The Noble man swore through his teeth but moved on, favoring his leg. I watched him go and then scanned the building more closely. Was that blood spatter on the edge of the front window?
That was what Griffin had meant about Marcel cracking down and showing his strength. He’d leveraged the catastrophe of the deal gone wrong into an excuse to start a war with my brother, starting with taking over what could very well be Ezra’s only Brooklyn property. Ezra had been encouraging Dad to expand for a while and overseeing several ventures himself, but he hadn’t set down many roots outside our state. That place was probably his flagship in all of New York.
Which meant this was not just a blow but a major one.
I gritted my teeth, my anger burning away the previous chill. If I’d been as hotheaded as my red hair might suggest, I’d have marched over there and given all those pricks a piece of my mind. But I wasn’t an idiot. That’d blow my cover and probably get me killed.
One of the Hell Kickers’ major long-time allies had supposedly double-crossed them for the first time ever, and just a couple of weeks later, Marcel had launched a strike on the Nobles’ territory? Had he bought into Mick’s story that thoroughly, not even considering that Ezra might be telling the truth when he’d insisted he’d lost everything in the deal too?
Or maybe Marcel had been in on the scheme after all. He might have orchestrated it with Mick to give him an excuse to push the Nobles out of Brooklyn and maybe take over even more of our territory, and just be pretending with Griffin that he felt wronged. His comments to Mick about their losses could simply be in reference to Hell Kicker men he hadn’t expected to die in the scheme.
Or it could be that Griffin and Mick had conspired together to push Marcel in this direction, and the Hell Kickers’ boss was none the wiser.
But Ezra was going to make them pay. How much Noble blood had they spilled already? They weren’t going to get away with it—not under my brother’s watch, and not under mine.
I watched for a little longer, but I couldn’t tell what the Hell Kickers might be setting up in their new offices from this distance in the dark, and I couldn’t see any way to get closer without revealing myself. Then I headed back to the brownstone on foot, stopping only to grab a burger from a fast-food place so I had fuel for all the thinking I needed to do. As I walked on, chewing pensively, I barely noticed the bustle of Fifth Avenue restaurant goers I passed.
Whether Marcel was in on the gambit or simply being duped into seeing Ezra as the villain, he should have known better. He’d been friends with my dad for how long? And the first thing that went wrong, he jumped straight into war. Some fucking loyalty.
No doubt the only reason he’d taken me in was in the hopes that he could use me somehow toward that cause. Ha. Little did he know. If I found out he had been behind the disaster with the Noble deal, I wouldn’t hesitate to take him down along with whichever lackeys had supported him in carrying it out.
The Hell Kickers could crumble right to the ground for all I cared. Let the roof collapse on his sons’ heads for good measure.
The walk through the cooling night air dulled only some of my wrath. When the brownstone came into view up ahead, I allowed myself the indulgence of glaring at it from a distance for just a moment before schooling my expression into placid gratitude for my approach.
I didn’t stay placid for long. I’d only just walked in the front door and made it to the bottom of the stairs when Darius stepped forward, catching me by the elbow.
“Let go of me,” I snapped, yanking at my arm. I had no patience for dealing with his crap right now.
He held fast, his grip and his gaze like steel. “You’re coming with me,” he said in an equally deadly voice, and ushered me up the stairs, past the second-floor hall, and on up toward the apartment he shared with his brothers.