Dad looks at the cigar, tapping the column with his forefinger, dislodging ash and embers into a crystal tray. “We are his blood, but Jimmy is Paul’s son and Alceu’s grandson.”
“Adopted grandson,” Xander says, spite wrapping itself around each word. I watch Xander as he takes this all too personally. Does he feel entitled because we share Alceu’s blood? Then the kid hasn’t been paying attention. The name Butcher is all that matters. Just because we share traces of DNA with him from his mother’s side doesn’t mean he’ll choose us over the boy he helped raise back in the old country.
“It means nothing to Alceu,” Dad says again.
“When was the last time you spoke with him, Dad? Maybe it does mean something to him,” Xander spits out.
“Xander, quiet!” Max barks, and my little brother slumps back into his chair, defeated and disgruntled by Max’s tone, as though he doesn’t know that he pokes the bear.
I chuckle at them and straighten, standing at my full height. “He took a vow. He lied to you. He took your son.” I stare at the phone in all its ominous silence, and say, “He took your little brother, Clay.”
When I find my old man’s blue eyes again, he’s fixed on me as though he can see my suspicions ghosting across my face. “I don’t need reminding,” he states. “But we only have the words of a dead man and-”
“Me,” Max says because he is the only one who heard it from the fucker’s mouth. The arrogant son-of-a-bitch who took our half-brother Konnor and locked him in a basement all those years ago admitted to Max that he’d been paid by Jimmy Storm to do so.
I inhale my cigar, smiling around the puffs of white vapour riding my breath as I exhale. I’ll never get tired of hearing that story. Of how it ended with Max draining the prick into a toilet bowl. But although I trust Max’s word above anyone else’s, it is no secret that he isn’t an admirer of the Family or Jimmy. That fact will play on everyone’s mind if his word is the sole reason we give for Jimmy’s assassination - the mother fucking head of our firm in Australia.
Dad nods. “Yes. It won’t be enough.”
“Bron,” Clay says through the phone, and I take a step towards it. “You mentioned that Jimmy seems to be nervous, correct?”
“Yeah, I reckon he’s paranoid as fuck,” I admit, putting out my cigar in Dad’s ash tray.
“Stay together. Let’s leave this conversation until I get back in a few days. I want to get a good feel for Jimmy’s state of mind before we plan anything,” Clay says, and I hate not being able to analyse the movement of his mouth and the shifting of his eyes. More than that, I hate the beast at my back screaming that he knows more than he is letting on. I want to decapitate that fucking monster.
Because it can’t be true.
“Big brother,” I hiss at the phone before I can stop myself. “Dustin is in the District. Did you know?”
Max unfolds his arms, the information obviously new to him. I move to grip his shoulder reassuringly. After the attack on his wife, no one wants Dustin’s head more than him. We glare at the phone, awaiting an answer. A long pause electrifies the air, and the echoes of laughter in my mind brew. Finally, he says, “If Dustin were in the District, I would know about it.”
“He is. Demarco confirmed it and I-“
“Dad already mentioned this to me yesterday. This concern has not been overlooked. I sent men out to the docks to search for him, but found no trace. Demarco lied,” Clay states with a strange edge to his voice. “Trust me, Bron.”
The laughter in my head dwindles.
‘Trust me, Bron.’
And I do. I have to.
Okay, big brother.
Dad stands, a way of ending our meeting. With that decided and the monster of suspicion in my mind seemingly quiet, I grab Xander. Putting him in a headlock, I scuff his brown hair, trying to make the grumpy kid crack a smile. He does. I kiss his forehead and chuckle my way out of Dad’s office, flanked by Max. We both head towards the living room to find our girls.
Bronson
Present day
True to my fucking word,as soon as we wander back into my room, I stalk straight to the leather collar. The whiskey and beers I consumed at dinner slosh around in my mind, reminding me I’m not in peak physical or mental condition. I don’t care. I snatch the beautiful leather band from the top and turn to face her.
She holds up her hands. “Wait just a minute, Butcher. I want to know what happened in the meeting with your dad.”
I lower my chin, staring at her through my lashes. My heart beats hard, pulsing between my ears and throbbing in my cock. “I’ve been waiting for hours to get this on you and now-” I reach down and grip my erection, squeezing until a small amount of the aching ebbs. “He needs to be stuffed inside your pretty body. You can choose which hole.”
She parts her lips, her chest rising and falling, trying to keep her calm. I know that look on her face. Releasing my cock, I walk over to her. My eyes snare on her lips, on the pink hole between them. As I reach for her, she shuffles backwards, but that only makes me hotter to catch her. Lunging for her wrist and pulling her towards me, I capture her against my chest. Dropping her wrist, I band her middle, holding her close.
“Bronson-” she pants.