Swiping out of the camera, I checked for notifications before making sure it was on silent. I had a feeling the meeting wasn’t going to be a happy one, and the last thing I needed was my phone, even on vibrate, to draw attention.
The double doors opened, and in walked Augustine Marelli, tucking his jacket close to his body and buttoning it while he walked toward the front of the room. He was a large man with an even larger personality and force of will, and the room fell quiet in deference. I watched his big shoulders as he walked; it was the first place to look when gauging his mood. The next was his hands to see what he did with his fingers. The trick was to see how still or how active they were; the less movement, the greater the chance that everything was about to turn miserable.
Hmm, stiff shoulders, but his fingers weren’t just buttoning his jacket; they tapped his tie as he adjusted the collar, and he drummed them as he sat at the table at the front. So, he definitely wasn’t in the happiest mood, but there was a chance that if everyone was smart, we could all leave without paying a pound of flesh. I wondered just how much of him had bled into me, how much those I was in charge of saw him in me.
Even before you learned who your dad was, I told you there was a lot of your father in you, my mother whispered.You even ended up looking like him.
Right, and you never knew how to feel about that. I remember you saying that to me once.
Maybe not my best moment, but what can I say? When I looked at you, I saw my son, but I also saw the man I had tried to escape...who I was afraid of. I hope you never have to see the face of someone you hate in the face of someone you love more than you’ll ever love yourself...but at least he’s good-looking.
Not so sure good looks is a good exchange for everything else.
Maybe not, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
“Afternoon, gentleman,” Augustine said as he took his seat, freezing for half a second when someone in the crowd sniffed. It was a light, almost dainty sound, as if someone was clearing their airways... except it had come from Eliza, who currently held the Marelli Family’s operations in the southwest in her delicately manicured iron fist. Other women held positions of power in The Family and were sitting right there in the room with us. As I’d said, change was slow, but its progress was inevitable. But only Eliza would have corrected Augustine, even if it was the mildest, easiest-to-dismiss method. He gave her a sidelong glance and flashed a smile. “And ladies, of course.”
She flashed a smile back, and I watched as he stared at her before turning back to the room. Interesting, he’d accepted the correction without irritation, but that look he’d given her without changing his expression in the slightest...was interesting. If I was reading it right, and after almost twenty years of dealing with Augustine, I was pretty confident in my ability to read him, he had quietly told her to be quiet.
Okay, we weren’t here for her, then why have her fly all the way up to Seattle?
“I won’t waste our time any more than it already has been,” Augustine said softly, but he didn’t need to speak loudly to be heard; no one was going to dare to speak over him. “William.”
From the front, a young man stood up, one I didn’t recognize immediately, though there was something familiar about him. His face was pale, and I didn’t think that was his normal complexion as he swallowed hard and stared at Augustine. “Here, sir.”
“Would you be so kind as to share why you are here, rather than your father?” Augustine asked in a voice that gave away nothing, but I bet if I looked hard enough, I would smell the blood in the water.
William swallowed again, his Adam’s Apple bobbing rapidly. “H-he’s dead, sir. Killed in a police raid.”
Murmuring broke out across the room, and I was glad to find I wasn’t the only one taken by surprise. I kept my face neutral and my ears open as I listened, privately wondering how the hell I had missed that news. William Senior had held onto the state of Oregon for years. When I lived there, he had run things long before I even knew the Marelli name, let alone what they were doing. How the hell had he been killed? And why had Augustine put so much effort into keeping it quiet so he could spring it on everyone?
There was only one answer...he had scented a mole.
I could see the same realization flash over some of the faces, and I steeled myself. There was a possibility of a mole, and Augustine was... not pissed? Either I was reading the situation completely wrong, or he already had a plan, and the rest of us were going to have to strap in for the ride.
“Yes,” Augustine said, gesturing for William Junior to sit down. “Last night, as a matter of fact. It seems the boys in blue and the feds have been working together for months and decidedto take him down. They succeeded, and we now lack someone to run operations out of Portland and Cresson Point.”
“Couldn’t ya just pick someone from there?” Leonard asked.
“I could,” Augustine said calmly, and his eyes swept the room and...locked onto me. “Levi, why won’t I be doing that?”
I cleared my throat softly, dropping my hand from my chin to rest it casually on the arm of the chair. I did not need to broadcast what some of us suspected might be going on. I needed an answer that would explain his next move without revealing the ultimate game. Augustine had practically left me in charge of several operations in the northwest corner of the Marelli Family territory for a reason. I had a good head for logistics; I understood how people operated on an intuitive level. I was cautious, but I knew when to strike boldly.
The one thing I knew he saw as my glaring weakness was my lack of stomach for certain aspects of the work. I hadn’t recently voiced my discomfort at hurting people who didn’t have it coming, but I knew my actions had done plenty to showcase it. Most of the operations I oversaw didn’t result in violence, and if they did, it was focused and didn’t spread. I could call it clean and efficient all I wanted, but even a thick-skulled idiot like Leonard could see I avoided dragging normal people into our business dealings. Of course, there were still buyers for the drugs we shifted across the western seaboard, but that was a personal choice for those people, and even then, I avoided bringing them into the messier parts of business.
Others, though, those who lived the kinds of lives we did, or even small-time, brutal criminals who thought they were above any law, even ours? Those were fair game.
“If the police and the feds were working together to bring him down, then they’re well aware of his operations, probably inside and out. They wouldn’t move on a major player without being sure they could nail him to the wall,” I said, keeping myattention locked on Augustine. “Anyone from his circle would be working within the foundation he’s established since he took over almost three decades ago. They might chart their own course, but anyone capable of taking over his operations would be working from his playbook. It leaves the entire operation in Oregon open to being infested from top to bottom. An outsider would bring a fresh perspective, and could look at his operations with a more critical, less blind eye. They could patch the holes in his operations, rewrite the predictable patterns, and reforge operations back into a barrier to keep law enforcement and government from peering in easily.”
Leonard snorted. “Did ya get that from one of those books ya love so much?”
“My brain needs books like your gut needs food,” I told him calmly, ignoring the way he whipped around to glare at me. “It’s a possible solution to the problem, but not a perfect one.”
Eliza cleared her throat. “An outsider gives a fresh perspective, but there’s no trust, especially if you choose someone outside his circle. His people will follow whoever you send, Augustine, becauseyousent them. But beyond that?—”
I gestured toward Eliza under Augustine’s searching gaze to signify I agreed. Anyone they sent to take over would be fighting an uphill battle on two fronts. They would be fighting to ensure the other members of The Family followed them, while treading carefully in the wake of a police raid. Law enforcement would be on high alert for any replacements, but they would specifically be looking toward the people already there.
“Something to add?” Augustine asked, because of course he caught the flicker across my face and recognized it for what it was.
