“Brat.” I bite her nipple and she laughs, trying to get away, but I hold her tight and pull her hair. “Tell me why I shouldn’t hold you down right here and fuck you senseless.”
“Because—” She hesitates, frowning, chewing on her lip. “Well, I guess there’s no good reason.”
I bury my mouth on hers. “When I’m done with you, I want you to stay in here. I want you to wait for me. I want to come back to you lying in bed, your ass in the air, waiting for my palm.”
“You’re spanking me already? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then think of something bad so I can punish you for it.”
She laughs but her laughter dies in a groan as I slip a hand beneath that long shirt and find her bare pussy, already wet again.
* * *
The breakfast roomis attached to the kitchen on the far side of the house, down the hall from my father’s former study. Big windows overlook the gardens and the sky’s massive and blue and broken only by puffy clouds. The room’s airy and comfortable, with a table and cushioned chairs, and I remember my parents spending a lot of time in here when I was a kid. My father would drink his coffee and read his paper, and Mom would sip tea and let me run around at her feet, and she’d sometimes point out the window and smile and say, I bet you can’t run all the way to that rock and back before your father finishes the sports section. I’d always try, and I never could. Dad hit me once for failing, and that ended that game.
Now the table is occupied by Hugh and Cormac. Both men sit with their backs to the window facing out at the room which leaves me no choice but to have my back to the entrance. It makes my spine itch, but I don’t show my discomfort. I take a seat across from the father and son pair, both of them watching me with matching slimy smiles like twin crocodiles poking their little snouts up from swampy depths, and I gaze back at them and try not to show my loathing. At least, I don’t want it to be obvious.
“Thank you for joining us,” Cormac says, sounding like a gentleman. Although I’m aware there’s nothing gentle or manly about the bastard. “I had to convince Hugh to come to this meeting, but I think it’s in the best interest of everyone involved.”
“Your daddy’s setting your schedule now?” I ask, looking at Hugh with a big mock smile, just seeing if I can knock him off balance before we begin in earnest.
He glares back. “I’m trying to be mature about this.”
“And I’m still unhappy about you trying to murder me.” I put my hands on the table, half to show him that I’m unarmed, but also so I can leap over and strangle him at any moment.
Hugh rolls his eyes. “Oh, what, that one little attack? You should get over it, cousin. That’s just how these things go.”
“You nearly killed your own men. How’s that holding up? Morale pretty good right now? I’m guessing the whispers started already. They’re wondering who you’re going to sacrifice next. Everyone knows I survived your ambush and got the better of your strongest men, and it’s hard to imagine coming back from something like that. Who’s going to trust you now?”
Hugh’s jaw works and I can tell I got under his skin, but worse than that, he knows I’m fucking right. The only reason he’d take a meeting like this is if the family really were turning their backs on him and making his life harder. Cormac clears his throat as a staff member comes in with coffee and a tray of cheese and fruit. I pour myself a drink and sip it, but ignore the food. Neither Cormac nor Hugh touch anything, and it briefly occurs to me that eating or drinking might be unsafe, but I push that aside. Even they wouldn’t stoop so low.
“I was talking to Hugh after you and I spoke the other day, and I believe I came up with a good plan for how we can move forward as a family.” Cormac speaks like he’s a politician and it’s no wonder he survived the mafia for so long, the bastard can wriggle around like a frog, although I can’t be the first person to want to put a bullet in his fucking head. “It’s a sensible plan. Hugh?”
My cousin clears his throat and looks like he’d rather shove a rusty stake up his own asshole, which confirms what I suspected—Cormac is likely the power behind the power.
“Here’s the offer.” Hugh glances at his father, who nods at him. “I will retain my position at the CEO of Hayle Construction. I will act as the outward face of the family in public. All of the legitimate, above-board activities will be my domain. You will take control of the less-than-legal operations.”
“We’re going to split the family, Kellen,” Cormac says. “You’ll run the organized crime and Hugh will run the corporation. It’s a good idea, one I had a long time ago. I wanted your father to be the shadow man while I took on the spotlight, but Orin wasn’t interested in sharing like that, and so we worked the way we did, with him making his childish demands and stomping his feet when he didn’t get his way. I had to learn how to influence the rotten old monster, but I survived, and I’m still here.”
“I’ll say that I don’t want this compromise,” Hugh says, looking sour, which I’ll admit to enjoying more than I probably should. It’s not mature, but there’s something so satisfying about watching the man that ordered your execution eat shit. “The Hayle family is deeply interconnected and its various businesses all work in tandem with each other. The lines between the legitimate and the illegal aspects of what we do are extremely blurry at best and totally impossible to delineate at worse, and I worry we won’t be able to function effectively if we’re busy squabbling. However, I am also aware that we can make this work. You’re good at what you do, and I’m good at what I do. If you leave me to the corporation, and you focus on doing what you do, I think we can own this city. I think we can expand and grow larger than anyone in our family dreamed possible.”
I sit back and sip my coffee. Hugh sits in his chair, uncomfortable. Cormac sits back looking smug like this offer is better than anything I could hope for and he’s confident I’ll say yes. I’m tempted to throw my coffee on the old bastard’s suit, just to ruin it out of a petty childish desire to destroy.
But I stay my hands and stare.
It’s not a bad offer. In fact, I considered something similar when I first came here, but it quickly became obvious that what Hugh said is true—the family is interconnected in deep and meaningful ways. The crime aspects of the Hayle organization funnel through the legitimate aspects, and there’s no way to separate them, not entirely. Not without destroying entire swaths of money and influence.
Which means I’d have to work closely with Hugh and trust that he’d be reasonable. The idea of speaking to him daily, of asking for permission to do something I believe is necessary only to hear him give me some petty, stupid excuse, or some whiny bullshit reason why I’m making his life harder, the thought makes my fucking stomach turn.
“I’m sorry, Cormac,” I say softly, placing my coffee cup down. “But I didn’t come home to share the crown.”
Cormac’s smile slips. “Excuse me?”
“Hugh’s right. The family’s much too deeply connected for this to work. If I could trust your son, or at least stand to be in the same room as him, then maybe we could talk about it. Unfortunately, I think Hugh is a sniveling, pathetic loser, and I’m not going to debase myself by treating him as an equal.” I turn my attention to Hugh, who’s looking beet-red with rage. “As for you, you’re lucky you’re not dead yet, and don’t think you’ve been given a stay of execution. This is merely a delay to give you time to rethink my proposal.”
“You can’t be serious,” Cormac says as I push my chair back and stand.
“I’m very serious. Fuck your deal. And fuck you both. Here’s my counteroffer: you both relinquish your positions and run as fast and as far from here as you possibly can and I don’t kill either of you. Or you can stay, try to fight me, and end up dead. Either way, the choice is all yours.”