SIXTEEN
Lucan
Once you knewthe right questions to ask, getting information was often pretty easy. It’d never occurred to me to check whether we were launching a war against the Nobles. But catch a random lackey in the hall and say, “What’s the latest on that Noble business we took over?” and a half hour later I found myself getting out of my car outside the office building.
It was obvious both that the takeover had been recent and violent, and that Dad had gotten moving on taking over the place quickly. A few small splatters of blood still marked the front entrance, where Hell Kickers lackeys were ducking in and out. Some of them were sorting through boxes of items that’d been carried into a few of the rooms; others were gabbing away on phones, making arrangements I knew nothing about.
I didn’t like it. Slaughtering the Noble people here and claiming the business for ourselves after a decades-long alliance, simply because of a single deal gone wrong? One that Ezra Noble was still claiming he’d fulfilled his end of, pretending we were somehow at fault? If there’d been any hope of sorting out why he’d turned against us, we’d lost it in an instant with this gesture.
He might not have been ready to launch into all-out war, but I doubted he’d believe he had any choice after this.
And where did Anthea fit in, seemingly trapped in the middle of the conflict?
I yanked my thoughts away from her—and her sly smile, and the passion that could burn in her dark gray eyes—to my current target.
“Hey,” I said to one of the lackeys. “Where’s Griffin at?” I’d gathered from my questions around the house that Dad’s new favorite underling had been out here more often than at the brownstone in the last couple of days, overseeing our new operations.
The guy jabbed his thumb toward a room farther back. I stalked down the hallway and found the beefy guy barking orders at a foot soldier who didn’t look out of his teens. Apparently he’d put a box in the wrong room or something. I’d have appreciated Griffin being a stickler for details if he wasn’t such a dick about it.
As I walked over, the kid scuttled away. Griffin flicked his beady eyes toward me from beneath the messy strands of his reddish-blond hair. I thought I saw him stiffen a little before his expression turned cautious but cold.
“What are you doing here?” he said in a tone that toed the line of being stupidly disrespectful. Something maybe he needed a reminder of.
“I’m checking up on how the transition is going,” I said calmly. “Part of the family business; gotta keep an eye on every part of it. I believe in being thorough.”
Griffin narrowed his eyes at me. “Marcel said I could take lead here.”
Oh, had he? I smiled thinly. “I’m not looking to take over. I’ve got plenty of other work to take care of. I just like to touch base so I’m aware of what’s happening on the ground. Mydadappreciates the hands-on approach.”
I emphasized my connection to the man in charge just in case Griffin needed a firmer reminder of who he was dealing with. The guy’s head was obviously getting too big if he was going to argue with one of the Rosano heirs about who had the authority around here.
Griffin simply grunted. I got the impression he wasn’t going to volunteer any information—that he’d rather not say anything I didn’t drag out of him. Cute.
I glanced around the room. “Things seem pretty busy here already. What all are you setting in motion?”
“Shouldn’t you already know all about that, since it’s your business?” Griffin said, dodging the question and aiming another jab at the same time.
I fixed my gaze on him again and folded my arms over my chest. “I’m asking whatyouhave managed to establish here so far. Seeing as you’re taking lead and all. Or do you not know what you’re leading?”
My own jab landed. The guy’s face flushed with a ruddy hue I suspected was both embarrassment and fury over the fact that I’d made him feel embarrassed.
“The Nobles had a gambling operation running out of here, among other things,” he said tightly. “We’re picking up as many threads as we can to get that up and running again. There’s a bunch of goods they were hiding behind the shoe store front that we claimed and are sorting through. And I’m still deciding whether we’ll keep the store as is or present something different as the legitimate front that’ll work to launder proceeds as well. Does that meet your satisfaction?”
Not really. He was still being fairly vague about his plans. I was surer than ever that he didn’t want me knowing anything more about what he was up to than he had to share.
It didn’t sound as if he was setting up anything particularly controversial here, though. That made sense. He wouldn’t want to go too big or risky on the first project he’d been put in charge of. He wanted to impress Dad, sure, but to be certain he’d pull it off as well.
“It was a bold move, grabbing this property from the Nobles,” I said conversationally, not letting any hint of my opinion color my voice.
Griffin let out a huff. “They deserved us coming down on them hard after how they screwed us over. It was ridiculous that we waited even this long to make a move.” His mouth pressed flat for a second as if he realized he’d said more than was wise, and then he added quickly, “Marcel agrees. He couldn’t stand back any longer.”
“Right,” I said dryly. No doubt because this prick had gotten in Dad’s ear and incited him to act. Who knew what lies he’d made up if he’d been telling stories about Darius?
The trouble was, if the bastard had already infected Dad’s mind against us, we wouldn’t get straight answers out of our own father either. I resisted the urge to grit my teeth.
“I suppose you have big plans for working Ezra Noble’s sister for information too, then,” I went on. “Dad came up with a good gambit, taking advantage of her distress and getting her into the home where we can control her.”
After hearing from Darius how Anthea had been controlled before, the abuse she’d faced, the words tasted bitter in my mouth, but I needed Griffin to think I was on his side.