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Club 4 was our first big venture. It had started slowly, without a reputation or anything to attract customers. Now it’s always at the top of our revenue streams, building a name for the best place to be on a weekend night. I was proud of what we had built together, my brothers and I.
The office door opened, and Jaxon walked in. He plopped down in a chair on the opposite side of my desk. He held a folder in one hand, so I knew his visit was business. Each of us had specific responsibilities within our company, 4K. While I was the face of the business and technical CEO, each of us held the same amount of sway over the business. I wanted it that way, to ensure we did everything as partners.
Jaxon was in charge of HR and employee relations across all of our businesses. Gideon naturally fell into security, physical and virtual. Oliver was great with people, so he was good at being the face with our vendors and contracts we held. Together we worked as a well-oiled machine and kept all 4K properties running and prosperous.
“I’ve got the list of final employees for the new location. I’m probably going to have to go and do the orientation in person,”Jaxon said, his voice grim.
I didn’t say anything for a moment, just nodded and looked back at the figures on my screen. We were expanding to a new location outside of our state. It opened a new revenue source for us, however the learning curve of a new state with its taxes and laws, made all of us feel the stress. I knew I needed to go too, see the location, ensure the renovations were being done correctly.
There was only one reason neither Jaxon or I were ready to travel. Brooklyn. We were all slightly damaged after going through the attack on her and the feeling of the chance of losing her. Until that moment, I hadn’t been willing to admit to myself that I wanted her as badly as my brothers. And it still took untilshe was healed for me to make any moves on her to solidify those feelings.
“Aiden?”Jaxon’s voice broke into my inner thoughts.
“I know you need to go. I need to go too. I guess we just shouldn’t travel at the same time?”I suggested.
“You don’t want to go any more than I do,”Jaxon replied.
I nodded again. The idea of leaving her while she was still in danger made my heart feel like it was being ripped from my chest. I wasn’t prepared for the emotions Brooklyn created inside me. The habit of pushing them down was one I was very familiar with. Over years of abuse and neglect, I had learned how to manage the way I allowed my emotions to rule my life.
“We’ll need to plan it. Let me know what you think is best and I’ll go with that,”I said.
Jaxon just nodded and stood to leave the office. After the door shut, I leaned back in my chair again, staring at the ceiling. The four of us had overcome all the odds against us to get to where we were. I wanted to believe we were far away from who we were, but those men would always be inside us.
If I was being honest about Club 4, we all knew it wasn’t opened in the most legitimate way possible. The previous owner of the club was in debt to Jaxon’s father. At that time, Jaxon’s father was a mid-level drug operation and was intent on climbing the ladder.
That plan included Jaxon, Oliver, Gideon and myself. Each of us filled a roll in his enterprise and we were only helping it grow by leaps and bounds. It was working for him that I learned I had a head for business.
I barely graduated high school, probably wouldn’t have if Gideon hadn’t worked hard to keep me on track. Lord knew my mother wasn’t one to support me. I was lucky if she didn’t beat me so badly that I couldn’t go to school. By the time I was a teenager and towered over her, I was busy just keeping off herradar, mostly so she didn’t steal any of the money I was making slinging drugs and running the books.
Gideon was used as muscle and when Jaxon’s father decided to call in a debt, he’d send Gideon to do the dirty work. This time, when Gideon went to the collect on the owner of the club, the owner groveled and offered the business as payment. In a split-second decision, Gideon changed our trajectory and created a new future for the four of us.
Together, we pooled our funds and paid the debt the club owner should have paid to Jaxon’s father. We never told him about the club or how it had been transferred to Gideon’s name. To initially fund the running of the club, the way the owner had run it, the four of us continued to work in the business with Jaxon’s father.
After a few years of trying to balance, I called a meeting for the four of us and we were all in agreement that it was too much. Gideon had just barely escaped a murder charge the year before, after Jaxon’s father sent him to dole out justice. Jaxon was sampling product, more than any of us were comfortable with. The life was leaving Oliver’s eyes. And my mother had finally killed herself with the same product we were supporting. We all knew we couldn’t do it anymore.
That was where things got complicated. I had every piece of information to put Jaxon’s father away for good. I had quietly been collecting names, dates, amounts, locations and more on the entire drug enterprise. When I started collecting the data, I didn’t specifically know what I would do with it. But if I could use it to protect my brothers, I knew there was a purpose.
The blackmail only went so far, and I was reminded of that as I looked at my current figures again. We still had secret payments leaving 4K that we hid through shell companies. I hated it. But while I had dirt on Jaxon’s father, he hadn’t been just trusting us all those years either. He had enough to put usall away for good. He stayed away as long as we kept up our payments.
I rubbed my eyes again, feeling the familiar sick feeling I got when I thought about our past. It wasn’t just the drug dealing, beatings, killings or the number of things we had to do for Jaxon’s father. We did what we had to for survival, what all four of us had done since birth. Maybe those things should bother me more. It was knowing that no matter how good we were now, deep down we all had that darkness inside us.
That darkness is what rose to the surface as I picked up the files Gideon had compiled on Lyle. I flipped through some of the earlier history, memories about Brooklyn that I didn’t need to be reminded of at the moment. When I got to the end of the trail, I felt the same frustration I did when Gideon first told us he lost track of the fucker.
It was clear now that Lyle had a partner, a female for sure. I looked at the images of Lyle fleeing down the street after stabbing Brooklyn in the cafe bathroom. His face was burned into my brain and I would recognize him anywhere. But who was hiding him? Who was helping him stay off our radar? I couldn’t help but wonder if this somehow was connected to us, as well as Brooklyn. Could it be someone from our past helping Lyle get at Brooklyn, in the hopes of hurting my brothers and I as well?
I wasn’t opposed to getting my hands dirty, we’d all done it before. Blood and death weren’t strangers; however, we had put that behind us as we built the lives we wanted to live. Now, we had people to pay to handle things when necessary. Lyle was one I wouldn’t mind handling myself.
Shaking those feelings off, I tried to focus on the last bits of work I needed to do. Nothing would make sense, and I was at the point of knowing I needed to walk away. An idea popped into my head and I immediately jumped up and gathered my things. If I couldn’t work here, I’d find a better way of spending my time.
Chapter
Six
Brooklyn
A knockon my door was the only warning I had before it swung open. I had papers spread across my desk, working out donor gifts that were most affordable as well as attractive. I glanced up, expecting Pam in the doorway, but my gaze froze when I found Aiden.
“Aiden? Is something wrong?”I asked, immediately worried about why he was in my office at the end of the day.
