Devil's Bargain

“You have a soft heart, Hawk,” Axel deadpans.

“Shut up, asshole,” I tell him.

He chuckles.

“Hawk, just give me—” Marcus starts.

“The matter of my reputation, that’s a whole other can of worms. Money can’t fix that, so you have a decision to make. Knee caps, both, or I’ll take your right hand.”

“No, please, Hawk, please, you can’t mean that. You know I’ve been loyal to you. I’ll do anything for you. I just fucked up. I fucked up big, I get that, but please. Please.”

“Crying is for girls, Marcus. Little girls like the child, Calla, who you stripped naked and sold in my fucking club!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

I hear Axel snort behind me and check my watch. I’m hungry and I’ve got a lot to do today.

My phone vibrates with a message. I reach for it, swipe the screen to read the text.

Come by this evening and I’ll have something for you.

It’s Jack, my attorney. When I need shit like this, Jack takes care of it. When I need assholes like Marcus dealt with, it’s Axel, unless I’m doing it myself.

“Where was I?” I ask, putting my phone away.

“You were giving him a choice,” Axel reminds me.

“That’s right. It was between knee caps or his right hand. Now, if it were me, well, fucking having my knee caps blown out, not sure I’d go for that. I hear it hurts like a mother fucker. But to lose my right hand. I mean, left, I could probably deal with that, but right?”

“Please, just give me one more chance. I’ll have a girl for you tonight. Two. Ten!”

I get up, put the chair back at the table.

“Take care of this, Axel. Let me know what he decides. And hell, if he can’t decide, just do it all.”

“No!” Marcus is whimpering behind me.

I take two steps then turn back to look at him, shake my head and leave.

I don’t mind making an example of an asshole like him. And examples do need to be made. One or two every year.

It’s when you go soft that they fuck you. Swarm in like vultures with their hunger. Their greed. Always grasping at things they have no right to.

After a day full of visits similar to this one, I head to Jack’s office. It’s early evening, the sun setting on the horizon. It’s my favorite time of day.

I try to watch it alone when I can. There’s a stillness that belongs only to the sunset and the sunrise. It’s almost peaceful, even inside my head.

But tonight, my head’s full.

I’ve known Jack for over a decade. Met him when I started to work for Lanigan.

Murray Lanigan was about eighty when I met him in an alley where two idiots were trying to rob him. I say idiots because the fools didn’t realize who they were fucking with.

I knew. I knew from the minute I set foot on the strip.

What the old man thought he was doing without his bodyguard I have no idea. To this day, I’m certain he suffered from some sort of dementia.

The casino I own used to be his, but by the time I started working for him, he was old news. A legend, but old news.

I beat up the two-bit thugs trying to rob him, and he hired me on the spot. I still think it’s because he mistook me for one of his sons, long dead by the time I came on the scene. It was partly my accent, heavier then since I’d just gotten into the country about a month earlier.

During one of his rare lucid moments, he changed his will, leaving the casino, hotel and the building itself to me. His children were pissed, but fuck them. I was the one who was with the old man the last years of his life. I was there when he was sick. When he was scared. I held his hand when he died.

And in some ways, he was like a father to me.

They contested the will, of course, but by that time I was eighteen, legally an adult, and thanks to him, a citizen of this country.

The will was iron-clad. They couldn’t touch me.

It’s because of me the casino’s standing and profitable today at a level it never was when he was alive. At his request, I honor my promise to make sure his family is taken care of. Even the vultures.

Jack was Lanigan’s attorney and I guess I inherited him, too.

His office is off the strip and by the time I arrive, he’s waiting on me.

“Hawk, it’s good to see you,” Jack says, shaking my hand.

“Good to see you, Jack. I hope I’m not too late.” I take a seat in his office and he tells the secretary to bring whiskey.

“No, you’re right on time. And I’ve got some information for you.” He takes his seat behind his desk and opens a file on his computer.