Chapter 6
Leo Navarro was a fucking idiot. It wasn’t the first time his younger brother, Simon, had had the thought.
Hell, it wasn’t even the first time today that Simon had recognized the magnitude of Leo’s stupidity.
Simon knew he shouldn’t complain. After all, it was precisely Leo’s arrogance and lack of vision that had allowed Simon to so easily exploit him for most, if not all, of their adult lives.
They were polar opposites in every way. Where Leo was charming and outgoing, Simon was reserved.
Where Leo was full of flashy swagger, Simon preferred to operate in the shadows.
Leo had brawn, Simon brains. Leo, runway model good looks, and Simon, hawkish features, like a nose and cheekbones that had always been labeled too severe to be handsome.
And where their mother had loved Leo unconditionally, she’d hated Simon with equal measure.
He’d been the spare. The disappointment.
The son who had made her wish she’d quit after she’d gotten it right the first time, fathered by the husband about whom she’d felt the same.
Leo had never hesitated to wield his status as her favorite, like the bully he was, reminding Simon that he was more loved and revered.
More important. Simon was simply the second son from the second husband.
He’d never be the better child at anything.
But despite what their mother had thought until her dying day, and Leo currently believed, Simon was smarter than both of them combined.
So, when he’d seen the chance to turn the estate she’d left them into a highly lucrative criminal empire, he’d taken it.
Yes, Leo thought the business ran on his brilliant ideas.
Yes, sometimes that rankled, because the business actually ran on Simon’s keen ability to manipulate Leo.
But since Simon also controlled who would take the fall for every last crime they’d ever committed if the authorities were to ever get too close, and that person was very decidedly not him? He hadn’t hesitated.
For the past five years, Simon had given Leo just enough leash to let him and everyone else think Leo ran things, playing into his brother’s ego with calculated precision while he not only really ran things, but also made dozens of deals under the table that Leo knew nothing about.
Simon was the brains behind their entire operation—the drugs, the weapons, the girls.
All of it. He made sure everything was under control, including the money, the security, the people… and especially, Leo.
So, there was no way Simon was going to give up the time and energy he’d put into making Leo look like the head of the Navarro family crime ring just because Leo hadn’t been able to keep himself from getting sloppy about turning Sal goddamn Brinkman into a human colander.
Simon sat back against the cool leather of his desk chair, glad he was in his home office so he didn’t have to hide his disgust as he read the confidential police report in front of him for the tenth time.
God damn it! Leo wasn’t supposed to have been within a nautical mile of that warehouse.
He fucking knew that exchanges were the most vulnerable part of any deal.
It was why they always insisted their business partners make them in person.
People were a hell of a lot less likely to get careless—or double-cross a person—when their own asses were on the line.
The Navarro brothers never returned the courtesy, though.
Too much risk. They employed a small number of trusted representatives for exchanges, ones Simon had ensured would rather die than flip.
But Leo had gone and fucked everything up when he’d found out Brinkman had been cutting in the heroin they’d sold him with a bunch of filler.
Fentanyl. Baking soda. Rat poison. The greedy bastard had mixed in whatever he could get his hands on to increase his bottom line.
Simon had known it for weeks. He’d had a plan for Brinkman, one that had involved plastic sheeting and a remote location where no one would be able to hear his screams, or call the fire department once Simon burned it down to destroy all the evidence.
Now, he was stuck cleaning up Leo’s mess, just like always.
But as much as Simon was tempted to let his brother rot, he needed Leo free and clear of the Brinkman murder.
If Leo went to jail—even for something as careless and stupid as rage-stabbing a traitorous mid-level heroin dealer—then Simon wouldn’t be able to run their family business from the shadows.
And since he had more power than anyone he knew, more money than he could count, and the handcrafted ability to place the blame on his brother and disappear if things ever really went sideways?
Yeah. Clearing Leo of one indiscretion was a small price to pay; plus, unlike his brother, Simon was exceptional at getting away with murder.
Pushing back from his desk, Simon fed the police report through the cross-cut shredder in his cabinet before heading down the hall to Leo’s office.
His impeccably shined Oxfords clipped a tone not unlike his mood over the marble floor, the irritation in his veins intensifying as he caught the sound of an unmistakable moan of pleasure coming from the other side.
Of course, Leo didn’t have a care in the goddamn world.
He’d just done what he’d wanted and left the mess behind for someone else to deal with while he got sucked off by the Flavor of the Week. Selfish ass.
Simon inhaled through his nose, gathering his strength before placing three sharp knocks on the door.
“I’m busy,” Leo grunted from the other side, another moan punctuating the claim, but Simon wasn’t about to be put off.
“It’s important.”
“So is the blowjob I’m getting,” Leo said.
“It’s business.”
The moaning stopped, followed by a sigh that wasn’t the happy sort. Then, “Fine. Make it fast.”
Simon walked in before the brunette behind Leo’s desk had even made it off her knees. He said nothing as the woman wobbled to standing, her stare as vacant as an abandoned building, long boarded up, but not even Leo was so thick that he didn’t get the message.
“Don’t go too far, sweetheart,” Leo said by way of momentary dismissal as he smoothed a hand over his—thankfully, now zipped—pants. “I won’t be long.”
The woman gave a glassy-eyed nod, stumbling on her four-inch heels as she wandered out of the room.
“A bit of a security risk, don’t you think?” Simon asked, his eyes following the path the woman had taken further into the house.
Leo rolled his eyes. “We have cameras all over the house. Plus, she’s so high she could barely find my dick to suck it.”
“Sounds enchanting,” Simon said, eliciting a smug laugh from Leo.
“You’re so fucking formal,” Leo scoffed. “She was polishing my knob, not doing ballet. Anyway, they resist less when they’re relaxed. Please tell me you didn’t barge in here for a lesson on personal safety.”
“No.” Simon ignored the twinge in his chest as he moved into the room.
His brother had taken over their mother’s larger, grander home office space after she’d died, leaving Simon with what had been a utilitarian spare bedroom on the main floor.
Leo had redecorated to “man up” the suite—his phrase—but it still reeked of pretentious extravagance, just in different packaging.
Sleek ebony hardwood floors. Modern furniture made of mostly glass and chrome.
Custom floor-to-ceiling windows along the back wall.
Carefully curated books that Leo had probably never heard of, let alone read, marching across the backlit shelves like showgirls, and Simon shook his head, returning to the matter at hand.
“I came to talk about Sal Brinkman.”
Guilt flashed in Leo’s eyes, replaced quickly by manufactured boredom. “What about him?”
“For starters, he’s dead,” Simon said. “But I’m assuming you knew that.”
Leo’s surprise was just a touch too overdone to be genuine. “What? Why would I know that?”
“I think,” Simon said, very calmly so he wouldn’t scream, “for the sake of this conversation, we can drop pretenses. Did you kill him?”
“Me? Are you serious?” Leo splayed both hands over his heart and huffed out a laugh. “You know, I should be offended that you’d think I would do such a thing.”
Simon inhaled slowly through his nose. “Did you?”
Leo stuck with his indignance, eyes wide. “What? No.”
“So, you didn’t attend his regularly scheduled business meeting two nights ago?” Simon pushed.
Ah, there it was. That flinch of guilt in his eyes that Simon had known since they’d been boys.
“Look, don’t freak out, okay? I went to the drop.
I know, I know.” He paused his trip to the black lacquer sideboard that served as a bar, rolling his eyes.
“I’m not supposed to, or whatever. But Sal was a dirtbag.
He was ripping me off. I was just gonna go have a word with him, you know?
Man to man, so we could address the issue. ”
Simon shouldn’t be surprised that Leo knew what Brinkman had been up to. Yes, Leo was impulsive and arrogant, and no, they’d never have grown their business as they had without Simon pulling the puppet strings. But Leo wasn’t entirely stupid.
Neither was Simon. “How did you know about Brinkman?”
“Runner said there’s been a rise in ODs in Brinkman’s territory lately.
I wouldn’t normally give a fuck—people make their choices, and that shit keeps me in business.
But my product is pure. I wasn’t going to let some fucking shit stain like Brinkman cut it in with garbage and keep the profits.
That money belongs to me. Plus, after enough ODs, the cops start connecting the spots, you know? ”
“The dots,” Simon said, and Leo rolled his eyes.
“That’s what I said.”
“So, you went to confront him,” Simon said, making a mental note to remind their contact not to talk so much to Leo.