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He always breaks first.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“No,” I reply flatly.
His face screws up, and he takes the cigar from his mouth, huffing a plume of smoke in my direction. “You know, you used to respect the order of things. Used to understand that I’m your boss, not the other way around.”
“You’re not my boss, Rafe. Simple as that. I haven’t done a job for you in months, nor have I been gathering intelligence, or patching up any of your men. I don’t work for you anymore.”
“That isn’t how this works,” he snaps, pointing the butt of the cigar at me. “You don’t get to just leave. There are protocols in place. Oaths that can’t be broken.”
I shrug. “Sounds like a family problem. Send them my condolences.”
“You’re not as invincible as you seem to think, Anderson. Don’t forget I made you.”
Smirking, my hand reaches for the door, and I begin to ease it shut, my quota for bullshit capped. “Oh, I won’t.”
He swears under his breath as the door clicks into place, and I stay there for a moment to see if he’s going to knock again. The old Rafe would never have let something like this go without a fight, but maybe age is catching up with him.
Or maybe he has something worse planned.
Can’t be worse than what I have planned for him, though.
I pad back to the bedroom and slip beneath the covers, propping my elbow on my pillow as I stare down at my wife, brushing a strand of sweat-soaked hair from her cheek. A text flashes across my phone screen, Violet once again declining my most recent wire transfer.
“Pride cometh before the fall,” I mutter to myself, opening the secure banking app I have set up through Ivers International, canceling every future payment I have scheduled to deposit into her account.
Then I text my grandfather’s estate attorney, telling him I’m in Boston and want to set up a meeting to dissolve the trust altogether.
