The Original Crowd (A Whole New Crowd 0.50)

“Keep Taryn away from Pedlam. It’s for her own good,” Jace ordered.

“I’ll keep her out,” Tray shot back. He was furious.

“And as long as you do that, we shouldn’t have a problem. Should we?” Jace shot back, equally enraged.

The two hated each other. I didn’t see that the last time they were in each other’s company. They barely acted like they knew each other.

“Fine. We have an understanding,” Galverson said soothingly. “Now, Jace, I’d like a moment in private with Tray. It’s a family matter.”

“Fine,” Jace yielded, shutting the door behind him.

“Now, now that it’s the two of us, I have a proposition for you, son.”

I was surprised Tray hadn’t shot him. That was the second time he called him ‘son.’

“If it’s killing Lanser, I’m in,” Tray said easily, but you could hear the violence in his voice.

Galverson chuckled. “Oh, there’s a little bit of your father in you. Both of you make me laugh. But, no. It’s not about killing a very promising partner of mine. It’s about you, Tray.”

Tray was quiet. Then he said, “I’m listening.”

“You have a multitude of contacts. I was impressed with you when you were younger, but you were too irrational. I feared pushing you, you were too unpredictable then. Now, now you strike me as calmer. More controlled. Smarter about your place in life.”

“What do you want?” Tray snapped impatiently.

“You have contacts, Tray. You have a wealth of contacts at your disposal. I know that you’ve been using them. You know the drug dealers and you know the cops. I’d like to be a part of that wealth of information.”

“You want to know what cops’ll turn for you,” Tray mused.

Dirty cops.

“Yeah,” Galverson sounded surprised, “you think I want to get to know clean cops, maybe kill ‘em?”

“And you can go to hell,” Tray sent his way, sounding assured.

“I’ve been talking to your father about you. He tells me that you’re much smarter than his eldest son. You’re classified as a genius. He also thinks you have a thing with authority. You don’t like it. In fact, Mitchell tells me that you hate authority, you always have.”

Tray was quiet, listening.

“I’d like for you to come work for me. You’d be a first sergeant. You’d work over Jace.”

“I’d be his boss?” Tray asked.

“Yes.”

“Until he learned everything I know, and then he’d kill me.”

“I’m not as stupid as you think I am, Tray, since I let you live so long ago. No, I only let you live because you were Mitchell’s kid. I could stop anything you sent out. I have agents and police in every level of the government. I let you live because you were just a kid. And because you don’t buy into this right/wrong bullshit. I saw that you only wanted to be left alone. I saw that and I knew that you’d hold up your end of the deal. I won’t kill your father and you won’t leak anything on me.”

That was news to me.

“You can kill my father all you want. In fact, if I ever see him again, I’ll follow out on my threat,” Tray said silkily, his voice sending a shiver down my spine.”

But it wasn’t from fear this time.

“You have another weakness, Galverson,” Tray murmured. A second later he continued, “You love your daughter. That’s a problem for you.”

It was silent again.