King of Lies (Empire of Lies 1)

He said nothing, he just stared at me.

I shrugged and headed to the door. Pushing it open, I looked over my shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, I was already planning to make today my last day.”

I walked through the offices, taking the elevator down to the garage.

The moment I slid behind the wheel of my Jaguar, I sent my identical twin brother a text message.

Me: Congratulations. You’re fired now.

His name immediately crossed my screen via phone call.

“Yes?” I answered.

“Did he try to beg me to stay? Was he surprised?” His words rushed out like a river. “Never mind, don’t answer that. Thank you for taking another one for the team.”

“Why don’t you ever submit a two weeks’ notice or simply stop showing up to these shitty jobs like a normal person?”

“Because I have deep and severe closure issues.” There was a smile in his voice. “Don’t you remember our dear therapist saying that?”

“I only remember you continuing to use it as an excuse.” I rolled my eyes as I pulled out of the parking garage. I heard one of my burner phones buzzing in the glove compartment and stopped the car. “Hold on a second.”

Opening it, I rummaged through all seven of them until I found the culprit. The one that was marked “work.”

“Yes?” I answered.

“Good morning, Mr. Anderson,” the soft sound of my lead employee’s voice came over the line. “I’m so sorry to bother you this early in the morning, but we have a few major problems.”

“Tell me the biggest one.”

“We’re almost sold out on VIP tables for New Year’s Eve, and Rio Warren is here right now wanting to buy four of them.”

“Okay, and?”

“It’s Rio Warren, sir.” She suddenly sounded softer. “As in, the rumored boss of the D’Amato mafia family…”

No, he’s actually their ‘underboss’. I shrugged. “Is he willing to pay his money upfront?”

“Yes, he um…He laid it all out in hundred dollar bills a few minutes ago.”

“Is his money green?”

“Yes, sir…”

“Then this isn’t a problem at all,” I said. “Tell the bartender to take an extra bottle of Dom Perignon, on me, to Mr. Warren’s table, whenever he and his friends arrive this weekend.”

“No offense, Mr. Anderson,” she said, her voice still wavering. “I don’t think our customers will appreciate partying with these type of people, sir. I also don’t think that the honorable man who sold you this club two years ago would appreciate you accepting money from—well, God knows where their money comes from. I’m begging you to reconsider.”

I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel, mentally replaying her words—trying not to focus on the “these type of people” line.

It was in rare moments like this when my two worlds nearly collided, the dark with the light, the halfway pure with the wickedly depraved. One wrong move in either direction could fuck it all up, and I’d been way too damn careful over the past nine years to risk making the wrong choice.

“You’re right, Tiffany,” I said, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “A man like Rio Warren is not the type of person I want at Fahrenheit 900. I’ll turn him down face to face when I get there in fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

“You’re welcome. You can hang up now.”

“Well, I still have a few more major problems I have to let you know about.”

“I’ll let you know when I want to hear them.” I ended the call and tossed the phone into my glove compartment; I’d deal with her when I arrived at the club.

Holding the other phone up to my ear, I heard my brother softly laughing.

“Something funny, Trevor?”

“Nothing at all,” he said. “Are you honestly going to tell Rio Warren that he’s not welcome?”

“Hell, no.” I sped onto the street. “I’m going to offer him the top suite and let him use the hidden celebrity entrance.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he said. “Two last things. One, I forwarded you the weekly updated list of sexual offenders and current city criminal defendants, and guess what?”

“What?”

“It’s the same as last week.” He scoffed. “Why you waste your time on this, I’ll never know.”

“I’ll never tell you. What’s the other thing?”

“I received some random ‘thank you for that’ bouquets at four of our other businesses today. Did you send more than my condolences to Liam Kline’s family after his funeral last year?”

“I slept with his wife a few times.”

“Figures. Speaking of which, have you ended your never-ending dry spell yet? Any new leads on Tinder?”

Only one, but she shouldn’t even be an option… “Not yet. I’ll be sure to update my cock’s activity with you later, though.” I ended the call and turned off my phone. When I stopped at the next red light, I opened my glove box and put it away, pulling out two other ones that were marked ‘other work’ and ‘non-personal.’