“Of course I’ve noticed,” I said, grinding out the cigar. “But there’s a sizable difference between what I’ve been doing and what you’re asking…no,tellingme to do.”
I had no illusions of choice. People like Leonard might sneer at me for being one of Augustine’s many bastards who worked in The Family business, but whether anyone liked it or not, Ihadearnedwhat I had. My work was supposed to be quiet, the kind that kept me a pencil pusher. Someone who crunched the numbers, evaluated the figures, checked the statistics, maybe looked over maps here and there, but still, just a pencil pusher.
This, though, would drag me right out into the open. There would be no more sitting behind a screen, occasionally making calls or texts to get jobs done. He was dropping me right into the middle of chaos, where a bomb had just gone off, and expected me to put out the fires and sweep up the mess afterward.
“You’ve been handling the distribution and money flow for almost three-fourths of our entire operations. You’ve not only managed to shore up weak points, but you also find alternatives when something gets in your way, and you know how to build a solid foundation. You’ve managed to cooperate and make others cooperate, even when personality or business interests collide, and you do it quietly,” he said evenly, but I could feel his patience wearing thin. “You havebarelytouched your potential, and it is time you stopped hiding in some dusty corner, making sure everyone else’s job is going smoothly.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I liked that position?”
“What you like or do not like when it comes to Family business is irrelevant. What matters is the giant gapingfucking holewe now have in our operations. A hole that Iknowyou can fill, and even make it better than it was. And I’m not giving you a choice because you will do it,” he said as he stood up.
“Yes, I’m quite aware of the price of failure for something so significant,” I said dryly. “Not that you don’t have plenty of bastards to fill in for me after I’m gone.”
His gaze turned cold. “I have not wasted the time and energy invested in you over a simple tie of blood. I have done what I could to educate you, to provide you with opportunities without direct interference, and you have done well. Now it is time to find out if my investment was worth it, or if I should find myselfstaring down the barrel of not only your failure, but mine for believing you were worthwhile.”
He wassogood at finding a way to say things that were encouraging and a dagger to the heart. Oh, sure, he had invested in me, and I had the potential to live up to his expectations, but that wouldn’t stop him removing me from the picture if I proved him wrong.
Oh, Mom, what would you say if you could see me now?
“And if I were you, I wouldn’t go to Portland,” Augustine said as he rounded the desk to pull out his phone. “It’s too hot right now. Unless, of course, you want to start with federal agents and officers breathing down your neck.”
“I’d rather not. Then where?”
“There is another base of operations that William let fall out of favor, but has everything you need.”
My heart stuttered. “Cresson Point.”
“Indeed, return to your hometown, I know how you wanted to in the past,” he said, snorting, and slid his phone toward me. “I wouldn’t, however, advise trying to reunite with old friends. It can be...messy.”
I glanced at his screen and felt my stomach twist in knots. There was Dominic, all grown up, sporting one hell of an ugly black eye, a cut lip, and looking dazed as he stared into the camera. The headline was about his recent defeat in an MMA bout, and the follow-up text wondered if he was finally getting to the point where the wonder fighter with ‘fists like diamonds’ was losing his edge.
“We stopped being friends a long time ago,” I said, sliding the phone back. “I wouldn’t worry about it. We’re not likely to cross paths.”
A fight between two friends, one confused why the other was making such a horrible choice, and the other refusing to back down or give all the facts, was an ugly thing. We hadbeen seventeen, preparing for adulthood, and so hopeful for the future...until I had chosen to move to Portland with Augustine. Dom had known why, or at least he’d known I was leaving to work for The Family, but he never knew I was leaving and cutting him off, so he wouldn’t get pulled into my life. That was a black hole he needed to stay far away from, but to explain would have invited him to fight even harder, so I hadn’t told him the real reason.
Instead, biting lies and cruel truths were woven to hurt him as much as possible. Dom had been furious, worked into a frenzy so bad I thought for the first time, he would hit me. I would have welcomed it because I deserved it. I could say I was doing it for his sake, which had been true, but it had been a cruel way to go about it, and I would have welcomed the pain. He hadn’t, though, and in the end, I had walked away, leaving him to stand and watch me go with fury and hatred and confusion still etched into every inch of his body. I’d told myself not to look back, but I did, and I regretted it the moment I saw his face when he thought no one was watching.
Augustine’s eyes swept over me again, and I stared back, waiting to see what he found, but then he took his phone back and tucked it away. “Fine. You have the latitude to handle this situation as you see fit, but I will check in with you. I would advise you to finish up whatever you have left here, and then put your personal life on hold for a while.”
“Yes, we wouldn’t want to draw attention to the fact that they’re being ordered around by a faggot,” I snorted as I took over the seat he’d left empty.
“Or don’t. But be prepared not just for how they will react when you’re living your personal life openly, but also for what you’ll have to do to keep their respect. You can make your job harder or easier,” he said, sounding supremely unbothered.
“You mean use fear, not respect.”
“There are still plenty in this Family who see homosexuality as a weakness. There is a sizable overlap between people with that view and those who respect those they fear. So yes, if you want to live your lifestyle openly, be prepared to break some bones and cut a few throats; otherwise, it’ll be you left in a hole somewhere,” he said, turning and walking out of the room.
“What wonderful fatherly advice,” I said to the empty room.
I glanced at my phone warily, as if afraid it might bite me, before snatching it up and opening it. The article Augustine had pulled up on his phone came up on mine, and I stared at it. I had avoided everything to do with Dom, save for having someone check up on him. That was just to make sure he was alive and not dead in a ditch somewhere. Other, more intimate details, I blocked out; it seemed easier than trying to separate the part of me that had been living this life for over a decade and a half, and the one that remembered a tough boy with a gentle heart who had stolen my heart and virginity, even before he knew where he stood on the subject.
I knew he’d grown since the last time I’d stood before him, but he had growna lotbigger now that I was really looking at him. He had always seemed big to me, and even in the small picture on my phone, he loomed larger than life. Maybe it was the wounds on his face, but he had grown mean-looking in the intervening years. Of course, he had always looked a little rough, but when he smiled or laughed, he lit right up, and I wondered if he was still like that or if life had stolen the brightness from his smile.
Grimacing, I closed the tab and locked my phone. The last thing I needed was to get lost in a past I could never go back to. Doing that would tempt me to change my soon-to-be life into something more...comfortable and strive for a future that could never be.
No, I was not going to find Dom when I returned to Cresson Point. I was going to stick to where I was needed and focus on my work. Our lives would never have to cross paths again; the city was big enough that we could wander around for days and still have a low chance of running into one another.
It was better for us that way.
