kill me. I can be useful.”
I scoffed. “You haven’t been yet. All you’ve done is waste time I don’t have.”
Zander’s eyes darted around the room, and I could see his mind whirling, searching for anything to save himself. When he looked back at me, I saw nothing but victory and felt a little of it myself. “There’s a new player in town.”
That was not what I was expecting.
I felt the air shift as Grey settled into that preternatural stillness he’d perfected. A new player coming to town just weeks after a failed assassination attempt had bad news written all over it. I focused all my attention on my only link to information. “Who?”
“Don’t know.” Zander shrugged casually, but it missed the mark. Hard to be casual when you were tied to a chair and desperate not to die. “Leader’s native to the area, but that’s all the info I’ve got. It’s all hush-hush.”
I tapped my fingers against the chair arm, mind racing. He was still hiding something. The hunch in his shoulders gave him away.
“It’s a group, not just a man?” I asked.
Z nodded fast enough to give me a kink in my neck. “Oh yeah. Big group, too. Leader says he’s been recruiting for years.”
Gotcha. I hummed. “Very hush-hush, indeed.”
Grey pulled his gun and pointed it at Zander, who blanched. “What are you doing with that?”
Neither of us answered. A gun to the face was pretty self-explanatory, especially when he’d just snitched on himself.
“How long have you been meeting with this new enemy, Zander?” I asked, settling back in my chair. I saw it then, the scared mouse that he tried to hide. The one that said he knew he’d done a bad thing. All three of us knew he was dead, but he was still trying to find a way out of it. He had to try for his life one more time.
“I-I haven’t met with anyone.”
I tilted my head. “You weren’t with this new group the last few weeks?”
“No. I told you I was lying low.” His lies were so bad, I could nearly smell them in the air.
“And I believed you until a more plausible answer was presented. Now, I’m officially out of patience. What’s the name of this group, Z?”
Zander swallowed hard, the thick sound loud in the silence around us. “I don’t?—”
Grey cocked his gun, and Z jerked at the sound. “Tell her the truth, or you’ll die right here, right now.”
When Zander looked at me, it was with resolve and regret weighing him down. He’d lost the game, and he knew it. “They call themselves the Aces. Leader’s name is Cash. I—I’m sorry, Ms. Marcosa.”
“Thank you for your honesty.” I stood, smoothing a hand over my dress before turning to Grey. “I’m going to check on Moore. Take care of this, then we’ll go home. I need you to start looking into this Cash. Check on our shipments too. Something tells me the attempt on my life wasn’t a warning shot, but his version of an introduction.”
I needed to know if we’d been missing clues. If Rey’s death could have been avoided with a little due diligence, I was going to go postal.
Grey nodded, eyes trained on Zander’s slumped form, gun steady. Because club owner or not, I was still the head of the Marcosa family, and when I gave an order, it was carried out.
That didn’t mean I needed to stick around to watch. Especially not when something was obviously going down in my city. Something I needed to get ahead of before it killed someone else I loved.
Mind and heart heavy, I left the room just as the shot rang out.