Enforce

by Rachel Van Dyken

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Feeding the monster

  Nixon

  My cell went off way too early for my liking. It was Mo. She'd want to know what our father had said.

  Hell, if the bastard could speak it would probably be something like, "My daughter will never date a man with Campisi blood." Or something along those lines. So when she texted me with a question mark I answered.

  You have his blessing.

  Which was a lie.

  Because my father was currently keeping court with Satan, compliments of yours truly.

  I sighed as another text alert went off.

  Mo: Um, do you have any more keycards?

  Me: I always have keycards. Why?

  Mo: Trace isn't comfortable eating with us anymore.

  I damn-near threw the phone against the wall. Not comfortable? After having given her everything?

  Me: Fine. Whatever. I'll give her a red card if my presence pisses her off that much. It's better that way.

  Mo: The Red Cafeteria???

  Me: If she eats in the commons, she'll get poisoned.

  Mo: Right. Thanks.

  The door to the room opened. I'd stayed on campus last night on account that every time I'd tried to close my eyes I'd seen my dad's face. I'd seen the betrayal, and I'd tasted blood on my lips.

  "Hey…" Chase's gaze didn't meet mine. "…so rough night, it seems?" He popped his knuckles and collapsed onto the couch.

  I tossed the phone onto the table, and it made a loud clattering noise. "Yeah, not every day a son kills his father."

  "Not every son would have the balls to do it, Nixon." Chase looked like shit. Dark circles made his eyes look tired, and there was no spark, no life, just… death.

  "The party that bad?"

  He barked out a laugh. "Right. Act like you don't know. Classic move. What you don't know won't be on your conscience, right?"

  "What the hell are you talking about?" I shook my head. "It's too early for you to bitch to me. Can we do this after class? Or how about never? I need to find a red card for Trace."

  Chase's face hardened. "So it's going to be like that?"

  "She made it like that," I spat. "So stop defending her."

  "Fine." Chase shot up from the chair and stomped toward the door. "I thought you liked her."

  "What does her eating with us have to do with me liking her? And why the hell does it matter? She and I won't ever happen. She's a distraction, a problem, something I need to deal with. We have bigger shit going down than the new girl. De Lange stopped cooperating."

  Chase banged his head against the door, not turning around. "Seriously?"

  "Yeah," I croaked. "He has no money and is refusing to answer any more questions. Said he wants to get paid first for the information he knows, which is shit, by the way. Just another dead end. I can't find who killed the Alfero heir which means…"

  Chase swore. "It means Frank Alfero is going to make his way out of hiding. He only gave us until this year, Nixon. Hell, we're lucky he hasn't already come after us."

  I shook my head and stretched. "We're more powerful than him, but we don't want him as an enemy either."

  "Too late for that, I'd say. Should we set up a meeting?"

  "Nah, he wants to talk to us. He'll find us."

  "Right." Chase laughed humorlessly. "So on top of keeping security for the entire campus, keeping new girl out of our business, and making sure Tex doesn't take Mo to Vegas, what? Now we're on the lookout for Alfero associates?"

  I slumped back down into my chair. "Looks like it."

  "Well, shit. No offense, Nixon, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but the older bosses are scary as hell, and Frank… he never got over it."

  "Would you?" I asked quietly, my mind going back to the little girl, my best friend, the one who'd lost her parents and held my hand when I cried. "Would you get over it? If you loved someone that much?"

  Chase hesitated, turning only slightly to face me. "No. I wouldn't get over it. If I loved someone that deeply, and they were taken from me, I'd start an all-out war to get them back to avenge what happened."

  "So, we keep a lookout… you see any Alfero men, you call me or Tex."

  "Not Phoenix?" Chase opened the door a crack.

  "He's De Lange. We can't exactly trust him right now, not until we're sure his father is willing to keep cooperating, not until we have that family exactly where we need them. They're about ready to crumble, and we need to be the ones to pick up the pieces. We need to control it or risk another war."

  "Awesome. So we have the De Langes, who hate us by the way, and the Alferos, who for four years have been using your face as target practice and — wait! Who's on our team?"

  I let out a laugh even though it wasn't funny. "Um, Nicolasi?"

  "Hates you." Chase joined in laughter.

  "Campisi?"

  "Hates everyone and blames your family for Tex's so-called abduction, and if you say the feds love you, I'm giving you the finger."

  "We give them money. They do love us," I pointed out.

  "Whatever. We have no friends."

  "We have each other," I said softly. "It's just us, Chase. Remember that."

  "I do." Chase sighed. "When things get hard, I do."