Cade Burns
Elizabeth sat across from me, her feet propped on my desk as she scrolled through her phone and laughed at whatever videos appeared on her screen. I stared at all the spreadsheets in front of me. Billing this quarter was absolute hell, and I realized that there were still tens of thousands of dollars we hadn’t been able to launder through the usual methods. No matter how I worked the books, I had nowhere to put the money.
I needed to get in with another business, but doing so was risky. People were fickle, and for the right price, any of them would burn us. The Ruso family had offered that price to whomever they could in an attempt to take us down. It had been the reason we’d lost a half dozen operations in the past five years, and now we had nobody to account for the additional money.
That was the quickest way to get caught and arrested for extortion, drug trafficking, and all the other obscene situations that kept our accounts full and prosperous.
“We have nowhere left to put this extra sixty grand,” I told Elizabeth, looking between all the sheets.
She glanced over the top of her phone with raised brows. “Did you put extra income into the laundry mats?” she asked. I nodded, rubbing the back of my neck. We had two dozen of them all around New York, but I could only claim there had been so many sales. No laundromat was bringing in ten grand a week, but I’d already inflated the numbers. “Have the accountant take care of it. He always makes it work.”
I shook my head. “Before their last attack, Alessandro turned the firm against us. I don’t know what kind of threats he gave, but they refuse to take our services, even after his death.”
“That’s bullshit,” Elizabeth claimed. “Do we have any other accountants on the payroll?”
“None that are good enough to make these numbers work.”
She sat up straight and stared at the documents. “What good is this alliance if he can’t help you undo all the shit his father did?”
I’d been asking myself the same question, especially when he’d emailed the contract to me. It had been short and to the point. He would provide no more than a five-man team to a severe conflict, and I was expected to do the same. The contract read that his men wouldn’t attack me on his order, but it hadn’t claimed that they were told to disengage. The entire contract was utter bullshit, and I didn’t see how either of us was benefiting from it. The only thing it prevented was an all-out war between our people on either of our commands.
It promised a better life than we’d had under his father’s rule, but not significantly.
“He won’t prevent us from making deals with other businesses,” I told her, though I wasn’t entirely sure that was the truth. I’d brought Aria into my home, and for what? Half-hearted promises and bullshit contracts. “That’s the only way I can think to remedy this until we find another accountant willing to do our dirty work for us.”
She scoffed and grabbed a pen from my desk, turning it in her hands. My sister’s constant movement put me on edge, but I knew that she was good at finding solutions to our problems. I needed her here.
“We have to be careful because we don’t know how far this alliance will go in practice. We can’t assume all of this will go away.” She bit the tip of the pen for a moment. “I don’t trust this.”
“I want to believe that using his sister was a peace offering, but after reading the contract, I don’t think it was. He doesn’t seem to give a fuck about this alliance. It holds no significance for either of us.” I bit my tongue before continuing my thoughts aloud. “I keep putting myself in his shoes, but I can’t imagine a circumstance where I would trade you for an alliance
-even a life-changing one. He gave me his sister, and he knows I hate her.
What kind of man would do that for an alliance this meaningless?”
I gestured to the pages on my desk that I’d gone through repeatedly. The contract bound us together in a deal that essentially ensured that we minded our own business and nothing more.
I considered Aria and how much I despised her. But I also recalled how my body had reacted to her. I thought about how soft her skin had been when I’d pushed her into the car door. I envisioned the wideness of her stunning eyes as I’d intentionally terrified her. I knew how to play the game -make her feel like I was ten levels crueler than I truly was. Then, with any luck, she would never test those boundaries that I’d set.
But despite how my body longed to touch hers, I knew that if she pushed me, I would show my cruelty, and I would delight in it more than I wanted to admit.
I hated her, but I wanted her, and I needed to check myself before I did something stupid.
“I think you need to reevaluate who you’re making an alliance with,” Elizabeth told me. “Everyone changes when they live this life for more than a year or two, and he’s been in it for a long time. Long enough that he’s going to be completely changed.”
“We were best friends,” I told her, shaking my head. We’d spent three years as best friends. I’d been at his house most days, and he’d come to mine occasionally, too. Alessandro knew me only as a friend from school, and our scheming began. It hadn’t just been a friendship. We’d told one another everything, and we planned to unite our people one day. My father was passing down the title to me when I finished shadowing him and learned all there was to know. I was set to take over everything by the age of twenty-three, and I had.
It had been mere months too late. Aria had snitched on our friendship just before I could make a difference, and I couldn’t forgive her for that.
Thirteen was old enough to know the consequences of her actions.
“Best friend or not, he’s not that person anymore.”
“I know that,” I snapped. Elizabeth closed her mouth and gaped at my outburst. There was one person in this world who I always watched my tone around, and it was my sister. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice, but I know he’s not the same person. That’s the problem. I will take that into consideration in all future decisions, but the person he used to be was worth making an alliance with. He’s not like the other Italian families. He’s okay with co-inhabiting with the Irish mob.” I paused. “Or he used to be.” “Do you want my advice?” she asked.
“I know your advice, and I know it’s biased. Alessandro Ruso took your husband’s life, and that was the reason I had him killed. You will never forgive the Ruso bloodline for that, but they’re not all bad. They can’t all be bad.”
She looked to the floor for a moment, and I knew she was trying to hold back tears. The loss of her husband was too recent and too difficult for her to face outright. Elizabeth and Ferdinand had been together for so long that I had begun seeing them as the same person. One would not be around if the other wasn’t close.
And then, he was captured, tortured, and killed by the Rusos. It changed everything.
She took a deep breath and raised her head, meeting my eyes. Tears welled in the corners of hers, but none of them fell. “I don’t hate all the Rusos for what happened to Fern. I don’t blame Aria the way you do. But I don’t think Matteo took the role of boss out of the kindness of his heart.”
I’d never overlooked her advice, and I wouldn’t this time either. “Then be my spy and keep an eye on the movements of Matteo’s inner circle and soldiers. See what he’s up to, and report back to me.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d used her as a spy, and she nodded. Before we could say anything more, my door flew open, and I looked up to find Crew, one of my most trusted lieutenants. I glanced at Elizabeth, and she immediately stood and left us alone in the room.
“Are you on shift today?” I asked.
“I picked up from Davis,” he said as he approached my desk and plopped himself in the seat on the other side. “Do you have time for a full report?”
“Give it to me.”
“No movements on the property all day, excluding the tactical team coming and going at the prompting of Serg. None of them veered or lingered, and they all left within the last hour. There was also the sighting of a woman,” his eyes sparkled for just a moment. “There are a few rumors circulating about her, sir.”
“I wasn’t aware that I paid you to listen to rumors,” I told him. I didn’t understand why a hot rage in my chest ignited as I heard his words. I didn’t care what people thought about Aria being here, and I certainly didn’t give a shit about my guards and soldiers talking about her. So why did I feel so angry at the thought of them speaking about her? “What are the rumors?” “You got married,” he said rather than asking.
“I did.”
“And your wife is the Ruso girl-the one that the old boss kept cooped up and away from everybody.”
I nodded. “She is, and she will be safe from you and the other soldiers. We’re building an alliance, and I will not have it broken because your men haven’t jerked off recently enough to control themselves. Tell them to keep it in their pants.”
He nodded and stood straighter. “She’s a pretty little thing, though, boss.”
I ground my teeth. “You married just for an alliance, you say? I’d be happy to take her for a whirl and see what comes of it. I wouldn’t want my boss fucking around with an unsuitable chick, if you know what I mean.”
He laughed loudly, almost as if sharing an inside joke, and my rage boiled over the limit of no reaction. I stood quickly, grabbing his wrist and pulling him across my desk. His laugh cut off abruptly, and he groaned as he slid across it a few inches. I felt like I hovered over myself as I pinned his wrist to the desk’s surface and grabbed one of my display daggers from the corner of the desk. With no hesitation-just an utter indifference and lack of control-I slammed the blade down.
It met resistance, but I pressed my body weight into it until a satisfying crunch filled the room.
I’d never heard a grown man scream as loudly as when he flung himself from my grasp and onto the floor, holding his mangled hand to his chest. Two of his fingers sat on my desk in a pool of his blood as he screamed, looking down at his hand.
Slowly, I became aware of the blade in my hand. Of the sticky blood coating my fingers. I no longer hovered over myself. Instead, in a cool, collected tone, I spoke through his screams.
“If you or any other soldier lays a hand on her, you’ll lose something much more valuable than two fingers.”