This was meeting number eight.
My uncle had started falling into the same pattern. I came in. There was small talk. He inquired about my sister, then he asked how my work was going. I answered everything, waiting for the real reason he’d asked to meet me. He’d get to it, and the last few times, it’d been the same request or warning. I considered it a forewarning of sorts. His health was bad. He needed me to take over the family business.
The time remaining was dwindling. I had a couple weeks to go.
Of course this was never expressed in a way where he was asking me to do it. He was telling me he wanted me to do it. It was an old classic Uncle Stephano way of where he paved the road with his intentions first, and then when it was clear, he marched right on through.
This meeting was different.
I noticed that immediately when his men stood up straight when I exited my vehicle. Before, they lounged. They nodded. They might have given a wave; sometimes they did nothing, and that was because I didn’t care for my uncle’s men. They only knew violence and used violence to get whatever they wanted.
This time, there was fear in their eyes.
“Tristian.” Stephano’s head guy, Bobby, gave me a respectful nod, opened the door, and led the way inside. We bypassed the kitchen, where my uncle preferred to do his meetings, and he took me down to the basement, into the back television room, where Stephano was on a back couch. “Tristian is here.”
“Ah. I see.” My uncle stood up and came over.
His hands went to my arms, and he leaned in. A kiss to my left cheek. A kiss to my right, and then he gave me another clasp on both arms, a smile before he stepped back. He blinked a few times before he turned away.
“What’s going on, Uncle Stephano?”
He cleared his throat, shaking his head. “We can get to that. Sit, sit, sit. Bobby, get us some drinks. I’m feeling wine tonight. The best red we have.”
Bobby gave a nod before glancing my way, a lingering look, and then he left.
I frowned. What was going on? “I’d rather we cut to the chase here. We’ve had enough of these meetings over the last two weeks, Uncle Stephano.”
“What? Oh. Yeah. Uh.” He waved to the couch he’d just stood from. “Sit. Have a seat. Relax a little. All in due time.”
I sat, not wanting to, but I sat.
He moved to the back, where he kept a table. There was a pile of papers, and he shifted through some before his phone buzzed. “Yeah?” He grew quiet. “Yes. I do. Yes. Thank you.”
My own phone buzzed.
Ashton: At Katya. The old roommate is here, talking with Jess.
Me: Thanks for letting me know.
Ashton: Want me to pass on any messages? She’s alone.
Me: I’ll come by after this meeting.
Ashton: Want to guess why the old roommate showed up? I’m hoping they’re going to start bowling again.
Me: ?
Ashton: I like bowling. Your girl hasn’t gone for a while.
Me: You like bowling or you like who owns the bowling alley?
Ashton: Is there a difference?
Me: Where is this coming from? Have you been watching their group of friends Sunday nights?
Ashton: Maybe.
Me: Ashton.
Ashton: I checked in a couple times, just keeping abreast even though your girl wasn’t there.
Me: Did the owner recognize you?
Ashton: No.
“Here you go.” Bobby brought a wine bottle, two glasses, and a corkscrew into the room. After placing everything on the table closest to where I was sitting, he opened the bottle and began pouring. “Tristian.” He handed one to me, then filled the other.
I took it but only held it. No way was I going to drink from mine before my uncle drank from his. We were family, but we were still Mafia. Everything about this meeting was setting off my alarms.
“Thank you, Bobby.”
“You want me to . . . ?” He gestured to the door, and Uncle Stephano nodded.
“Yeah, yeah. Close it. Leave us alone. I need privacy with my nephew now.”
“Okay.” Bobby shared another look with me before he left, shutting the door behind him.
“Uncle Stephano—”
He stopped me, a hand in the air, and gestured to the door. “Make sure they’ve all gone.”
What? That was news to me. “Is there something I should be made aware of about your men?”
“What?” He continued to watch the door, listening, and once we heard a thump upstairs, he relaxed. “Ah. Good. All good.” He moved his glass toward me. “You can never be too sure. Now. How are you? Tell me, how is my favorite nephew doing? Still making all that money with your job and your businesses?”
Now we were falling back into old patterns. I relaxed, just slightly, but scooting forward, I put my wine back on the table in front of me and rested my arms on my knees. “Uncle Stephano, you know I’m doing well. Everything is well for me.”
“Yeah?” He sat down in one of the deeper chairs, facing me. “And the woman? Are you still seeing that copper? Montell.”
“She’s a parole officer, and yes. Things are . . . fragile between us.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Fragile? What does that mean?”
“It means we’re slow, but I’m still seeing her, or trying to. She’s basically the enemy—you know that.”
“I do. Yes. But you did good with her uncle, or the new guy who replaced him. He turned out to be a good employee for us. We moved a lot of shipments through that warehouse thanks to him. It was a good call what you did.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He noticed my wine, and his eyes sharpened. Leaning forward, he motioned toward it. “Wine not good?”
“It is. I already took a sip.”
“You did? Good, good.”
He was thinking. And because I was able to almost see him thinking, that meant a lot of things to me. He was tired. He was distracted. He was . . . frenzied? Was this all because of his health? It was a general rule of mine not to lie to my uncle, ever, but I tried to tell him as little as I could. Being vague tended to appease him. He used to like to feel in control, but now my uncle was not coming off as being in control. With him, what he could do, that made him extra dangerous.
“Uncle Stephano.” Calm. Quiet. I needed to ease into this.
“Hmm? Yes?”
“What’s going on? Why did you want to meet tonight?”
He stopped thinking and focused on me. Only me.
I knew my uncle was dangerous, though I’d never actually feared him. But right now was the closest I’d gotten to being scared of him. He was making me nervous. “Uncle Stephano?”
“Our problems have escalated.”
“Which ones?”
“Some of our shipments aren’t arriving. Getting lost. Stolen. And there’s other skirmishes. More and more businesses are starting to refuse to pay us. Some of our other more unsavory businesses are taking a hit too.” He began waving a hand in the air. “One or two, they’re fine. Normal. We can handle those, and we do, but we’re getting hit on all sides, and it’s got me thinking. You know?”
“Sure.” I wasn’t going to like where he was going with this. I knew it.
“And I think, what’s new going on? And then I think, this all started when you started banging that copper.”
Oh, Jesus.
“It’s not Jess.”
“But she’s a Montell. You know what happened with the other Montell? Her daddy. He was a little piece of shriveled dick. The smallest I’d ever seen, but he didn’t want others to know, so he liked to overcompensate. Is that the word? Walked big. Talked loud. That sort of stuff, but he was a moron.” His hand kept going, round and round. “A total idiot, but he was in with the crew. We let him do some things for us, bust some heads, then your daddy. You know about this?”
None of this was sitting right with me. I shook my head. “I’ve not heard the exact story, no.”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” He drank half his wine in one gulp, and that hand started up again. “I’ll tell you. You sit. Relax. Want more wine? I can get Bobby to bring another bottle.”
“I’m good, Uncle Stephano. I’d like to hear the story.”
“Oh! Oh, oh, right. Your woman, huh? You want to hear about her daddy?” He tossed back more wine before standing and pouring the rest into his glass. His movements were unsteady as he moved back, until he could sink back down. As he did, the wine sloshed over the rim of his glass. He didn’t notice. “Okay. Where was I? Oh, right. Your daddy and her daddy worked together, but they didn’t like each other. Dominic had gotten his dick into your woman’s mother. She’s a good-looking woman too. I still see her sometimes. She’s started walking on our street, and she makes sure to wave to the guys when she does. You know why she’s doing that, right?” He laughed, his eyebrows wiggling a little. “She’s asking for some visitors, but don’t worry. I’d not do that to you, not when you’re plowing the daughter.” He laughed, loud and long.
There was something wrong with Uncle Stephano.
I hadn’t put stock into it when he’d first started talking about his health, but this wasn’t him. He didn’t act like this. He was reserved, cautious. Smart. He was being like his brother right now, like my father. His men’s reactions were making more sense.
“What happened with Jess’s father?”
“Oh yeah. I forgot. Yeah, yeah. There was a fight. You see, her daddy wanted more power in our family. He wanted to climb the ladder, and he staged a coup against your father. But blood is blood. You feel me? He came to me about it, told me everything your father was doing, and I’m saying everything. The whores, the cops he was blackmailing. He had his fingers everywhere, and her daddy knew about it all. He gave me a proposition. He’d take out your dad if he’d get his job. Said he could take your dad’s position and do it better.” He began laughing, his shoulders shaking. “And you know the funny thing? I bet he could’ve. He wasn’t a stupid idiot. He was half-smart most of the time. The other half was dumb because what’d he think? That I’d choose him, an outsider, over my own blood?”
I was bracing myself. “What happened to him?”
“I had him killed. That’s what happened.”
“You did?” My tone was sharp. Everything in me was on high alert. Her brother had been convicted for their father’s death.
“I mean, we set it up, but we didn’t do it. The kid did. He just needed proper motivation, but yeah. We got the son to kill the father, and now it’s almost karma that you’re banging the daughter. Funny how that all works out, huh? Especially when Dominic made sure you were never here. He never wanted you to run into the girl, said you’d fall for her. She was a looker even back then, but we put out word not to touch her. That was a promise to the father, that she’d be left alone. But you see, I can’t fulfill that promise if she’s the one singing on us?”
“She’s not,” I ground out.
Good fucking Christ.
I started to stand up. “Why am I here? Tonight?”
“What do you mean?”
I took out my phone.
Me: I want a guy on Jess at all times. I think my uncle might do something against her.
He was staring at my phone, and he pointed at it with his wineglass. “What’d you do there? Just now. You sent a text off? To who?”
“To Ashton.”
He nodded, easing back into his chair. “That’s good because you’re here for two reasons. One, I need to know if the woman you’re banging is turning evidence on us, and if she’s not, then we got a whole other problem on our hands.”
“It’s not Jess. I’ve had men on her and a tracker on her. It’s not her.”
The wino lunacy charade was gone, and my uncle was back in power. He was clear and alert, and he was studying me like I was his enemy. He nodded, slower this time, and he spoke, his voice all serious. “Let’s hope it’s not your woman because if it is, then I’m going to have to take out her family. Can’t get rid of another one and let the other two stew.”
“It’s not her, so who’s the other choice?”
He stared at me, long and hard. “The other choice is that family from Maine. They could be behind everything.”
“What do you want me to do?”
He stood up from his chair, taking a sip of his wine before moving back to the table. He lingered, staring at something before he put his wine down. He picked up a folder and brought it over. “You handled your father. You handled the uncle situation. Now.” He nodded to the folder as I opened it. A picture stared back at me, and I knew who this person was. “That’s the ringleader for the Maine family. I’ve told you about them. Worthing Mafia is what they’re being called, but you know one of their cousins. He used to work for you.”
Justin Worthing.
I picked up the picture. “Are you serious with this?”
“I am. He’s got a brother on the force, a Detective Worthing. They’re using him to move in on us, and they’re going to keep coming.”
“What do you want me to do about this?”
“I want you to handle it.” He moved back, sipping his wine. “Handle it how you’ve handled all the other situations I’ve sent your way. You’ll have to rope Ashton in on it because his family runs the cops in town. Worthings are moving in on their territory too.”
He was asking me to “handle” more people.
“You might want to ask the reason why you had a Worthing at your club, too, while you’re at it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You had a Worthing working for you. Don’t think I didn’t consider that maybe you were the one plotting against me?”
He had better not be threatening me. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Now he went eerily still, and there was a whole layer of ice filling the room around us.
“Why the hell would I plot against you when you’ve been telling me that you want me to take over for you?” There was a storm in his eyes. I saw it, checked it, and it only kept growing.
My uncle was a problem.
The man who had been the one going to my sports games. He was the father to me. My birthdays. He was the one who kept my picture on his fridge. He was there for me. When his son left, I was at his side. When his other one died, I’d helped plan the funeral. He was a mess. His wife left him years ago, and she was gone gone. Like vanished gone. The story had been that she’d had enough of him and took off, not wanting anything to do with this family. I’d never questioned it, but now, had he done this to them? Threatened to turn on them?
Or worse, had he turned on them?
I was staring at my uncle, wondering if I was just seeing him for the first time.
A smile broke out over his face, and he started laughing. “I got you! I got you, didn’t I?” He came over, clapping me on the shoulder, but his hand holding that wine was still so steady.
“Uncle.”
“Yeah?” He was still laughing. “Why aren’t you laughing? It was a joke. I was trying to ease the tension. I know I came down hard about your girl, and then about your employee, but one never knows.” He motioned to his back. “A lot of people want to put knives in my back.”
“You just threatened me. You threatened family.”
I was still holding myself steady, watching everything he did. Listening to every word he said, every inflection of tone. All of it was being burned into my brain because this day changed everything moving forward. He showed me the card that he could turn on me. I’d be stupid not to believe he would.
“It was nothing. You’re my nephew. I’d never do anything to you.” He moved in, clasping the back of my neck, and rested his forehead to mine. “I love my nephew. He’s the only one loyal to me. I’d be a fool to lose him. I’d be a fool to lose you. It was a joke, Tristian. Please forgive me. It was a bad joke.”
It wasn’t a joke. It was a test. He’d wanted to see how I’d react.
I stepped back from him, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.
He faltered, frowning. “Trace?”
I took another step back, and another. Still not saying anything.
“Trace? I was joking.”
“You weren’t,” I grated out. “I’ve never done anything to you to make you believe you couldn’t trust me. Never. I handed my father over to you, and I saw what you did to him. Now this?” I motioned to him. “Justin Worthing is not a part of his family’s business. I can’t speak to the rest of his family, but I know he is not. And he’s not one of my employees anymore.”
Stephano raised his chin up, slowly. “His woman is currently in your nightclub, talking to your woman. You can see that I do have cause for concern considering that your woman hasn’t chosen sides yet. She’s still working for the other side.”
“Excuse me?”
He had eyes in my club. In my club! I wasn’t surprised about the reporting on Justin, or even about Jess. I half expected it, but the questioning me, and now this? Current reports right now.
“I was just told myself that she’s there. How did you know?”
I began looking around.
He’d gone to his table. He was looking at papers.
Bobby had brought the wine in—that’s when I’d received the texts from Ashton. I went over his movements after that text.
He’d been in his chair. He was drinking. Testing me. Challenging me in a way. Then he stood, went to his table, and he paused there.
I began to turn toward the table, moving to it.
“What are you doing?” His voice sharpened.
I held up my phone. “You don’t have eyes at my club, not current ones. But I do, and I was just notified. That means . . .”
“Trace! Don’t go over there.”
I ignored him, starting to read the papers.
They were files. Stocks. Others were numbers that he had scribbled down. Photos.
“Stop, Trace. I mean it,” he barked.
I moved aside one of the papers, and I saw a phone. I hit the screen; it was my wallpaper. I picked it up and turned back. “Unlock it.”
“Nephew.” He lowered his head, trying to go soft with me.
“Unlock it. Now.” I tossed it at him.
He caught it, barely, crushing it to his chest with his arm. Giving me an annoyed look, the ends of his mouth pinched in, he moved his thumb over the screen and tossed it back. I went straight to changing the passcode, putting in the numbers I just saw him use and entered my own before I went through the phone.
It was mine. Everything was mine.
He’d made a duplicate phone of mine.
I checked my texts, seeing Ashton’s recent one there.
Seeing my sexts with Jess.
I turned, a cold rage starting in my stomach, and it was growing fast and fiercely. “What else do you have on me?”
“Nephew—”
“What else?!”
He jerked. Swallowing. He finished his wine—thank god for that—and put the glass on the table beside him. Then he held up his hands, both of them. “Now, listen. Trace . . .”
“You have one phone; you could have others. I don’t enjoy my privacy being invaded.” Which was hypocritical of me because I had invaded Jess’s over and over again. I got it. I was getting it. But right now, I was dealing with this fire.
I just hadn’t decided if I was going to add gas or smother it.
“Tell me. Now.”
His head went back, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He had a resigned set to his shoulders. “I can tell that this meeting went sideways. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and that’s on me. I just needed to know. Your woman, you care for her. A lot. I can tell, and she’s in the law. I had to know, Tristian. I had to take precautions. Can’t you see that?”
“You cloned my phone. I’m not seeing anything right now.”
“You launched an investigation into me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know you did. I have computer guys. They set up alerts, and they notified me that you were mousing around. You did it a while ago, on a Friday night. I even know where you were, at your place downtown. That fancy high-rise you own. I couldn’t believe it when they said your computer was the IP address that was looking into my finances. Thought it was a joke, but then you got more serious with the cop, and what was I supposed to do? Huh? You’re the only family I got.”
“Maybe there’s a reason.”
His whole face shuddered before he reared back, snarling. “Stop being an ungrateful little bit—”
I was gone.
I couldn’t hit my uncle. If I did, I wouldn’t stop. The other choice I had was to leave.
He stopped but shouted as I was out the door and headed for the stairs, “Where are you going? Trace?!”
I shoved through the stair door and was going to the front door. “Trace?”
I stopped, seeing Bobby standing in the front living room. It was set up as my uncle’s meeting room when he didn’t want someone any farther into the house. He rarely used it because most of his business was done in the kitchen or at his warehouse two streets over.
“Don’t talk to me.” I was going for the door.
“Trace, stop.”
I opened the door.
“Trace.” He hurried forward, and then something was being shoved into my hand. “Read it.”
I closed my hand around whatever he gave me and was out the door.
Demetri saw me coming, hurried from the front, and opened my back door.
I got in and called Ashton. “Wipe everything. We need new phones. New computers. Everything.”
Demetri was getting back inside but heard me and looked at me through the rearview mirror.
“What happened?” Ashton said.
“My uncle’s been spying on us, and that seriously pisses me off. Wipe everything.”
“On it.”
I unraveled the piece of paper Bobby had put in my hand.
Your mother is alive. He doesn’t know.
