Chapter Eleven
Zeke
When I came to, I tasted copper and concrete in the back of my throat.
A humming ache radiated from the center of my chest, and every breath sawed at my ribs like a dull blade.
I was handcuffed to a chair, arms behind me, and the chair itself was bolted to the floor.
They’d stripped my shirt, left me in a mesh of Kevlar soaked with blood, the vest torn open where two bullets had smashed through but failed to punch the ticket all the way.
The wounds were wet, ugly, and shallow compared to what they could have been.
My father watched me wake up from behind his desk.
The desk was real mahogany, not the cheap laminate you found in every casino manager’s office up and down the Strip.
His computer screens ran a silent symphony of surveillance of the casino floor, pit bosses, the counting room, and even the side alley where they’d probably dumped my bike.
He wore a suit so black it had no reflection.
His shoes were buffed to the point of vanity.
Every hair in place, skin trimmed and shaven, even the mustache sharper than my memory of the last hour.
The only thing out of place was the wolf-head necklace looped over his desk lamp.
My mother’s. Or maybe Simone’s. He’d never bothered to learn the difference, as long as it belonged to him.
I worked my jaw, testing for breaks. None. My tongue was swollen, but I could still speak, and that was a mistake I’d bet Jack regretted every day of my life.
He let me cough and spit until I got my head upright. Only then did he break the silence.
“You’re awake,” he said, voice silk-wrapped acid. “I was almost convinced you’d find a way to die before we could have our little talk.”
He poured himself a shot of something golden. He didn’t offer me one.
“You’re getting soft,” I said, breathing slow. “The old man would have aimed for the head.”
Jack smiled, the kind of smile that made you wish you were dead. “I did. You ducked. I suppose even a bastard dog can still manage a clever trick.”
He rose from the chair, straightened his jacket, and walked a slow circle around me. I could see the way he measured everything, including the blood soaking my vest, the split in my eyebrow, and the way I had to squint to keep my left eye open. He studied weaknesses. That was his fetish.
He stopped behind me, close enough I could smell the citrus of his aftershave. He spoke into my ear, low.
“You know what your problem is, Zeke? You never learned how to win. Always happy with second place, always content to let someone else pull the trigger. Even now, with your club at your back and this new whore you think you love, you can’t help but lose.”
He would pay for calling Selene a whore.
He leaned in, breath hot on my neck. “I didn’t lose,” I said. “I got out. I lived. Simone did, too.”
Jack’s hand came down on my shoulder, fingers digging through the vest and into the wound underneath. It was a warning, not a killing blow. “You’re a failure,” he said. “Just like your sister.”
I twisted in the chair, the handcuffs biting into bone. “Let me loose, I’ll show you failure.”
He laughed, stepping away, and I could feel the heat draining from my ears to my teeth. He walked to the desk, pulled a drawer open, and set a silver .45 on the blotter. Polished, engraved, the initials JS carved into the grip. He didn’t pick it up. He didn’t need to.
He perched on the edge of the desk, legs crossed at the knee.
“I heard you joined the dykes. I suppose that’s an improvement over the whores and the junkies, but it’s hardly a step up.
” He flicked a finger at the surveillance screen, where Selene’s casino had burned bright in the night, then gone dark.
“You always had a thing for lost causes.”
I tried to lift my arm, show him the middle finger. The steel stopped me, but the effort was worth it. Blood trickled down my wrist, pooling under the cuff.
Jack uncrossed his legs, leaned forward. “Do you even know why you’re here?”
I bared my teeth. “You need someone to blame. You want to kill me yourself. I’m the only one left who’s not afraid of you.”
“Wrong again,” Jack said, voice lowering until it was almost a growl. “You’re here because you’re mine. You always were. Every bone, every scar, every mistake—you are the legacy I built. And you will die at my hand, or by my order, because you belong to me.”
He stood, the chair squealing under his weight as he did. He paced back and forth, a tiger in a cage, never letting his eyes off me for more than a blink. When he spoke again, it was through his teeth.
“Simone was the only one I ever cared about. Your mother was a whore, and you? Well, you were never anything but the reminder of my own bad judgment. But Simone, she was perfect. Smart. Beautiful. Until you ruined her. Until you let her get away.”
He circled behind me again, and I felt the anger coming off him in hot waves. He bent low, lips at my ear.
“Where is she, Zeke? Tell me, and maybe I’ll let you bleed out instead of choking to death on your own tongue.”
I spat, the glob hitting his shoe. “Simone is a thousand miles from here, and she’d rather swallow glass than see you again.”
Jack straightened, face going cold. He wiped the spit with a silk handkerchief, then snapped it back into his pocket with a single, theatrical move.
He went to the door, opened it, and let two men in.
I recognized one—a lifer named Kane Daemon, ex-cop who’d worked the door at the old brothel before Jack bought him off.
The other was a new face, but the kind of muscle you could hire cheap in this town with his thick neck, dead eyes, and hands already callused from breaking bones.
“Make sure he stays alive until morning,” Jack told them. “We’ll have company soon.”
He paused, looked at me one last time. “You were right about one thing, though,” he said, and the smile was back. “I do want to kill you myself. But I’m a patient man.”
He closed the door behind him, leaving the two thugs and me in a room that suddenly felt smaller, the walls closing in with every tick of the clock.
I watched the gun on the desk, the wolf-head necklace catching the lamplight and throwing it into my eyes.
I could feel the blood still leaking under the vest, the edges of the wound hot and wet.
Kane stood by the door, hand on his hip, bored. The other guy, silent and expressionless, watched me like he was waiting for the green light to end it.
I let my head slump, let them think I was done. But I was already working the cuffs, grinding them against the bolt in the chair, counting the breaths until Jack would come back, and hoping Selene was half as good at murder as she was at fucking me up.
I didn’t plan to die here. Not before I made my old man regret every second he’d spent keeping me alive.
***
Jack came back just after midnight. The two thugs snapped to attention, but he waved them off with a lazy flick of the wrist. “Out,” he said. They left without a word, closing the door so soft you barely heard it latch.
He didn’t bother sitting. He walked to the desk, poured another shot, and eyed the gun.
His hands were steady, almost graceful, as he rolled the .
45 toward the edge, lining it up like a dealer setting a favorite card on the table.
The wolf necklace swung gently from the lamp, catching the light, hypnotic.
I’d spent the last hour working the cuffs, flexing every joint, trying to find slack.
The skin at my wrists was raw, blood sticky around the metal.
I was sweating through the vest, and every movement yanked at the wound under my left pec.
Didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to wait for the morning.
Either I got out, or he’d have to kill me in front of a mirror.
Jack leaned against the wall, hands folded. He never looked at me directly. “You know, Zeke,” he said, “there was a time I thought you’d run this town. Maybe take it further than I ever did.”
I snorted. “You never wanted a son, you just wanted a meat shield.”
He shrugged, a tic of the shoulders that reminded me of all the times he’d thrown away people like empty packs of smokes. “I wanted a legacy. Same as any man.”
He reached into his breast pocket, drew out a small brass key, and walked behind me.
I felt the click of the lock, then the cuffs dropped away.
My hands were useless at first, bloodless and stiff, but I shook them out, flexed hard, and got feeling back just in time to catch the gun as it slid across the desk.
Jack’s eyes were on mine now, cold and clear. “Go ahead,” he said. “You’ve earned it.”
I picked up the .45. It was heavy and slick with oil. I sighted down the barrel and lined it up with his nose. My finger found the trigger and curled.
Jack didn’t flinch. He spread his arms, palms up, like a man welcoming the end. “Pull it,” he said, and his lips twitched in a smile.
I wanted to. I wanted to so bad it made my teeth hurt.
But my hands were shaking, not from pain, but from memory.
I saw my mother on the kitchen floor, blood in her hair, the last look she gave me before Jack threw me out of the room.
I saw Simone, hiding in the crawlspace, her face bruised and wet, whispering, “It’s okay, Zeke, just do what he says.
” I saw every night he’d made us watch, every time he’d forced us to stand witness to his empire of shit.
My thumb slid off the safety. I could feel the mechanics, every spring and gear, the way the gun wanted to fire. Jack’s eyes narrowed, but the smile never broke.
“Do it,” he said, voice almost gentle. “You always said you’d kill me if I gave you the chance.”
The room shrank to a tunnel, just me and the gun and the man who ruined everything he touched.
But I couldn’t do it.
The gun lowered, the weight of it suddenly too much. I dropped it on the desk, breathing hard.
Jack stepped forward, took the gun, and set it aside. He was so close I could see the tiny veins in his eyes, the dark rings from decades of never sleeping enough.
He knelt, bringing his face level with mine. “You’re weak,” he whispered. “Always were.”
I spat blood, lips numb. “You were a fucking monster. Simone and I—we hated you. We still do.”
Jack stood, fixed his cufflinks, and smoothed his tie. “That’s the point, Zeke. Hate’s the only thing that gets you anywhere. The rest is just decoration.”
He started for the door, then paused, hand on the knob. “Selene’s coming,” he said, not a question. “Do you think she’ll cry when she sees what I’ve made of you?”
I watched him leave, muscles still screaming, every nerve on fire. I wanted to kill him. Maybe I still could. But the truth was, he’d won. He’d always win, because I couldn’t bring myself to be like him.
Not even to save the only family I had left.
The door clicked shut, and I was alone with the taste of my own failure.
***
I spent the next hour staring at the gun on the desk, wishing I’d grown up more like Selene, being ruthless, allergic to regret, always a little bit in love with the end of things.
But I was still the kid in the attic, hiding with Simone and a half-dead kitten, listening to my father break every rule and every bone that ever tried to get in his way.
Jack left me alone, but not for long. When he came back, he didn’t say a word.
He just paced behind the desk, arranging objects, wiping his glass with a napkin, checking the faces of his fake family in their cheap silver frames.
He didn’t have to speak to let me know he was winning.
He knew she was coming to kill him. He was just pissed it was taking so long.
He stopped, finally, and met my eyes. “Do you want to try again?” he asked, voice tired but still sharp enough to cut.
I shook my head. “You can shoot me, or you can shut up. Those are the only two moves you’ve got left.”
He sat, hands steepled, the little veins in his temples throbbing. “You always were sentimental,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”
I could feel the anger now, not cold, but boiling. “You killed her,” I said. “You killed Mom, even if you never pulled the trigger. She begged you to stop. She begged, and you laughed.”
Jack’s mouth twitched, then reset. He tapped a finger on the desk. “She was weak. That’s why she died.”
I felt the room tilt, like the floor wanted to collapse, but I wouldn’t let him see it. “Simone’s not weak. She’s better than you. She’s better than both of us.”
He let out a huff, not quite a laugh, more of a release. “Simone is a ghost,” he said. “You did that, not me. She’s hiding out there, scared, waiting for the world to finish her off. Same as you.”
I stood, forcing my legs to hold. The wound under the vest had soaked through to the bandages taped beneath. The pain was nothing compared to the hate. “You’re wrong,” I said. “You don’t win. Not this time.”
He stood, walked around the desk, slow and deliberate. “Every time I looked at you, I saw myself. I hated it. But I trained you anyway. Like a pit bull. Too bad you turned out to be a mutt.”
I let him get close. I wanted to see the whites of his eyes when the bullet finally left the chamber. But I didn’t raise the gun. Not yet.
His hands were behind his back, always hiding something. I waited for the punchline.
It came in the form of a knock—soft, then louder. Jack raised a finger, and the door opened. Kane stepped in, eyes darting between us, unsure which one of us was the bigger threat.
“Boss,” Kane said. “She’s coming. Selene. She’s alone.”
Jack smiled, teeth shining. “Let her in,” he said, and Kane nodded, disappeared.
Jack turned to me, his whole body vibrating with anticipation. “This is your chance, Zeke. Last shot. You want to die a man, or you want to die a coward?”
The gun was still heavy in my hand. I wanted to lift it, wanted to end this. But all I could do was breathe in and out, letting the hate ride its circuit one more time through my body.
He came close, whispering now. “When she walks through that door, you get one choice. Kill me, or watch her die. That’s it. That’s what men do. They choose.”
The world slowed. I watched Jack’s face, every pore, every wrinkle. I watched the glint of the wolf necklace in the lamplight, the gun barrel shining with oil and fingerprints.
A shadow crossed the surveillance screens. It was Selene, riding hard, dust rising behind her, headlamp slicing through the Nevada dark.
Jack turned, arms open, messianic. “Let’s finish this,” he said, and the smile he wore was the same one he’d given me when I was five and he broke my favorite toy just to see if I’d cry.
I didn’t cry. Not then. Not now.