Page 4 of Marcus

“Do you assume when I put this suit on and get in my black Mercedes you saw me arrive in that I suddenly become a man who doesn’t know how to nail your head to the wall with a well-placed bullet?”

Glen stiffened, his tattooed arms bulging when they flexed at his chest. “Is that a threat, Guzzi?”

Ah, so now it was Guzzi, huh?

“My age—it’s three months shy of thirty, by the way—makes zero fucking difference to the fact that if your club doesn’t stay away from the Guzzi’s newest maple syrup farm we’re going to end you. I’ve been kind enough—or gracious enough, depending on how you want to look at it—to give you opportunity after opportunity to make the right choice here. That farm being in the club’s territory doesn’t change the fact it is in our hands. Like every other farm now in Ontario and Quebec, and if you think you’re going to slide in on the profits just because your clubhouse is six miles away, I have news for you.”

Silence echoed in the restaurant.

Good.

That’s what he wanted.

He felt all those eyes on him, waiting for what was going to come next.

“See, I feel the need to remind you now that compared to your fifty or so members within your club, the Guzzi organization is far larger, and our reach extends across this country and beyond. And don’t get me wrong, Glen, I understand that this effort of yours to put your foot in the door with our mafia is your way of proving yourself to your president, it still comes at the expense of my boss’s bottom line, and we just can’t have that. Find someone else to make your patch there worth keeping because it won’t be us.”

Marcus leaned forward a bit, clasping his hands together on the table as he smiled, met the man’s stare, so Glen knew he wasn’t the least bit fucking scared of him, his club, or whatever threat the man might try to answer this with as he asked, “Do you understand me, or would you like to go back to taking cheap shots about my age? Either way, I’m good.”

Glen’s cheek twitched like he was chewing over a response before finally settling on saying, “You’re essentially running a maple syrup cartel in Canada—you get that, don’t you?”

“And?”

Because Marcus didn’t see the problem.

Not only did the Guzzis have a legal venture in harvesting, manufacturing, and selling maple syrup, but it also served as a perfect front for all their illegal business. It was a great way to hide their dirty money and launder it until it was clean. And if this asshole thought just because his little clubhouse and gang were a few miles away that it meant they were owed a piece of that, well …

No.

Simply put, no.

“Listen,” Glen tried to say, “we only think it’s fair that—”

“What’s fair is I let you leave here alive today, and that is all you will get from us.” Standing from the table, Marcus ignored the stares of the men from across the other side of the table. Bikers in their cuts, clearly agitated and ready to roll. Thing was, he wouldn’t be giving them anything to roll with from here on out. “This meeting is over, and it is the only one you will get unless you force my hand. I assure you that isn’t what you want to do. Voyages sécuritaires, mon ami.”

Glen glowered up at Marcus, his bald head reddening from the clear dismissal of a man about half his age. “We’re not friends. How about you remember that?”

Marcus nodded. “So be it.”

Without another word, Marcus turned away from the table, not at all concerned about turning his back to the man. He brought a small army of made men with him, as well, for this meeting. He wasn’t stupid, and before someone could even try to pull a gun on him, they would be dead by his guards.

He walked out of that restaurant knowing this wasn’t the end. For now, though, it was one thing off his list. A list that never stopped growing.

So was the life of a Guzzi principe.

Especially Marcus Guzzi.

Duty always called.

It never ended.

And he didn’t want life any other way.

“Did you see this merda?”

Marcus was already bitching before he’d even entered his younger brother, Christopher’s, restaurant office in downtown Toronto. He wasn’t all that shocked to find Bene, his other brother, sitting with Chris at the man’s desk. Of course, on the other side of the desk. No one but the man who owned the space got to sit behind it.

That was all about the respect.