I’ve been resting on my laurels, taking for granted that my men will follow me because they followed my father. But when there’s a takeover of power, there’s always casualties. Some of my men might be those casualties.
“We’re heading in right at midnight,” I tell Arturo as we walk toward Oak Street. The warehouse we own there is underground, and I start to feel the beat of the music pounding beneath my feet as we get closer.
I walk down the stairs first, and when the door cracks open Joey Stacks stands there, blinking his gray eyes at me.
“Caputo?”
“What are you doing slumming it as a bouncer?” I ask idly, and he swallows visibly. He knows I’m not supposed to be here, not supposed to know about this.
“Uh, just…wanted in on the action, boss.”
“Unsanctioned action,” I remind him, and Joey holds out his hands in defense.
“I didn’t know.”
“I hate a liar, Joey, You know that.” I shove past him and he stumbles backward as I hit his shoulder.
The other men in the room are distracted, drinking and talking, but a few of them look at me with wide, scared eyes as I walk further into the warehouse. Arturo’s behind me, at my six, and people start parting like the red sea. Many of them even leave, trailing out of the warehouse in droves.
I walk up behind Nico as he’s snorting a line of cocaine, his hand discarded on the table. Folded. Already, and the game had barely begun.
“How much of my money have you lost tonight?”
Nico turns, his grin fading, his nose dusted with coke.
I make a derisive sound in the back of my throat. “Clean yourself up. Meet me outside.”
“Luca,” he starts, but I’m already turning my back.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Johnny throw a punch at Arturo. Arturo ducks the punch, grinning and glancing at me for permission. When I nod, he grins wider and sets his stance, throwing out an uppercut that probably breaks Johnny Marco’s jaw.
Not that I care. Johnny and Alfonso are low on my list of favorite men, especially given their closeness to Nico and their obvious dependence on drugs. Fists get thrown and I’m not terribly surprised when I catch a stray, someone sucker punching me in the jaw.
I grit my teeth and turn, only to meet Nico’s dark eyes, wide and unfocused.
“Now I know you’re out of your goddamned mind,” I growl, stalking toward him and Nico yelps, backing up against the far wall as I advance.
“Fuck, Luca, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t?—”
“You fucking sucker punched me,” I hiss, and Nico cowers like the absolute coward he is as I pull back my fist.
I lower it slowly as he whimpers. It’s not worth it. Any satisfaction I could get out of bloodying his nose would be taken away by Father’s lectures, by the cold shoulder he’d give me.
I turn around, scoffing. “Meet me outside.”
“You can’t control me.”
Whatever combination of drugs Nico has poisoned himself with addled his brain and strengthened him, I guess, because he tackles me around the waist, taking me down to the ground. He grapples with me, yelling, and there’s a cut above my left eyebrow from his sucker punch starting to bleed like a sonofabitch.
I can’t see, and that’s the only reason he gets a couple of hits in. Letting out what feels like a war cry from my chest, I shove him over, managing to straddle either side of his stomach.
I can’t help myself, raining down punches on his stupid, smug face. He’s whining, his nose bleeding freely, when Arturo manages to pull me off him.
“He’s already out,” Arturo said, and sure enough, when I look down at Nico, spitting blood from my mouth onto the warehouse floor, my brother is unconscious.
Motherfucker.
Father is going to be pissed, take Nico’s side, and I just don’t want to deal with it. But I couldn’t let him disrespect me that way, even if he is my brother. I wipe blood out of my eyes, and Arturo helps me drag Nico into a sitting position as everyone else piles out.
