AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Joey.” Zander spoke for the first time since Joey first opened his mouth. “Let’s talk loyalty.”
Joey froze, then turned around slowly. “You’re sick.” His eyes were bloodshot and even from where he stood, Zander made out the rapid beating of the pulse at his temple. “You sick fuck.” Spittle flew out of Joey’s mouth.
Zander smiled. “I am all of those things, Joey. I am also the one in charge.” He left the dais and made his way down to where Joey stood trying to act as if he wasn’t scared out of his mind. Zander was way too familiar with fear to ever miss it, to ever not recognize it. When he stood directly in front of Joey, Zander pulled his own gun from his waistband and held it out to the older man. “Here. You were all talk the past few days about what you were gonna do when you saw me.” He smiled. “I’m gonna need you to back all that talk up with some action.”
Joey paled.
Zander’s smile only got wider. He inhaled deeply, realizing that he’d missed this. All the time he’d remained hidden away, waiting, he’d missed this: The stench of fear and terror that enveloped his prey when they really understood what having Zander in their orbit meant. Watching acceptance creep into their wide eyes as they finally got it.
Joey made no move to take the gun, so Zander tucked it back into his waistband with a smirk. The loudest motherfuckers were always true cowards at heart.
“I put someone in your inner circle,” he told Joey. “Because old motherfuckers like you know nothing about true loyalty. And you and these idiots…” He nodded at the bodies on the floor. “You don’t seem to get that loyalty is never inherited; you gotta earn that shit.”
Joey had suddenly turned mute.
Zander didn’t mind; it was his time to talk. “I know Murray killed my family. And as his best friend, something tells me you know all the details about that, don’t you?” Joey went from pale to translucent. That was confession enough. “Edgar.” He gestured for the man he’d tasked with infiltrating Joey’s crew to step forward.
Edgar pushed from where he leaned against the wall with the rest of the men, just watching. He was a tower of a man, bald with tan skin and piercing green eyes that might’ve been unsettling if Zander wasn’t already intimately familiar with darkness and the monsters that resided there. When Edgar stood in front of him, Zander told him, “You now control all of what used to belong to him. Everything.”
Joey operated the biggest slice of the business: car washes, laundromats, restaurants, and strip clubs. All of that fell under Joey’s purview and Zander was stripping it all away. He was one of Murray’s biggest earners, but Zander already knew from only a preliminary glance at Joey’s books that he hadn’t been producing what he should have.
Edgar dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I won’t let you down.”
He wouldn’t. Edgar was a few years older than Zander, but he’d been around even when Zander had still been there. He’d come in off the streets and worked his way up. Derri had given Zander updates throughout the time he’d been gone on who they could trust, who they couldn’t, and who could be persuaded. Edgar had been someone they could trust because he had a code.
They were all bad men, but you had to have a code. Otherwise, what separated you from the animals out in the wild? Joey and Murray didn’t live by codes, only by entitlement and their greed for power. Now, they got to die by that too.
“You can’t—” Joey stepped forward and Zander grabbed him by the throat, squeezing.
“Get on your knees,” Zander rasped. Joey struggled in his grasp, trying to pry Zander’s grip from his neck. “Knees.” There was no need to shout, so Zander regulated his tone, keeping low but firm. “Now.”
Joey sank to his knees and proceeded to beg. “Please. Zander. Boss. You don’t have to do this. I-I know I messed up, but let me?—”
Ignoring his whining, Zander lifted his gaze to the rest of the men who’d been silent and watchful thus far. “You get one chance to fuck up with me. That’s it. If you want out, if you don’t want to take orders from me?” He pointed to the door. “Then get the fuck out. Otherwise, we’re not in school here. You know what your job is, so do that shit. I am not my uncle.” He paused, pulling his gun from his waistband and pointing it at a shaking Joey’s head. “I am worse.” Then he pulled the trigger.
24
“What the fuck, Vince?”
Vince pulled the phone away from his ear with a wince at Russ’s near-screech. He’d finally called to check in with his boss now that he and Scotty were settled in. He turned around where he stood on the deck, peering through the window and spying Scotty stretched out on the couch inside the Airbnb they’d rented.
He’d opted for the rental as a way to decompress, to gather themselves, instead of going right back home to Jersey.
Where Zander would be by now, taking the reins over from his uncle.
He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to dislodge the thought. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Zander; he’d left them and now Vince and Scotty had to find a way to move on without him.
Easier said than done.
“Where are you?” Russ asked. “Are you okay?”
He’d given his boss a quick rundown of what happened…well, the sanitized version. He damn sure wasn’t telling Russ that he’d fucked and fallen in love with two men, one of them being Murray DuBois’s nephew—one of the most dangerous men they’d ever known. Russ didn’t need to know about that. Besides, Zander was gone, wasn’t he?
Out of the picture.
He rubbed his chest, keeping his eye on Scotty. Vince worried for him, the way Scotty had withdrawn into himself with every passing day. It’d been three weeks already since they’d parted ways with Zander, and Vince felt his absence like a gaping wound that refused to heal, so he knew Scotty felt the same way. But they didn’t talk about him, the man they missed so much. They didn’t bring him up.
What use would that do?
