Dangerous Temptation (Dark Dream 1)

I knew him well enough to know what I believed my brothers did not. He would never “retire” the way he claimed he already had. There was a restless hunger in him that would never be satisfied. He had simply transferred his office from Morelli Holdings Inc to Morelli Manor in Bishop’s Landing, where he conducted business as usual.

He was a secretive man, but I knew his schedule and his habits better than almost anyone else. Certainly better than his wife or his prodigal elder sons. I knew him because while he would never call me his right-hand man, I was something far more intimate.

I was Bryant Morelli’s favorite weapon.

“I don’t like this shit,” he was saying as he adjusted the large, framed family photo on the edge of his desk. It was taken by the same woman who photographed the British royal family. I wasn’t in the picture. Bryant had sent me out of town on an “errand” and forgot to mention the shoot until two weeks later when the frame showed up on his desk and I’d asked about it. “Leo’s shacked up with that filthy Constantine, Haley, and he’s pushing for Ronan to get on his payroll… He has no respect for the Morelli name acting this way.”

I didn’t respond. He was on a tirade and I’d learned a long time ago not to interrupt him in his anger. My fingers itched to touch the scar tightening the skin on my left cheek, but I curled my hand into a fist to resist the temptation.

Bryant liked to see me haunted by it and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“What are you doing to bring down the Constantines?” he asked me point-blank, those Morelli family brown eyes dark as tar. “You keep promising me Caroline’s head on a silver platter, but so far, I don’t see any evidence of your success.”

He grunted as he sat back in his chair and regarded me the way a scientist might a bug under glass. “You never tire of disappointing me, do you, Tiernan?”

I’d spent years hardening myself against his cruelty, but no matter what, there always seemed to be a crack in my armor, a minuscule opening for his poison to inject itself into my blood.

At this point, it hurt my pride more than anything. I’d taken Bryant’s old loan-sharking business and turned it into an entire underworld kingdom of illegal gambling dens, underground fighting, sports rigging, and real estate fraud. I’d made the family twenty-six million dollars last year on one scheme alone.

And still, I disappointed him?

“I found something,” I said, before I could curb the anger that gave birth to the words. “Something about Lane Constantine’s ex-mistress.”

Bryant scoffed. “Hell, we all have mistresses. Well, everyone except for you. Still can’t get it up for anyone, boy? Grace’s been gone for over a decade now.”

“Don’t say her name,” I snapped, the words shooting from the chamber of my lips before I could click the safety.

He laughed, loud and long, slapping one thick hand against his desk as he finally trailed off. “You’re so easy, Tiernan. Even after all this time, you can’t stand the mention of that girl.”

I couldn’t stand the mention of her name in his mouth.

“This is different,” I continued through clenched teeth, my jaw spasming under the pressure. “Lane might have left her something.”

Someone else might not have seen the infinitesimal hitch of breath through Bryant’s barrel chest, but I’d studied him for so long, it seemed obvious to me.

I’d caught his interest like a hook through his suddenly slack mouth.

“What makes you assume that?” he asked, trying to keep the suspicion from his voice.

If I wanted to show all my cards, I could have assured him that Bryant’s own mistress and two bastard children were safe, at least from me. For now. But it seemed like a good idea to let him sweat, wondering if I knew about Madison Bailey and her kids.

“Do you remember Colombe Energy Investments?”

“The green tech company? Sure.”

“It was a subsidiary of Halycon,” I said, mentioning the Constantines’ primary enterprise run by Winston, the eldest son. “But since Lane died, it’s gone into trust.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Bryant mused, absently rubbing at his right knee beneath the desk. It was still cold in New York in late October and his old wound was acting up. “Doesn’t CEI hold the patent on that carbon capture technology the Canadian government wants to use for their energy initiative?”

I smiled grimly at his recall. Bryant was getting older, but he hadn’t lost a single iota of his edge. He could remember what he read in the Financial Times last Tuesday if I was so inclined to ask him.

“Yes. I reached out to a contact in Ottawa, but they were closemouthed on the project.”

“It’s interesting, but I don’t know what the hell you think it has to do with Lane Constantine’s ex-mistress.”