by Tijan
“None of the Guaranno children will be harmed,” Kai said. “The grandchildren either. Only Jillian, her two brothers, and the two eldest sons will be greenlit. They are the ones involved in their family’s business. I am within my rights as leader of the council to make this order, but are there any objections?”
A beat.
One more.
No one objected.
Finally, the oldest man said, “You do what you need to. We will follow the Bennett family.”
“As of this moment, the Guaranno family is no longer a member of the council, but we need a ninth person to vote on this next matter so there can be a majority. I’d like to request my brother Tanner vote in her place.”
“We have a personal matter?” the third woman spoke, the one who had remained quiet throughout all of this.
Her face came into the light. She was in her mid-forties, with dark hair that hung down to her shoulders and pearl earrings. She wore a light sweater over a shimmering top, and her face had the slightest blush, matching her soft pink lips.
She didn’t seem angry or shocked, just aggravated. “I thought that was enough for the day.”
“One more, Rose.”
She nodded, leaning back in her seat. “Very well.” She looked to one of the other men, one with a full head of black hair and a rough glint in his eyes. “Richard, you okay with this?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He nodded. “Get on with it.”
Kai turned to one of the guards in our room, and he opened the door.
The third prisoner was dragged inside and put in the chair, but he wasn’t strapped in like my father. There was little to no fight left in him.
The bag was removed, and unlike the other prisoners, this one seemed content to merely sit there. There were no bruises on his face. No bloodied lip or swollen features. He didn’t even seem tired. What I had mistaken for no fight was just an acceptance. It was as if he’d been asked to come in for an interview he didn’t want to give.
He was young, maybe twenty-four? He had light brown hair that looked as if he’d just run his hand through it, honey brown eyes, a tilted mouth that made it seem as if he were permanently amused, and dark eyebrows that somehow gave him a rounder-looking face with chubbier cheeks than he actually had.
He would’ve been a cute-looking frat boy if this had been another life.
“State your name,” Kai said.
The guy grinned up at him, that top lip curving in a lopsided grin. “Levi Barnes.”
“Why have I brought you into this questioning today?”
Levi shrugged, lounging in his chair. “Probably has to do with the fact you don’t want me with your sister, but more likely it has to do with the fact that I was turning evidence on my family.”
A hush fell over the council. They had begun to talk amongst themselves, but they all perked up at that last bit.
“Why were you turning evidence on your family?”
“Is this from the Barnes family in Milwaukee?” one of the council members asked.
Only Levi seemed to take offense at that statement. His grin slipped, and his eyebrows drew closer together.
Kai nodded.
“I’m not a this,” Levi protested. “I’m a fucking person.”
Kai ignored him, addressing the others. “I’d like the room for the council members to be locked down.”
“What?” one of the men barked.
Rose moved forward again. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Lock it down, Tanner.”
Tanner was already moving. Two doors opened, and more guards streamed in. His guards, not anyone else’s. I recognized so many of them. They lined the inside of the room before the doors were shut again and deadbolted firmly in place.
Every person in that room was now a prisoner. Kai had taken complete control.
I tried not to react to this, but I couldn’t ignore the tingle that ran down my spine, the way it curled toward my stomach and began to warm me.
Kai looked at me once before turning back to Levi. He stood right next to him, speaking down to him. “You have a secret about my family, don’t you?”
“What is going on here, Kai?” Rose demanded. “I don’t like being a captive to your men. We all have men. We all have families, and I’m not saying that in the way Jillian was. My family will hunt yours down if you don’t get—”
“I’m getting to the goddamn point!” Kai yelled, his calm exterior slipping. “Sit your ass down. NOW!”
She quieted, her mouth clamped shut, and a second later, she sat down. I watched how she swallowed, her jaw trembling before she raised her chin.
“Kai Bennett, you cannot speak to another—”
“I can, and I will, and you might want to keep quiet so you can understand where the hell I’m going with this!”
“Kai—” another member began.
“Shut up!” He burned them with a look. “All of you.” Without waiting, he rounded to Levi. “Tell them what your family was hired to do. Now!”
But he didn’t. Levi held back, his eyes skirting around the room, passing over me without a second glance and lingering on the door before facing Kai again.
“Shit.” He raked his hands through his hair. “That’s what this whole thing was about, wasn’t it? Not about me turning on my family or having a fling with your sister. It was about the other matter. Look, man.” He started to get up.
A guard pushed him back down, hard. Levi barely noticed. He held a hand up, imploring Kai. “I had nothing to do with that. That was my uncles, and to be honest, they’re all right bastards. We’re basically nonexistent on the market in Milwaukee. Another family’s pushed us out. We just have a few businesses, a couple gambling circuits. That’s all.”
Kai waited for him to stop blabbering, and once he was done, he repeated, “Tell them what your family was hired to do against mine.”
Levi cursed. He began shaking his head, groaning as if he were in pain. “I can’t do that. I mean—shit. I can’t. I can’t. The stuff I was turning on my family was petty. Nothing big. Nothing like this. I can’t—no. Don’t make me. Please. I love your sister—”
“You don’t love my sister. You just called her a fling.”
“I know. I know, but there’s feelings there. Right? Man, I had plans. I was gonna—” He searched for words.
He was stalling.
“I was gonna ask her to marry me. I was gonna—yeah. Yeah! I had it all planned too, until you picked me up. I was heading to Minnesota to get her. We were going to go back to Mexico, get married there. I wasn’t even turning evidence, not really. It’d been a setup by the local cops. They set me up with child pornography.”
Oh God.
My eyes opened again. I was starting to see the dots.
Oh my God.
“They confiscated my computer, put that disgusting crap on there, threatened to take me in if I didn’t give them something on someone,” Levi whined. “So whatever. What I did tell them was minor, so minor. Just a slap on the wrist.”
Kai was letting him hang himself. The more Levi said, the worse it was for him.
I’d helped Brooke get to Minnesota, but he’d been the one to find her a place to hide. Those people had been his connections. That meant…
A string had tightened inside of me, twisting all my organs around and around each other, all into a nice, tight bowtie.
“Tell them. Now.”
So quiet, but so lethal.
I saw Rose close her eyes in surrender. She knew what was coming, whatever it was.
“Fuck!” Levi yelled before slumping in his chair. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” His hand went through his hair once more before he shot forward in his seat, sitting on the edge, his feet bouncing up and down. “Fine. You want to know what they did? We killed your mom.”
I deflated. And I looked at Tanner in the other room.
He had been expressionless until now. Now his eyes were wide, his eyebrows high and his mouth open. He reached f
orward, grabbing the back of a chair in front of him.
A few of the council members cast him sympathetic looks, but not Rose. Not Richard, and not the elderly man. I didn’t know what families they represented, their last names, but I didn’t think it mattered. Somehow, in some way, they were involved, because all three were eyeing the guards around them.
I suspected there was a policy that council members couldn’t sit at the table with weapons. So they were sitting ducks for whatever was coming their way, set forth by Kai.
“Explain.”
Levi eyed Kai, shaking his head. He just kept shaking, and his leg started bouncing up and down. “You’re a dick, you know that?”
Kai hadn’t been watching him, but his dead eyes slid his way now. He stepped closer. “Start talking, or I’ll start torturing. Happily.”
Levi stalled for one more moment before giving in. “Fine.” He looked up, already flinching over what he was about to say. “About twenty years ago, my family got paid to make a hit look like a robbery. My two uncles did it. It was supposed to be just the woman, but then a second order came through for the guy too.”
“And that woman was?”
“Already said,” Levi huffed out. “Your mom.”
“And the man?”
He was quiet a moment. “Her lover. Randall Ritzo.”
Tanner’s eyes cut to the elderly man, and in a second, he had his gun out. Two steps and he brought the butt of the gun down on the back of the man’s head.
No one said a word. No one.
The elderly man fell forward, his head hitting the table hard, but he lifted a hand to the back of his head. “What the—” He pulled his shaking hand back, blood on his fingers. “Why the hell did you do that? Randall was my son!”
Tanner growled, taking the man’s head and grinding it into the table again. “My mother, you old fuck! You killed them, didn’t you?” He scowled at Kai. “You knew about this? THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME?!”
Kai didn’t respond, only turned to Levi. “Finish. Tell them the rest.”
Levi let out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re going to kill me after this, aren’t you? Don’t matter if Brooke loves me or not.”
In response, Kai pulled out his gun. He pointed it at him. “Tell them.” He cocked the gun. “Now.”
“Yeah.” He raised his voice. “Yeah, the order came down from the Ritzo family. It was his son. We didn’t get the purpose of killing your own kid, but whatever. Families have done worse, especially in our world. So yeah. My uncles killed ’em. Both.” He scowled right back at Kai. “That order came down from your dad too. Both your fucking families were behind it.”
“And one was already dealt with.”
Kai didn’t take his gun away. Instead, he stepped even closer, putting the muzzle right against Levi’s forehead. “Finish. Once and for all.”
Levi’s eyes closed then opened again. He looked tired, gaunt.
He stared past Kai, past the gun. “A deal was struck afterward. Your dad, Ritzo, and the other broad’s family all went in together with a side business. When you killed Senior Bennett, his end was scooped up by Dick Delaney there.”
The Richard guy scoffed, but he tugged at his shirt. “You’re lying now, Barnes.”
“You’re a rat.” The Rose woman seethed, but she was nervous too, shifting in her seat, still eyeing the guards closest to her.
The only one not raising an argument was the elderly man, who Tanner had let lift his head back up. Blood trickled down his forehead. He tried to wipe it away but left a smear across his entire face.
“What was the trade?” Kai narrowed his eyes. “I’m getting fucking tired of prompting you for this shit. You want to live, you spill everything. I won’t ask again.”
Levi’s eyes jumped to his. “You’re going to let me live? After all this?”
“I care about my sister.”
Renewed hope lit Levi’s gaze, and he straightened up in his chair. “Yeah. Uh. For all those up there who don’t know what our trade was, it was…” He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Sex trade. Illegal porn. All that shit. I was the pointman down here. My family didn’t want to deal with that, so yeah, I was creating openings in the family. All them up there on the council knew about it too. They were helping me turn evidence on my family so I could step into the leadership role and bring the sex trade down here. I also had to scope out the competition. There’s a big ring in Ohio, but we had plans to eliminate them. Just hadn’t gotten to that part yet, if you know what I mean.”
He stared at Kai for a second before continuing. “Those three were never going to bring the rest of you in on the trade. Too much money and too messy with the fact that none of them were cleared to be doing sex trafficking. Only one cleared for that was the Guaranno family, who…” He looked, then frowned. “I don’t see up there anyway.”
Kai pushed the gun against him again, just a slight pressure before stepping back. “Is that all of it?”
“Yeah.” He eyed Kai warily. “That’s all of it. Except, my family didn’t know what I was doing. Just me. They got their asses handed to them from another fight down here against a rival family, so after they did the hit, they got paid, and that was it. I’m the one who reached out, said I could help bring it all to Milwaukee. I targeted your sister, told that group I had power over your family. I was supposed to get some bad shit on her, then blackmail her to get to you. They wanted to take you down. Those three are ambitious fuckers, if you ask me.” He waved to them. “The only reason they let me in was to get at you, because I’d already started boning your sister.”
“Right,” Kai clipped out, turning to the council again.
Two guards now stood behind those three council members. Rose. Richard. Ritzo Senior. Tanner had moved back, his eyes closed. He was counting to himself, his chest heaving.
“You’ve heard enough,” Kai said. “I motion to execute Rose Montieth, Joseph Ritzo, and Richard Delaney immediately. Cora, you start.”
The last woman raised her right hand.
The man beside her did as well.
And again.
Again.
Tanner was the last, but in his right hand was a gun, and before Kai could say a word, he pressed it to the back of the old guy’s head and pulled the trigger.
I watched this time. I couldn’t look away.
In a sick way, this was riveting.
After all this work, all this planning, bringing everyone together, waiting all those years, and having it all come to fruition now—Kai could never leave this life. This was who he was, how he thought, how he lived, how he breathed. Or was it? Pulling my gaze away, I felt him watching me, and I winced at the pain in his eyes.
Maybe…
I began to pull away from the wall.
Maybe this wasn’t how he wanted to be, but I heard Jonah’s voice in my head again. If he fell, they all fell. Then I thought about what they’d wanted to do, what they’d wanted Levi to do to get at Kai. I didn’t know what to think, how to determine what Kai might possibly think.
Without a word, Kai raised the gun to Levi, his eyes holding mine.
He pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
After the executions concluded and both rooms had been cleaned, Kai faced the council.
“There will be an opening at Bruce Bello’s company. I would like to insert his daughter as CEO. She can be acting or the real deal. We will use Bello’s trucks and his distribution line for the rest of our businesses, and we can expand farther south at a later time.”
Four members were gone from that council.
Tanner hadn’t sat down. He remained in the back, but his eyes were blazing.
“If he has a board?” Cora asked. “If there’s pushback for some reason?”
“Then we push back.” Kai scanned the rest of the members. “All in favor?”
One man chuckled. “As if we’re going to refuse you anything right now, Kai.”
Kai didn’t smile
back. “All in favor?”
Four right hands raised.
“I have another proposition, and it’s one you will not like.” He glanced in my direction, though his eyes didn’t quite meet mine. “There is tighter legislation forming against sex trafficking. I would like the council to pull out completely from that trade.”
Cora’s forehead tightened. “It’s good money, Kai. We’re in the business of making money.”
“It’s stupid money. It won’t be worth the risk in the future.”
“But—” She started to argue again.
“We’ll open more casinos. We’ll have added revenue coming in from the Bello line, and that company will give us a foothold in Milwaukee. We can use that, spread out, gain more traction. The ring in Ohio is too strong. I’ve looked into it. I don’t want to go against them, not right away.”
“Kai—”
“We’ll lose,” he spoke over another protesting member. “We lost four members tonight. That’s four families gone and out of business. We will cover the Bello base, move farther south into the States, but each of you can pick up the revenue left behind by those families.”
“Except the Guaranno family. Besides the gun business, their approved trade was sex trafficking. Who’s going to miss out on that money?”
“Whoever that is can be brought in as a new partner with my next business venture. It’s in the future, but I think it will be competitive. I can only extend that offer as a way to make it up to that other family.”
They seemed to mull it over, and then prepared to vote. This time to get out of the world I had asked Kai to help with, and to make the changes he’d proposed.
The vote would go through.
I stopped listening and could only stare at him.
He’d done that for me. There was no new legislation. Sex trafficking was one of the easiest crimes to commit with good money, and he knew that. He’d lied through his teeth. For me.
It wasn’t long before the council members left, looking relieved to be able to do that, but the feed didn’t end. Tanner remained in the room, and so did Kai. He sat at the head of the table, glaring at his brother.
