Max threw his arms out wide.“What can I get you, Drew?The world is your oyster.”Before he could answer, he shouted, “Get the man a beer!”He took a few swigs of his own.“This is my bar now.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.Such an insignificant, unintentional action, but Max could read him like a book.
“Aw, come now, Drewy.All legal, I promise.We’re going to need a base here, after all.And what with your contacts,” he whistled low, “business will be booming in no time.Imagine, our little Drew all grown up, and a self-made billionaire to boot.Well, not completely self-made.I lined those pretty pockets of yours.Theganglined those pretty pockets of yours, did they not?”
His heart was ice, any thawing that Alana had done was gone.He couldn’t let it show.He put on his mask, feigning interest, indifference.
“Oh, really?You’re ready for the New York market?”
“We.”Max corrected him.“We are ready for the New York market.Expanding has always been the idea.It’s a whole new world out here, as you well know, Drewy, full of millionaires, billionaires, businessmen, models.The world is ours and it’s in New York.I want a bite of that apple.We all do.”
As if on cue, two men leaked out from the darkness.He recognized them; faces he never thought he’d see again.Faces he never wanted to see again.
Harry, Max’s second in command, looked him up and down like he was a piece of meat.He flipped his knife in his hand like a circus act.Curly stood by him, his hair just as unruly as ever, ready and waiting to do whatever he was told.
There was a flash before his eyes and a beer was placed in front of him.
“I do love a reunion.”Max grinned.
Drew knew who it was before he looked up into the eyes of the boy, now man, who had made him flee.The one with the matching scar to him.Max liked to mark them young.Projects, pets, to him.He was a man now, but he couldn’t be older than twenty-one.
“I’m not sure you two ever got to meet.”
Silence hung heavily over the room.
“Introduce yourselves.You’re not fucking cavemen.”
Drew held out his hand to the man.“Drew,” he said.
“Eric.”The man’s voice shook slightly, like he was unsure.Like he wanted to be anywhere but here.Drew didn’t even want to waste a second on wondering what his life had been like since he’d left.He could’ve stayed.Could have protected him, guided him, helped him get out too.But he hadn’t.
“My two boys.Finally meeting properly.”
The glint in Max’s eyes was wrong.He knew that in his bones, his marrow.There was more to this.
“Expanding our empire.Although Eric here misses home, don’t you, Eric?”Max rose from his seat and flung an arm around his shoulders.Eric flinched, as Max’s knife got whisper close to his face.
Drew’s heart began hammering.
“The thing is, when people begin to miss home, they begin to talk, and when that talk turns to the wrong people, it trickles back down to me.”
“I didn’t talk—”
Max cut him off by placing the knife on his lips.Eric wriggled uselessly against it.“It’s useless now, Eric.”Max sighed, sitting back down.He clicked his tongue and Harry and Curly held him tightly, their grips vise-like.He knew how that felt.He’d been there.He’d been disciplined.
“You talked to your mommy and daddy, didn’t you, Eric?And they went to the cops.And I just can’t have that, I’m afraid.”
His eyes were black, gleaming, like a predator about to get a taste of their kill, a taste of blood.
“I’ve dealt with them.They won’t be speaking anymore.”
Eric began to wail.Drew closed his eyes against the sound, as if that would block it out.Block everything out.
“But what to do with you?You’ve handled some rather tricky customers for me this year, with great success, I may add.And it does take such an awful long time to train you young ones up.Although, clearly, I’m not doing such a good job of it of late.So, I’m going to keep you.”Curly and Harry both kicked the back of Eric’s legs, so he was kneeling before him.
Alana’s words flashed through his mind.You kneel to no one.
“But I’m afraid you don’t get to keep your tongue.I can’t have you spilling any more secrets now, can I?”And with that he grabbed Eric’s tongue and began slashing it, a grin on his face.Eric’s screams sang through Drew’s ears.He gripped the arms of his chair so hard that he thought they might break.
