Page 13 of In the Dark

My brother didn’t care for it anymore.

He put his family first, as he should.

He’d have burned the world down for the woman he loved and his daughter.

I didn’t have that, nor did I want it.

“Say I consider it—”

“What the fuck?” Jameson immediately glared at me.

I met his furious gaze. “I want to hear the whole plan before we shut it down.”

“I’m not interested in calling the president to explain why the East Coast is a war zone because we were too proud to sign a contract,” said the governor.

“I wouldn’t really give a damn,” Jameson growled, but he waved my mother on.

“I’ve spoken with Monte,” she said. “He’s offering his daughter, Maribel. He wants the Diamonds’ protection publicized to ward off Fitzpatrick and the Chinese. If we don’t step in, they’ll partner with Mr. Fitzpatrick, and the Chinese will turn that firearms business into a black-market armory for every terrorist cell on the coast. If we’re in meetings, have a say, we’ll keep it legal.”

“Fitzpatrick? The fucking Chinese?” Absolutely no way was I having them take over the East Coast. “And how do we know the trust isn’t just a rumor in the wind?”

“The stake in the firearms corporation is guaranteed regardless,” Mother said. “That alone is worth the two-year commitment. We provide the protection, we take the board seat, and we clean up the territory.”

“We don’t deal in dirty business anymore, Mother,” Jameson said, his voice dripping with condescension.

“Which is why,” I said, looking him dead in the eye, “we’re going to be the ones to take it away from them.”

“You’ll agree?” My mother sounded surprised.

“Two years. No more. I’ll establish order, secure streets, and they’ll fall in line with us or die off without us. Tell Monte I’ll be there for Paolo’s funeral, and I expect Maribel to be ready.”

“Of course.” My mother nodded to Lucille, who hurried out of the room like she was going to relay the information personally.

“Mother.” Jameson leaned in and clasped his hands together. “Should we discuss how volatile the East Coast is before or after you marry off your son, because I was given security footage before this meeting.”

“What footage?” I frowned at him, but his stare held hers as if he knew she’d withheld the information.

He then reached for a remote and pressed a button for a screen to drop down. After a few buttons on his phone were pressed, we were staring at his screen up there.

I saw a small figure in the dead night approaching one of our new investment properties in New York.

“The Knight Heights Project in Hudson Yards,” I whispered, my blood turning to ice. It was a billion-dollar flagship—a sixty-story spire of glass and automated tech. It was a personal triumph of mine and a way that we were already going to gain a foothold on the East Coast.

I’d planned and invested about a billion into it, and it was currently in the final stages of interior fitting.

The small figure didn’t just circle the building. She was at the staging area of the secondary gas main, which was a temporary line used for the industrial heaters during construction. She methodically moved toward the service elevator shaft after breaking in.

“Shit,” I hissed as I realized what she was doing. In a high-rise under construction, the shaft could act like a chimney, a natural flue that pulls oxygen and fire upward with terrifying speed.

With one movement, she reached under her chin to crack her neck, a telltale sign of someone gearing up for a fight.

And that’s when I knew exactly who it was. Jasmina Ruiz.

She didn’t just throw a Zippo. She opened the valve on the pressurized gas main and tossed the flame into the elevator pit.

The screen whited out for a second as the pressure ignited. Because the building was in its “fitting-out” stage, the floors were stacked with highly flammable architectural foam and kilndried exotic woods. The fire climbed the spine of the building fast.

I swore out loud.