As if I asked to be the living symbol of the alliance between the opposing sides of my family.
As we trot down the stairs after them, Simone catches my gaze and raises her eyebrows like she’s trying to share the excitement.
Does she really enjoy this shit? Most of the work we do feels like an endless push and pull, snatching power and trying to stop it from being wrenched back.
Like we’re stray dogs fighting over the scraps from the garbage can while the actual powers of the lucent world stare down their noses at us. They’re off cozying up to politicians and making big business deals while we run the criminal world no one wants to admit even exists.
Or maybe Simone is only flirting. We realized after accidentally brushing skin a couple of years back that we’re definitely not matches, not that mates even within far-extended family are common. Her mom is, like, my grandfather Morelli’scousin’s niece or some crap, so not exactly close, and she’s pretty, and a lot more convenient for scratching certain itches than bothering with the drab bars.
So we’ve hooked up a few times. Maybe several. Sue me.
She lets her arm graze mine now, confirming my second suspicion, but the touch doesn’t summon any lust today. And not just because we’re about to head off to do my parents’ bidding.
All it makes me think of is Elodie. Of the curve of her waist and hip I traced through her dress. Of those perfect full lips.
I thought I was going to throw her off her game, shake up her confidence. Instead she threwmefor a loop.
And fuck if I don’t want to make good on all those teasing promises for real now. Get those lips parting with a gasp of pleasure. See those eyes shining with devotion instead of fiery resolve.
Prove I’m more than an identity crisis.Earnthe admiration of the only woman who’s ever been able to rattle me.
Not that I can do any of that right now. Because I am letting my family call the shots at this very moment, into a black 8-seater SUV and onward to literal shots possibly fired.
This is the life I have. I know guns and fists. What else am I good at anyway?
No one’s ever going to claim I’m not good at this.
As the car roars away from the warehouse, Dad twists in his seat next to the driver. “Some of the Triad lucents who’ve been expanding their operations are infringing on our territory. We’re going to lay down the law and make sure they remember their place. No mercy. Got it?”
All of us nod. “We” of course means the four of us in the younger generation, and maybe Uncle Maddox who was waiting in the car when we got in. Dad’s third brother is always even more desperate for scraps than the rest.
No mercy doesn’t mean killing them. It means beating them until they wish they were dead but letting them survive to pass on the tale. Simple enough.
We cruise through the streets for a while, evening light fading beyond the tinted windows. Then Mom says, “There.”
Three Chinese guys who might be even younger than me are sauntering along the sidewalk, openly passing a joint between them. That’s all I have time to register before the SUV screeches to a halt and my hand is reaching to throw the door open.
We barge out at them in a mass of fists and glinting blades. I punch one of the dudes in the nose and swipe my knife along his neck just deep enough to leave a mark—deep enough to show I could have slit it if I’d wanted to.
Magic crackles between us as our enemies summon a defense, but I shatter it apart with a heave of ephemera and sweep the feet out from under one of the other pricks. As his ass smacks the pavement, Siobhan is on him with a one-two-three slam of her brass knuckles that leaves their imprint on his cheek and temple.
I catch the third guy before he can aim his pistol at her and swing him toward Gabrio’s waiting switchblade. Gabe slices the attacker’s arm from wrist to shoulder, his glim guiding his blade for maximum pain, while my spurt of condensed energy cracks every bone in the prick’s fingers.
The pistol clatters to the ground. The guy whose nose I broke lunges at me with a hiss of ephemera that nicks a thin line along my jaw, but I snap the magical assault an instant later. Then my knee is in his gut and my knife carving open his side.
There’s no real thought in it. My body moves effortlessly, exactly the way I’ve trained my whole life.
Iamgood at this.
But then there’s the moment when three guys who might not be past eighteen are slumped groaning and bleeding on thesidewalk, and I’m standing over them like I think that makes me a king.
If Elodie saw me like this…
Through the lurch of my gut, Uncle Maddox plants himself over the three Triad members—though not quite close enough that they could touch him if they had the strength. He left all the actual fighting to the four of us twenty-somethings. Wimp.
“This is Cosgrave-Morelli territory,” he declares. “Get your stinking Triad asses off our streets, or we’ll hand them to you inside out next time.”
Broken Nose clutches at the cut below his ribs and sputters through the trickle of blood seeping into his mouth. “We thought it was open. Fair game. No one said shit.”
