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“Dad, Conti’s a loose cannon. Don’t you remember that night? If it wasn’t for me, Trigger, and Morgan, he’d be dead and buried in the desert with the other guys.”
“And no one can know you were there.” He eyed me. It hadn’t been Trigger’s hit, and if anyone knew we’d even been there that night, we’d all have a target on our backs.
“Mobsters and guns are bad for business.” I put my hands on my hips and shook my head. “Unless they work for me,” I had to add at his lifted eyebrow.
“I agree, son.” He huffed again. “But Cameron and I have discussed it.” He gave me a pointed look. “Sonny Conti came into a lot of money from that hit.” He waved at me to calm down. “Grim, think about it. A woman who knows what she’s doing, someone like Kenna, could bring him in and increase the revenue at Indulge thirty percent in a year.”
I shook my head and thought how glad I was that I’d come back home. My father’s level of thinking was off the wall.
“Or have a bloodbath.” I tossed my hands in the air. Sonny was reckless with his money, and having someone who could guide him to the right place to lose it would be huge for Indulge, but Sonny wasn’t that client.
“This deal’s been in the works for quite some time now.” My father removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kenna has worked very hard for it, and Cameron agrees he would be a good fit. Maybe right now you don’t see the benefit, but someday I’m sure you will. I’ve got this, son.”
“I don’t agree.” I shrugged. “I know Sonny better than you and Cameron, and I’m telling you it’s a horrible idea bringing him on.” He went to speak, but I held up my hand to let him know I wasn’t finished. “But this is your deal that you started before I came back, so I’ll back off for now.” I shook away my urge to end the very notion of what they had in mind, but I respected my father enough not to undermine him at this point. Plus, I didn’t want to butt heads with him my first day back.
“Good.” He pushed his glasses back on, and the tension slowly lifted between us. We were two strongheaded males; it was what made us so good at this business. I studied my father’s face and noted he looked tired. The last few years had taken a toll on him. I only hoped it was that and not the illness that made him look that way. I was glad Leo did what he did to get me to come back early. I might not have appreciated the lie, but he’d done what he felt he needed to. Time with my father was something I could never get back.
“I thought Cameron was going to trip over his fucking feet when he came in and saw me in the office.” I chuckled as I changed the topic. I’d returned home the previous night and had showed up in the office early in the morning without warning. Only my family knew I was back. When Cameron caught sight of me behind the desk, he was so taken aback he’d become a stammering mess when he tried to get his words out. We’d never seen eye to eye and probably never would. I had asked Dad to keep my return home quiet, mainly because it was fun to fuck around with him. The look on Cameron’s face was worth it and then some.
“He was pretty shocked you’re back.” He tossed some papers on his desk and sighed. “Although I’m not looking forward to the two of you constantly fighting.”
“If he wasn’t such an arrogant asshole with little to no boundaries when it comes to our business, we wouldn’t have a problem.” I stood and went to look out the window.
“He’s only trying to help.”
“That’s the one argument you and I will take to the grave, Dad.” I watched the cars move below us along the strip.
“Indeed.”
“So,” I took a deep breath and changed the topic once again, “you really think Kenna is capable of pulling off a deal with Sonny Conti?”
“I do, Grim,” he sounded like his old self, and it made me turn to face him, “and Kenna’s staying put, so find a way to handle her attitude or head back to Mexico. We need her.” He chuckled, and I huffed as I took a seat at the table.
“So, I’m supposed to deal with that mouth?”
“You’ve dealt with worse.” He shrugged me off as he took a call and mouthed it was from Mom.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Kenna would mention what happened at the hotel the night before to anyone. I’d never really paid much attention to Cameron’s daughter in the past, and it had been years since I’d seen her. I knew she’d grown up in LA and that she’d traveled a lot with her mother before she took a job somewhere abroad. I’d maybe seen her a handful of times in my life, which was odd, considering our fathers had been close for over a decade.
I remembered that although she was Cameron Tame’s daughter, she went by a different last name. Maybe she wanted to keep her privacy or something. I did know her sometimes nasty younger sister, Calli Tame. Calli worked at their father’s law office just off the Strip, and she definitely used her father’s last name to her advantage whenever she could. I could already see the sisters were very different.
Cameron worked for our hotel. He and Dad had met years earlier when Dad’s cancer first came up. He had his own practice as a criminal defense attorney and was very well known and successful. I knew Cameron was a good friend because when Dad grew ill, and we almost lost him, Cameron found one of the best doctors in the world and was able to get Dad in to see him.
While the good doctor worked with him to get him healthy, Cameron worked hard to get Dad out of a sticky court case that could have landed him in jail for over a decade. Dad had a lot of faith in him. For a time, he and I had gotten along. I tried hard to remember all he’d done for our family, but over the years, his ego irritated the fuck out of me, and we’d started to butt heads. Luckily, up to this point, I hadn’t had to engage with him that often.
I’d been warned by my father to be nice to Kenna before. I was sure my reputation of being a controlling asshole had made them nervous she wouldn’t want to work here. She hadn’t quit yet. There’s still time. I hadn’t seen her enough to form an opinion of her, and after the incident in the sauna room, she’d avoided me like the plague. My dealings in Mexico had pulled most of my attention and didn’t leave much time for anything else. Now, I just hoped she was nothing like her father and kept her mouth shut and followed my orders.
I interrupted Dad briefly and told him to say hi to Mom. “I have a meeting with Jesse. I’ll touch base later.” I waved as I left the conference room to get on with my day.
The only real highlight of my day came later that evening. I watched a man on the floor who thought he could cheat at blackjack. Of course, several cameras were on to him, the dealer was just buying time, so I thought I’d have a little fun.
I eased into the chair next to him and dropped some chips on the table as I took a glass of whiskey from the server’s outstretched tray.
The man looked at me and studied my tattooed neck then my hands. His huge cowboy hat, flannel shirt, and conference lanyard confirmed he was indeed from out of town.
“Tell me something.” He turned to look at me. “How’s a boy like you gonna get a job with scribbles like that on your body? It’s a disgrace if you ask me. A man all doodled over.”
The dealer glanced at me, but I shook my head, and he backed off. My men, who had quietly placed themselves close to the table, would do nothing unless told to.
