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Jaxson has been tasked with finding Felix, which means he probably already has. “He hasn’t been seen, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know where he is,” he says.
“Where is he, then, Jax?” I lift my own glass and take a swig.
“His building.” With the surround sound in the room, Jax’s voice booms through the air.
“His apartment building?”
“Yep.”
“Ballsy.” Placing my glass down. “He’s not even pretending to hide.”
“Nope. According to his staff, he has a cold, but he’s been conducting business from home. He’s even been Zooming about a new mall he wants to build.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” This pisses me the fuck off.
“Nope.” And I can tell by Jaxson’s voice that he’s serious.
“I’m here—” I begin before Lorenzo cuts me off.
“Getting laid,” Lorenzo jokes, and I narrow my eyes at him.
“Careful.” My voice rings through the air with a clear warning.
Lorenzo holds his hands up in apology. “My bad.” He looks at me and cocks his head. “Speaking of that, care to explain how you went from annoying your lawyer to—”
“Lorenzo,” I warn.
“Not annoying her.”
“How much do you know about my past?” I say, and that’s when I hear the sound of soft footsteps.
“Our past,” Skye cuts in, walking across the room and taking the seat next to me.
“Not a hell of a lot,” Cyrus’s rough voice answers.
“Because the asshole keeps us all in the dark.” Lorenzo has always given me shit for being closed off, so it’s no surprise when he says this. “The time for silence is over. Tell us everything.”
I let out a long sigh and feel Skye’s hand under the table, holding my hand.
“This story is twenty years in the making. Some pieces are missing.” I leave out the little details not relevant to the story. I don’t tell them it was my birthday. Nor do I mention Skye’s being the same day. “My father and I had just moved to Reddington a few months earlier. The cartel sent my father to distribute cocaine through New York. The plan was to create a foothold through the Tri-State and Upstate areas. Reddington’s proximity to both gives him not only access to the docks but also the safety of hiding under the radar in a small town.”
Skye squeezes my hand.
“The plan wasn’t well thought out; there was already a distribution pipeline. A war started. Far enough from town that it didn’t touch it, but we had enemies, and the enemy wanted to make an example of us for the cartel.
There was a mom-and-pop diner in the town, one that was famous for its shakes. It’s all I wanted, and, well, there was a hit. It was a massacre. My father was killed, and Skye’s parents were caught in the crossfire.”
“Felix?” Cyrus leans forward, and I nod at him.
“Yeah.”
“This vendetta you’ve had for him stems from this?” From here, I can practically see the wheels turning in Cyrus’s brain. His face is stern, jaw locked.
“Yes.”
“And does he know?” Cyrus looks to be working out all the loose ends in his head, but until I tell him everything, there will still be pieces of the puzzle he won’t be able to connect.
“No.”
Cyrus lifts his brow.
“My father’s name was Tobias. I changed my name to his after he died and changed my last name to my uncle’s.”
“Felix thinks he’s fighting over control for New York, not some past blood on his hands?”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“I have been looking for confirmation that it was him.”
“And did you find that?”
“On paper, no one has ever been able to put the gun in his hand. He wasn’t there. He didn’t go down for the crime. No one who was captured afterward could ever say that Felix was involved. The local drug runners were all rounded up and arrested. It was the biggest drug bust and takedown in New York’s history.”
Lorenzo nods. “It was all over the papers. It made careers. I didn’t realize it was you. I knew you were a Kosta, but I assumed you were the son of George Kosta. He was a legend.”
“George was my uncle. My mother’s sister’s husband. He raised me.”
“How did you keep this from us?” I can tell by his tone that Cyrus is pissed.
“Not easily.”
“And you never fucking thought we should know?” He stands from the table, his chair flipping over. I get it. We have gone to war with each other. Keeping this from them is a huge breach of trust.
“Cyrus.” He’s gone.
“Give him a minute,” Matteo says. “Listen, man, I get it. I know why you didn’t let us in, but see it from our point of view. We let you into our home. You met our kids.”
This is an unwritten rule amongst men like us, and I broke it. Standing from the chair, I head out the door Cyrus left from.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.” I hear as soon as I’m in the hall.
