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Deep down, he was petrified. A cockroach that would scurry away from the daylight.
Welcome to a new day, you motherfucker.
On the long sideboard by the window, the servants had laid out a full spread for breakfast. Warming pans held eggs, sausage, and roasted potatoes. Big silver platters held fruits and jams.
Scattered around the drawing room, eating in three groups of two, were Petre’s hired muscle, some of whom had been at the poker game the night before. They didn’t so much as greet Petre as he walked in, but a few of them gave me a flick of the chin to acknowledge they’d seen me. I caught one of them eyeing Petre with total hatred.
If looks could kill.
Oblivious to the palpable air of you are such a useless prick oozing from his hired “friends,” my brother limped up and down the long carpet on the opposite side of the room.
I, meanwhile, assessed the breakfast spread. Not bad, overall. A little too formal for my tastes, but I’d take it. I picked up an apple and took a satisfying bite, then approached my brother from behind.
He had a thing about hearing other people chew. It made him fucking crazy. It was like a disorder or something. And a pretty damned useful one. Just to really get under his skin, I chewed the fuck out of that crunchy apple while he paced.
He kept shooting me annoyed, infuriated stares, which I acknowledged with a glare and more crunching. This was one upside to having been raised with him, the insufferable son of a bitch: I knew exactly how to push his goddamned buttons.
The one button I’d never needed to press was threatening him with joining the family business. Ever since I’d seen the grizzly side of the business at an age far too young for such things—the brutality, the beatings, the total disregard for human life—I’d had no interest in it. But now that I had someone I cared about protecting, everything had changed.
Just the idea of my joining the family business had always freaked him right the fuck out; now that he thought I was actually going to do it, he was every bit as terrified and full of bluster as I’d hoped.
“What do you even know about running the business? Tell me that,” he said.
I dug my top teeth into the apple, peeled off a big bite with my lower teeth, and shrugged. “I mean, you’ve been doing it. Well, with father’s help of course.” I added a few loud crunches for effect. “Can’t be that hard.”
His eyes widened, both pissed off and insecure. Fucking coward, through and through.
“Will you put down that goddamned apple?”
I cocked my head like I couldn’t hear over the chewing. “Say what?”
He smacked his fist into his open palm. “Asshole.”
He skipped the breakfast spread and went straight for the vodka. Progress. I was getting to him. He was losing control of the situation and of himself. But I hadn’t tormented him enough yet. Not even fucking close.
He gulped back a half pour and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I saw he’d replaced the pinkie ring he’d lost last night with a new one, just as godawful and gaudy as the one I’d taken from him. He probably had an endless goddamned supply of the things, cut off the fingers of “business associates” over the years.
“We’re going to do things a little different now that I’m in charge,” I told him, as I finished off the first apple and picked up a second. “For starters, I think I’ll put you…” I narrowed my eyes, making a big show of thinking it though. “In charge of the warehouses, up north.”
My brother huffed. “First of all, dear brother, you are not in charge. And, second of all, an idiot could do that job.”
I clicked my tongue against my teeth. “Exactly.”
He set his teeth and took a few aggressive steps toward me, cracking his knuckles the whole way. He slid his hand into the pocket of his robe, and it reemerged with a set of brass knuckles across his fingers.
“Who the fuck keeps a pair of those in their dressing robe?” I asked, and started crunching away.
“I do, you pain-in-the-ass prodigal son who never gave a shit about this family until it suited you. I do.”
I stopped chewing. “Watch your fucking mouth.”
“No,” Petre said, all fiery with vodka now. At his worst, he was dangerous. But like this, he was nothing but sloppy and reckless. And I knew I could use that to my advantage too. “I run this business. Father put me in charge. So if you think you can stumble in whenever you fucking want and take over just because you suddenly decide you want to screw my soon-to-be wife, you’re fucking dreaming. Fucking dreaming. The royal title is going to be mine. It’s what the family has wanted—what father has wanted—for decades, and I’m the one who’s going to get it for us.”
