“How long have you worked for me, Johnny?”
“Three years, sir.”
“And in those three years, how many times have I told you to take my orders as asuggestionand do whatever you want?”
He swallows hard again, sweating now. I reach into my pocket and close my hand around the switchblade I’ve carried on me since I was fifteen.
“N-never, boss.”
“Never.” I nod slowly and back away from him, and just as he takes a relieved breath, I turn back and plunge my knife in the side of his neck and watch as Johnny collapses to his knees, fighting for air, blood spurting all over my parking garage.
“If any of you eventhinksabout disobeying one of my orders, this will be a quick death compared to what I’ll do to you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, boss,” they all reply in unison. My eyes roam over them. All six of them are a little green. All stoic. My cousin, Jack, doesn’t flinch.
Nothing makes Jack flinch.
“Have your team take him to the graveyard and pay his wife,” I say to Jack, who is also my head of security. I don’t have a number two. I was waiting for Elliott to pull his head out of his ass so I could groom him for the position.
That’s not going to happen.
I’ll have a meeting with Jack tomorrow. In the meantime, my cousin nods.
“You got it,” he says. “Then I’m heading home to Alysse.”
Jack’s been married for five years and has a two-year-old son that I adore.
“I want to see you in my home office at nine tomorrow morning,” I tell him, and he nods as I climb into the 911.
“I’ll be there, boss.”
Three
JULIAN
“Why areyou calling me at eight in the fucking morning?” I sit up in bed and scowl out the window to the backyard beyond.
“Why are you asleep this late?” Rome asks. He’s one of my three best friends. The four of us run the underground of this city. We’re known as the Kings of Vegas, but among the four of us, we’re simply brothers. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them, and vice versa. We work well together, we help each other, and it’s been that way since we were teenagers.
“Because I didn’t get to sleep until about four hours ago.” I turn to the side of the bed and scratch my nails over my scalp. “What do you want?”
“Why is your son calling me, asking if he can have one of the apartments in my building?”
My eyes narrow. Rome owns Rapture and the high-rise building it’s housed in, just off the strip. Some of his staff lives in the apartments. Other apartments are used as luxury rentals for the members of the club that travel to Vegas to experience the opulent hedonism that it offers.
In other words, it’s fancy as fuck.
Of course my kid is asking to live there.
“I hope to Christ you told him no.”
“I don’t have any availability right now,” Rome replies. “But I could open something up if you want me to.”
“No. I kicked him out last night, and he needs to figure it out for himself. I told him to use his contacts, and I guess that’s what he’s doing, but this is still too close to home. Also, if he’s still in arrears in his membership dues, kick him out.”
Rome whistles in my ear. “The kid pissed you off.”
“He beat up his fiancé last night,” I reply, and I can just imagine Rome’s face on the other end of the line. Hard. Pissed. “Then he claimed that he owns her, so he can do whatever he wants to her.”
