My brother had many years ahead of him, but he welcomed death with open arms. The devil’s dark shadows didn’t fall through his grasp—he was able to grab onto it.
I don’t want to take Nina away from Giovanni. No, falling in love was the stupidest thing he could have done, and I’d rather he live with his mistake his entire life. She’s his biggest baggage. A weakness.
For killing my brother, Giovanni Genovese will get what’s coming to him.
Through the years, being shot twice and almost getting my ear cut off, I grew sick and tired of playing my brother’s games. While I was always trying to help him, my life was constantly on the line.
Now he’s not here to finish what he started, but I still can.
The second I set foot in the VIP room of the club, three women surround me. The lights in the room shift from a dark red to blue. Adrian sits on the bench in the corner with a woman’s breasts in his face. I shake my head and try to cover my laugh with my hand.
“You’re spending your free time wisely, cousin,” I tell him in Russian.
He takes his head away from her and glares up at me. “Damn, you’re finally here.”
In the corner of the room is a small bar full of my favorite drinks, which I have one of the bartenders restock before every meeting. Some of the idiots I’m meeting with today drive me to the point of thinking alcoholism is the least of my concerns.
I pour myself a glass of vodka and swirl it, droplets falling down the outside of the glass. “Where are they?” I ask, just as Dimitri walks in with the pests I need to deal with. “Perfect,” I grumble. Setting the glass on the table, I take a seat.
One of the women tries to straddle my lap, but I brush her away. I didn’t hire them for me—I hoped they’d be able to distract the other men and get them to lower their guards. I need to know where they fucked up.
They walk toward the table with caution.
“So, what happened?” I finally ask.
Aaron is the younger one. He hasn’t been working for me all that long—I’d say it’s been about three weeks—and he’s already fucked up. His eyes are exhausted, and his hair is cut short. “It’s gone,” he says in a shaky voice.
“Well ... what do you want me to do about it?”
He shakes his head. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a young man look so scared. He’s got to be nineteen at least. He’s a tall boy, lacking in muscle.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asks.
I contemplate this for a moment, but that wouldn’t achieve anything. He knows where the money went, and now he needs to fix it.
“I could take a finger,” I scoff. “But I want my money, Aaron.”
“Boss, I don’t have it, I told you. Just let me pay the price.”
I take a large sip of my drink and slam it down on the table. “A finger won’t get me my money back, will it?”
He stares at me, confused. That’s two people who’ve stolen from me in the past twenty-four hours. Any other day I’d cut the loss, but he needs to prove himself.
“No, boss.” He looks down, embarrassment tormenting him.
“So what’d you get with it, man? New PlayStation? Maybe you got yourself a car.”
He looks straight to the ground, his cheeks flooding with humiliation.
“No? Was it a house? That was a hundred thousand.”
The poor man looks like he wants to die on the spot. I can’t be the one to coddle him like a fucking child—my father didn’t coddle me, and I turned out just fine.
With the lack of a response, I get up from my chair and walk to the door. “Better find some way to make back my money.” I take a step out into a sea of hundreds of bodies dancing to the music and glance back over at Aaron and his buddy—I can’t remember his name. “You have a day to return it,” I tell him.
“I can’t get that kind of money to you in a day.”
“You have twenty-four hours,” I say, closing the door behind me.