“What part of ‘I need to talk to you’ don’t you understand?” he grumbles.
“I’ve spent all day dealing with petty guests and looking over the dozens of shipments that have gone missing in the last sixmonths. Sue me if I don’t want to have a serious conversation with you right now.”
Shawn closes the door once we’re inside my room, and I turn my back to him as I rummage through my closet. If I ignore him long enough, maybe he’ll finally leave me alone.
“Where are you going?” he asks, voice deep with judgment.
He already knows my answer. “To work with Rip and Thomas.”
“You can go off with them, but you can’t listen to what I have to say?”
God, he sounds like my sisters. Whiny and full of accusations.
I pick up a coat off the hanger, deciding whether I want to wear it. “We’re working, Shawn.”
I hear Shawn coming closer, and then his hand is on my shoulder, turning me to face him. His tall frame looms over me, close and personal. “Guess what? What I have to say is about work, too. It’s about your pals.”
I should have known. He wouldn’t be itching to tell me so badly if it wasn’t about them. Shawn has had it out for the Wrights the moment my dad hired them, and he’s dying to be right.
I push past him again, and Shawn only grunts, then follows me to the other side of the room. As I sit on my bed, my head beginning to throb, he hurls the folder at me. It has to have at least fifty pages of information inside.
“Make it quick,” I say dryly.
“Redgrave,” Shawn states.
I blink? “What?”
“Open the folder.” He points. “They aren’t Rip and Thomas Wright. They’re Rip and Thomas Redgrave.”
I skim the first page of information, but there is no need. The last name is instantly recognizable to me.
The Redgraves are a powerful crime family in England. My dad once told me we were tight with them back in the day when Grandpa was boss. It was a major advantage to have a dependable ally in other countries; they provided security and ensured the shipments of drugs, guns, and products were of higher quality.
But, like all good things, shit hit the fan. It started as a petty dispute over shipments, and could have been resolved if they had acted like the grown men they were. Instead, it turned into a mess of incomplete truths and petty behavior. After that one mess-up, the alliance was done for, and they swore off war, opting to act as if the other never existed.
So a Redgrave being anywhere in our vicinity is not a good thing.
“George Redgrave’s kids?” I ask, still flicking through the papers.
“No, Emma’s.”
I look up, brows knitting. “I thought Emma Redgrave had no children?”
Shawn sits, a pleased smirk on his face, eager to expose the truth. “She didn’t. Until eleven years ago, when she and her wife adopted Ripster Kroger and Thomas Dalisay at ten and twelve years old from a foster home.”
“Emma Redgrave has a wife?”
He nods. “They’ve been happily married for years, but have never gone public with it. Just like they never went public with the adoption.”
We had always wondered why Emma had never been married off to a man to better the Requiem. Looks like George has a heart for his sweet sister.
I can’t blame them for hiding it. While most people don’t think twice about who you fuck in your free time, there are a few who do. Just a couple of years ago, Henry Moonclaf, son of oneof the higher-ups in one of our allied families, Caesar Moonclaf, was outed.
The Moonclafs tried their hardest to backtrack and bury the video of Henry’s bodyguard fucking him into the mattress, but the internet lives forever.
But it wasn’t the media that went nuts; it was the old-head mobsters who couldn’t accept a gay man being as tough and successful as Henry. Not to mention that wasn’t the first time Henry had been seen with men of other families, so he already had a strike against him.
It caused a real problem in the Moonclafs family, and they solved it by demoting Henry. That was when I knew I could never go public with my sexuality. My family may be supportive, but I can’t say the same for everyone else.
