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IpassClive’stable just as he’s sinking into a seat with a sleazy smirk on his face. It’s not my intention to talk to him, but I find my feet slow to a stop anyway.
I rest my knuckles on the table, lowering myself until my body casts a black shadow upon his cautious gaze.
Next to him, Phillip shifts three inches to the left.
“Uh, is everything okay, Mr. Visconti?”
Fear grips his voice, because although Clive exists in the legitimate side of my life, which is filled with boardroom meetings, red ribbons, and oversized checks, he’s well aware of what happens on the other side. The darker, seedier side, where hot, Italian blood runs deep and impulsive. Where made men wager broken fingers, and one can get their neck snapped for seemingly trivial matters, such as ordering shaken cocktails from busty bartenders.
“What are you drinking, Clive?” I ask calmly, my smile unwavering.
A drop of condensation slips off the glass and lands on the table with a loud plop. “Frozen margarita.”
My jaw ticks, and two trains of thought pull into the station.
The first is, no bartender with more than a day’s experience would dream of putting a margarita in a wine glass.
The second is, out of all the years I’ve known Clive, I’ve never seen him drink anything but vodka soda. I’ve certainly never seen him drink a cocktail—definitely not one that needs to be shaken by hand.
We stare at each other for a few beats, and I find myself biting back the surprising urge to connect my fist to his jaw. It’s a fleeting feeling, but my hand twitches in agreement. Jesus. I haven’t hit anyone with my bare hands since I bought my first casino almost ten years ago. I walked into a meeting with a potential investor, and he took one look at my busted knuckles and stood.
What he said over his shoulder before he left has stuck with me for life.
There’s only a small difference between a thug and a businessman, kid. One has blood on his hands, while the other has blood on someone else’s.
A month later, I hired Griffin. I’ve never felt the satisfaction of bones cracking under my fist since.
Above Clive’s balding head, a set of eyes rest heavily on me. I skim my gaze upward and find Gabe glaring over the top of his cards. He cocks a brow. It’s barely a twitch of a muscle, but coming from him, it’s enough to end a life.
I pause. Chew on the inside of my cheek and consider his silent offer. It’s a given all the big-wigs at Miller & Young have earned their place at the top of my hitlist today. Last Thursday, their stock price started sliding south and hasn’t recovered all week. It took me hauling the board of directors all the way to the Coast to find out why. The CFO is secretly being investigated for embezzlement, and not a single one of the idiots was brave enough to pick up the phone and tell me.
They’ll each meet their demise in due time, but in true Griffin fashion, they’ll go out with a whisper, not a bang. A silencer pressed to a temple in an empty parking lot. Faulty brakes on a freeway.
It’s not because I’m above the whole sadist thing. I really am not. I just keep that side of me well-groomed and tethered on a tight leash. I let it loose only for one week a month, when my brothers and I play our game. Once it’s over, I put a muzzle on it and go back to outsourcing my problems.
Go back to eliminating with efficiency, rather than killing with flare.
I give Gabe a reluctant shake of my head. Without a break in his expression, he carries on with his game and I turn my attention back to Clive, a smile as fake as a three-dollar bill stretching my lips.
“Enjoy.”
The sound of my ring rapping against the table makes him flinch.
Outside on the terrace, I stick to the shadows until I reach the farthest end of the empty seating area, where the sound of a good time barely reaches my ears.
The sky is dark, the ocean darker. Its waves are rugged, relentless, and every time they slap against the hull, a light mist rises up and sizzles against my skin.
I lean back against the railing, light a cigarette, and exhale its smoke into the orange glow of a security light. Each drag loosens another knot between my shoulders, and now that I’ve put distance between myself and the…issue, I can see just how trivial it is. Ridiculous, even. Across all of my establishments, I have a staff of over twelve thousand and have never seen any of them as anything but a number on an expenses form. And that’s all Penelope is—an expense. A number on an Excel spreadsheet, just like all the other girls. With another drag on my cigarette, I make a vow that, for the veryshort time the little red-head will work for me, she’ll cost me only a dollar amount, and not my fucking sanity.
Even if she tightens her ponytail like that.
“Oh, for goose’s sake, I’m not a child, Angelo!”
Rory’s soft, white wine-tinged voice floats through the night and steers my attention to the French doors on the other side of the terrace. A few moments later, she stomps through them, my brother looming over her like a dark, protective shadow.
“There’s not a chance in hell I’m letting you watch, Magpie. You cried for three days straight when a pigeon flew into my car windshield. Remember that? You didn’t sleep a wink because you were traumatized by the sound of its bones breaking. You know how much louder human bones sound?”
“Benny’s not exactly an innocent little bird,” she snaps back. She attempts to stomp off toward the side deck, but Angelo grabs her wrist and spins her into his chest.
