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KADE
As I walk toward the building, there’s a part of me positive that I’m about to have a bullet in my head. Clearly, I’ve already lost it if I’m here, but isn’t Len right? I’ve been a self-centered dick for so many years.
I’ve only ever cared about myself, fully believing that the only way to survive in this world is to cut everyone else off. But as I was walking through the casino and heard about Harry getting killed, everything just snapped into place.
Len’s right, I am an asshole. I’m a huge asshole who has only ever cared about myself. Even if I lost my casino, I’d still have more money than damn near everyone in this city. More than those women who’d been forced to sell themselves and are now tasked with turning their lives around… if they can even do it. I have more than the guard who works two jobs and still smiles every damn day. Or the teenager who was willing to give Len everything he had, including himself, to get his sister back.
And here I am, on my golden throne with so much money after spending years of my life pushing myself into a corner that no one else was invited into.
If I think about it that way… I might be richer, but don’t they have more than me? They have people who are happy to see them come home every night. They have someone to care about them and make them feel loved.
My mind flashes to Len and that smile of his, and I can’t help but wonder what it’d be like to deserve that smile. To come home to something like that instead of living miserably alone spending money in the hopes that I can buy something to make me happy.
What right do I have to stand my ground and let the happy people around me get picked off one by one? And hell, what if Len really did go up against Norn? There’s a reason Norn’s untouchable and able to make these threats. There’s a reason he can sell black market weapons without the police stopping him, and I expect Len to put his life on the line to stop him? Really? That’s my plan?
Len is just too damn kind-hearted. I’ve waded through the sins of this city since I was born and I’m not sure I’ve ever come across someone as good as him. Someone who would risk his life for a grape sucker some kid on the street had.
I can’t let him die for someone like me. I’m definitely not one of the ones who deserves him to put his life on the line for them.
So I find myself walking toward the building Norn does his shady shit out of. It’s stupid going alone, but hell, if I’m going to die anyway, I might as well die alone.
“Look at this. Do my eyes deceive me or what?” the guy smoking a cigarette outside the door says.
“Where’s Norn?”
“Right this way,” he says with a grin as I’m led inside.
I feel like I should have gone home to get a suit or at least something more professional than this stupid gamer hoodie of Len’s, but there’s something weirdly comforting about it. I guess, really, what’s it matter what I die in? Hell… is anyone even going to go to my funeral besides Harker?
I bet Len would.
The hallway leads me deeper into the building and over to the offices where the man comes across the only closed door which he knocks on.
“Come in,” a voice behind it says.
He pushes the door open and waves me inside the room that stinks like smoke. Clearly, I’m the last person Norn was expecting to see judging from the clear surprise on his face.
“Well fuck me, Kade, definitely didn’t expect that you’d waltz into my office today,” he says with a grin. “How are you? We haven’t caught up in years, have we? Last time I saw you was your father’s funeral, right?”
“Sure was,” I say as I sit down across from him.
“I miss your father. He took me under his wing and taught me everything I needed to know to make my business boom. I just… I still find it so damn funny that after all I did for him, he handed the casino over to you.”
“Yeah? It was pretty funny, wasn’t it? It was especially funny when I told him that if he didn’t, I was going to kill him. Then imagine when he strangely died after you thought the casino was going to be yours. You killed him too soon, Norn. If you’d have just waited, I’m sure he’d have switched it back. He never did like me, and he thought of you more like a son than he ever thought of me.”
“You wanted nothing to do with this side of the business,” Norn says as he waves at the factory around us.
“You’re right. My father thought the only way to make money and exist in this city was the illegal sales of weapons but since he’s died, I’ve reinvigorated his casino and made the profits grow beyond anything he could have imagined. Maybe he shouldn’t have written me off after all.”
“Maybe, and I thank you for that. At first, I really didn’t have much that I needed to do with the casino. After you sold me this end of the business and washed your hands of it, I was content. But now… Kade, your casino just… it really would help me out quite a bit, and honestly… it was always supposed to be mine.”
“Was it?” I ask, not quite sure it was, but of course he’d think so. He always thought he was owed everything. But I know he wants to use it to launder money, it’s the perfect setup for him… I’d just hate to see all my hard work destroyed like this.
“It was. So are you here to tell me to back the fuck off? I don’t appreciate what you did last night.”
“And you think I did? Really? You were going to have them rip my nails off and beat me up? That was your solid plan?”
“So you decide to come and complain about it to my face, then?”
