Chapter Thirty-Nine
Cal
It’s been twenty-four hours.
It’s mid-afternoon and I’m sitting at my desk at home, forcing myself not to look at the door to her office.
I blink and I squeeze the edge of the table like it will pay for what has happened to her.
A sigh drifts through the room in my direction.
“What?”
I hear Nico’s footsteps before I drag my gaze up to him.
“Will you just sit here forever, then?”
“No.”
It comes out like a child’s answer, with a sneer attached. I exhale, leaning forward and placing my elbows on the wood in front of me while I hold his gaze.
They have brought in a few Russians who were lower level and knew nothing. I interrogated one of them and let Nico handle the others. Let one go back with a message to the rest of them: I won’t stop until I get her back.
“So, I have a question, then,” Nico says it with an entitled sigh as he flops into a leather chair and throws his feet up on my desk.
I lean back, an exasperated exhale coming out aimed at making him leave. But he laces his fingers behind his head and stares, waiting for acknowledgment. I give him a small wave of my fingers and avoid his eyes, hoping he will leave faster if I show disinterest.
“You want us to do this above board, you won’t let me go beyond…
‘asking nicely,’” he scoffs and holds up air quotes, clearly annoyed that he is being kept on a leash.
“You won’t let me or anyone have a real conversation with these fucks.
But like, brother, what are you willing to do here?
Like you want to get Max back, obviously… ”
His words trail off as if he needs confirmation and my eyes lock on his, my expression annoyed and getting angrier by the second.
What am I willing to do?
Anything. I’d burn the world down.
But I said I would never take over this God damn shit show of a business because of my own morals, and I can’t be like him. I can’t go down the same road as our father did.
“Right, obviously.” He extends a hand like I’m exhibit A, palm to the ceiling. “So, what are we fucking doing, Cal? Because—look—you keep saying we can’t cross a line or lines or whatever bullshit—sorry. But—”
He sits forward and scoots the chair closer to the desk, and his eyes are wild. They almost match mine, but are grey around the edges, darker.
He’s always been the darker of the two of us in every way.
While I was playing baseball at the park with kids, Nico was on the other side of the fence, tricking another kid into giving up their more valuable baseball cards for favors or trades so he could take them to the pawn shop to pocket the cash.
In high school, he was out late, running with my father’s crew against our mother’s wishes and I was at home.
Not clueless, just not interested in following this road.
Nico, on the other hand, has been on the road since birth, happily and loyally following in our father’s footsteps. Nico running cons at fifteen and me filling out college applications. Nico crossing all the lines and me holding back, staying on the good side.
“Cal,” his voice rings like ice through my thoughts.
“All I’m saying is if she was my girl? We wouldn’t just be going up to the line in the sand—I’d be barreling across it.
There wouldn’t be a fucking line I wouldn’t cross to get her back.
Not a life I wouldn’t take to get to her.
So, what are we doing here, big brother?
Is she that girl to you? Or is she just a random—”
The insinuation that she is less than everything to me hits me like a punch. My chair hits the wall behind me as I shoot up and Nico matches my stance across the desk.
“Shut the fuck up.” I point at him and feel the anger boiling in my chest.
His words aren’t wrong.
And it really is simple: there is no line I wouldn’t cross.
So, why the fuck have I told them not to cross any?
“I can see the wheels turning in that big brain of yours, big brother. Because I know what she is to you.” Nico puts his palms on the desk and leans closer to me as the volume in his voice increases as he all-out yells across the desk, “Cut the shit, Cal. Let me get her back for you, let me off this goddamn leash you have me on so I can get her the fuck back for you!”
His words reverberate through the tall ceiling of the room and the corners of my mind.
I lean forward, feel something in my chest snap as I growl back, “I’m getting her the fuck back.”
A feral, delighted smile slides across his face. It’s identical to mine, just a younger, somehow harder version. He stands and adjusts his jacket sleeves, satisfied with the outcome of his prodding.
“Let’s fucking go then.”