“Bring my baubles to reel in the members of the five families? That’s what you want from me?” Lucas asks.
I nod. “Yes, and to stay the fuck away from the girl because if you don’t, brother or not, I’ll cut your balls off and feed them to you.”
He flexes his fists, as if he’s imagining another showdown with me. Soo would intercept him in a heartbeat. The only reason he didn’t the first time was that no one was expecting his dumb ass to go off his rocker.
“You sure are putting a lot of effort into protecting her.”
I let him hear the edge in my tone. The one grown men usually piss themselves when they hear. “So you say.”
Lucas isn’t fazed. He looks death in the eyes and smiles. “You can’t protect her forever. Before the auction, during the show, and after… she’s going to come face to face with her own version of hell on Earth, and you’ll be right at the center of it. How do you think that’s going to make her feel?”
I don’t even entertain the idea. I narrow my gaze. “Get to the fucking point. I don’t give a shit how she feels. She’s a means to an end.”
With a long sigh, Soo throws himself back in the chair, sensing the fight leaving Lucas.
“Any other complaints you want to register?” I ask. “Because we aren’t doing this again. Brother or not, you come at me again, I give you to Soo, and I have your body thrown in an alley to be picked over by pigeons.”
He shakes his head and gives me one long, lingering glare. When he walks out, I slump against the desk and rub my side. “Fucker has strong hands.”
“You shouldn’t have let him get a hold of you. What were you thinking?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. An attempt at keeping the peace a little longer. He’s plowing headlong into an explosion. I guess I’m hoping to minimize the damage when he detonates.”
“Were you serious about me taking him out?”
I shake my head. “No. If it comes down to him or me, then I’ll do it myself. He’s my brother, after all.”
Soo watches me carefully, and I refuse to back down from whatever assessment he makes. “Fine. I’ll keep one of my guys on him and ensure he’s doing the job you gave him. If not, I’ll put a backup plan into place and bring him to you. I don’t like that he keeps gunning for you, though. What if it’s a gun next time?”
I shake my head. “Lucas likes things personal. If he were going to kill me, it would be with a knife. Up close and messy.”
Soo shakes his head and pushes out of the chair. “I’ll leave you to your family drama. Just watch your back, all right?”
I cross the room and snag a tumbler from the bar. Liquor lines the shelf above it. I choose a bottle at random and fill the glass. It isn’t even ten a.m., but I don’t care. Lucas is driving me to drink as if I were…
I cut off the thought as anger sizzles through me. The glass in my hand is the buffer to the world I’m craving. Instead of drinking, I throw it across the room and watch it shatter as it slams against the fireplace mantle.
I’m not my father. I’m not Lucas. And I sure as shit deserve every bit of respect I’ve scraped together in this life. If Lucas doesn’t learn that lesson soon, he’s going to find himself in the cold, or worse, dead.
Could I really do it? Kill my little brother? I want to say no since we’ve both already lost so much in life, but my need for revenge outweighs everything else.
My eyes catch on the liquor that runs down the wall in amber rivulets, and I watch its path until the droplets fade away. Then I sit down behind my desk again, gather the paperwork I’d been studying, and get back to work like nothing ever happened. An illegal auction in our city takes careful planning, especially when every law enforcement agency in the country is already on my ass.
An illegal auction to sell one of the five families’ little princesses will take every single bit of cunningness I have to pull it off. And I can’t wait to leave every one of those bastards trembling in their beds, wondering who my next target will be.
11
Celia
It seems my lack of fighting at dinner helped my case. When I wake up, my door is unlocked. A quick dash in the hallway proves my freedom only goes so far. Goons guard every exit I find on my trek from the bedroom to the kitchen.
My wardrobe options now include one dirty button-down shirt and one scandalous black bandage dress. I opt to wear the shirt to eat breakfast; I call it a win when I sit at the counter in the kitchen and find a plate heaped with scrambled eggs.