Gabriel Fallen, page 7
At least, that’s what he said.
But he knew that the Perris would seek retribution, so he hid his family away, and Camillo Perri decided to cast his net wider. Revenge is revenge, right?
Our mother was the one burned for it in the end. A bloody message to not mess with family. Maybe an attempt to cause a divide between the two sides of the Easton empire, to weaken us so they could move in.
All it did was fuel the war. Camillo knew retaliation was inevitable and so his wife was shuttled away to somewhere unknown for the better part of three years, until I guess he thought tensions may have simmered down.
Gena Perri’s Mercedes was run off the road one rainy night, a few miles away from one of the Sonoma vineyards they own, down an especially treacherous escarpment.
Somehow, she survived.
After that, a truce was called for the sake of the children. It’s been shaky at best all these years.
And here we are now, thinking about an alliance.
Our cousin Vic wanders over to the edge of the pool, pretending to be absorbed by the view, his hands casually tucked into his pockets. We’re not fooled. That short, stocky frame is teeming with tension, as always. At thirty-five, he’s the oldest of the Easton boys and generally bitter with life. When he’s around Caleb, that bitterness seems to multiply. It’s usually because Caleb says something to push his buttons.
Right now though, he’s scoping out our surroundings.
“We safe to talk?” Uncle Peter takes a seat across from me under the umbrella and sets his fedora on the table. It’s so circa 1920s prohibition era. He and my dad have a matching collection of them. Caleb and I always told our father he’s a fool—he might as well walk around with a marquee above his head, an arrow pointing down saying “here I am!”
In a lot of ways, having Uncle Peter sitting across from us is like having our dad here. They’re only a few years apart in age, and they look a lot alike—same narrow, cold eyes, same bulging nose and pockmarked skin, same smarmy smirk—though my dad’s recent and swift weight gain has dulled the resemblance. Uncle Peter’s blond hair turned a wiry gray before my father’s did, and it’s much thinner but he keeps it tidy and trimmed.
All in all, Uncle Peter looks like a thinner, healthier version of his brother.
With a few strokes on my phone, music streams out of the speakers, just loud enough to muffle recordings should anyone be listening—though my contact at the Bureau hasn’t mentioned any surveillance teams on us as of late. “Safe enough,” I answer.
“Another one of our associates went missing two nights ago,” he begins, studying his manicured hands a moment, one finger on each hand adorned with ornate gold rings. “We can’t allow our problem to continue.”
Our “associates” are the higher-up-the-food-chain dealers—biker presidents, gang leaders like Puff—who we rely on buying big batches that they can then sell at street level. If one went missing, it means the cartel likely got to him. Scared him into buying their product or buried him for refusing. That, or the feds poached them. Either way, it’s not good. We need a reliable network to move product.
“I guess your purse is too light this week to worry about your brother meddling in affairs anymore?” Caleb says mildly. Throwing our uncle’s words back at him.
“Which means your purse is light, too,” Vic throws in with so much poison in his voice, I’m shocked we don’t keel over from toxic vapors.
“We have no worries. Empire’s doing well,” Caleb retorts.
“I’m glad to hear that. Now, perhaps you would consider helping to ensure Harriet keeps doing well. She does keep your father comfortable and allows you the luxury of this lifestyle.” Uncle Peter waves his hand around.
Caleb offers an infuriating smile. “We’d survive fine without her.” But these guys wouldn’t. It’s no secret that both Peter and Vic have gambling problems and poor business management skills that have cost them a small fortune. Plus, their shitty little side businesses bring next to no revenue. They definitely can’t clean their cash fast enough without raising major flags.
Uncle Peter smirks. “If that is true, then why did you come to my house the other day?”
“Because we’re loving sons.” With a heavy sigh, Caleb folds his newspaper and sets it on the table. “Okay. Please, tell us what you suggest we do to fix that problem, oh wise one? How can we help you?”
Uncle Peter’s lips twist with disdain, but that’s the only sign that he’s perturbed. I know he’d love to haul back and smash his chunky gold ring across Caleb’s face. He and my father are crazy fucks who push respect and loyalty as the family mantra, and Caleb is nothing if not disrespectful.
The thing is, my brother may play the easygoing playboy, but he has a wild, unpredictable temper that has reared its ugly head once or thrice. Who knows what he’d do if Peter actually hit him? Caleb’s brain is wired different than mine. It’s miswired. It short-circuits when he’s angry, and around Peter and our cousins, he’s in a state of perpetual simmering rage.
So what would Caleb do if Peter laid a hand on him? Hard to say, but it would likely involve taking his anger out on Vic. My brother’s an ass but he wouldn’t beat up his aging uncle.
I have a better idea than sitting back and waiting for shit to happen that would put us at war with the other half of the Easton family.
“It was suggested that we have a conversation with our old family friends in the valley,” I say.
Uncle Peter’s manicured eyebrow arches. “Vlad suggested this?”
I give a curt nod.
He seems to mull it over. “United, we stand. Divided, we fall.”
“Something like that.” I risk a quick glance at Caleb to see him watching me carefully.
Vic wanders over. “Is this smart, given the history?”
Where Caleb’s rage simmers for these two men, his hatred for the Perris is a festering volcano.
But Caleb is cunning, and he’s figured out why I mentioned the Perris to our uncle just now. “I’d be willing to meet with the two youngest. They had no part in what happened in the past,” he begins with an air of reluctance that isn’t entirely false, setting the stage for the meeting we need to have with Merrick and Vince. This way, if either Uncle Peter or our father catch wind of it, they’ll assume we’re meeting to discuss an alliance against the cartel, and not an alliance against them.
Uncle Peter frowns in thought. “And do you really think they’ll entertain such an idea?”
“They have as much to lose as we do if we can’t get control of this.” I doubt the cartel is singling us out. They’re equal opportunity assholes.
Uncle Peter looks to his son, who shrugs and then nods in agreement. As if his approval means shit. Fucking cocksucker.
“Okay. Set the meeting up and let us know where to go—”
“We’re not your goddamn secretary. We’ll make initial contact.” Caleb smoothly cuts our uncle off, tacking on a wicked grin. “After all, you blew up sweet little Nonna. I doubt they’d ever be happy to see you.”
Our uncle fixes him with a steely gaze. “We aren’t agreeing to an alliance without a meeting to discuss terms.”
I stifle a sigh. Terms. First Mercy, now these guys.
Though, agreeing on terms with Mercy was a hell of a lot more pleasurable.
“Maybe we don’t care if you agree or not,” Caleb, always the instigator, throws back.
“Maybe you should start being a bit nicer to us or we’ll cut you right out of the equation,” Vic hisses. “What the hell do you two really do, anyway?”
“What the hell do we …” The words fade from Caleb’s mouth as he echoes Vic, and I catch the edge in his tone.
Oh shit.
The next few seconds are a blur. Caleb’s on his feet fast, his chair toppling over with a crash as his hand closes over Vic’s throat.
Vic gets one shot in across Caleb’s mouth but it doesn’t even faze him. He kicks Vic’s feet out from under him, sending our cousin crashing against a side table, smashing the plexiglass on his way down. That isn’t enough for Caleb, though. He hauls Vic to the edge of the pool and, dropping to his knees, forces our cousin’s head below the water’s surface. “I think we’ve been pretty useful, don’t you?” he says through gritted teeth.
“He can’t hear you,” I warn. It’s not the first time I’ve seen Caleb shove a man’s head into a pool. I’m just hoping this time he pulls him up before the air bubbles stop rising altogether, because drowning our cousin will not be good for family dynamics.
Uncle Peter is eerily calm through this. I struggle to match his demeanor. Someone needs to try to keep this visit from turning nuclear. “Let us start the conversation, and then we’ll bring you all in before anything is decided. It’s better to feel them out first and smooth things over, and I think you’ll agree that that’s our department.” The Perris want to scorch the earth Peter walks on, and neither Vic nor Alexei has a charming bone in his body.
“That would probably be wise.” Peter’s cold blue eyes flash to the pool, the only indication that he even notices the fight.
“Caleb!” I bark in a sharp warning after a few seconds, hoping I don’t have to go over there and physically break it up.
He finally relents, hauling Vic up and releasing him. Vic spends a few minutes sputtering over the pavement. I hope he’s not stupid enough to open his mouth and earn himself another round, because my brother could do this all day. For a guy who barely sleeps, his high level of energy is unmatched.
“We’ll reach out soon and let you know by the end of the weekend what we come up with,” I promise.
“Good.” Uncle Peter reaches for his hat. No need for casual chitchat. “You’ve always been the smart one.”
I shoot a warning look my brother’s way before he has a chance to answer. We already have the cartel in our backyard, and we’re jumping into bed with our enemies. We don’t need an all-out war from every angle.
Vic clambers to his feet, his shirt drenched, his face purple with rage.
“Have a nice day.” Caleb grins wide at them both, despite his split lip. It’s his “I want to beat your face in” grin.
I’m sure Peter has figured that out too. “Say hello to my brother when you see him next.” He sets his hat back on his head and then he and Vic disappear through the patio door. Where Rosita is, I have no idea, but my guess is she found a bathroom in the far corner of the house to scrub the second they walked through the door.
“Well, that went well,” I mock, glaring at Caleb.
“I don’t trust them.” He watches the door as if Vic might storm back through and attack at any moment.
“You don’t trust anyone.”
“I trust you.” He licks at his lip, no doubt tasting the coppery tinge of blood. That and his damp arms are the only evidence of his tussle with Vic. Even his breathing is steady. The guy has a crazy switch: on and off, just like that.
I sigh. “Then trust that I know what I’m doing. Think about it. Now we have a cover for the meet if they’ve got eyes on us.”
With a sigh, Caleb sinks into his chair, collecting his newspaper. “You heard what that shithead said, though? Now that Dad’s behind bars, they want to cut us out completely.”
“That’s not a surprise either,” I remind him.
“Yeah, well, fuck them if they have the balls to try it. We’re not letting them get away with that.”
I stifle my eye roll. Caleb wants away from the dirty drug business as much as I do. “That’s your ego talking.” I flip open my laptop. “Peter or Vic making a move works to our advantage. It’ll turn Dad’s wrath on them and not on us.” Because if Peter pulls a betrayal like this? It’ll be a hundred times worse than his sons not carrying on the family business.
And prison walls have yet to shorten Dad’s reach. He is one conniving son of a bitch.
“You’re right. That’ll end worse for them than taking on the fucking cartel.” Caleb’s chuckle has a sinister quality to it.
“Of course I’m right.” And then maybe we can get the hell away from this mess once and for all. Unless Vic and Peter try to bury us in the process. But my brother’s worries are fair; we can’t trust them with anything.
“Let me see how fast I can get the Perris into town.” I slip my burner phone from my pocket and fish the business card Merrick handed me from my wallet.
“Tonight?”
“Nah. Got business up north.” Code for another prison circuit match.
“That’s right. I heard they dug up some mofo from down south.”
“Mad Dog.” I hear he’s a beast with a hard punch and an affinity for pummeling kidneys. In a no-holds-barred ring where anything goes, that could spell trouble for our cash cow. I need to make sure Chops gets the message. I need to deliver it personally.
“Well, the sooner, the better, as much as I hate the idea of all this.” He shakes his head, his gaze on the newspaper, but I can tell he’s not actually reading. “We’ve got family coming at us from one side, the fucking cartel on the other, and now we’re climbing into bed with our sworn enemies? We need to know everything we can before we sit down across from them. Where they eat, where they shit, who they fuck. Everything.”
“Get Stan on it.” Our private investigator, a retired cop and shady-as-fuck when it comes to getting us what we need in a timely manner. I don’t know how he finds out half the stuff he does, but it’s always solid intel. My guess is, laws and basic human rights do not apply to his moral compass.
And that’s just fine with us.
“I mean, how do we know the Perris aren’t setting us up?” Caleb, ever the suspicious one, says.
“We’ll know. I’ll know,” I promise him, adding with a smug smile, “after all, you heard Uncle Peter. I am the smart one.”
“You know what, little bro? A week ago, I would have agreed with you. But then you bribed a woman to come live with us and now you’re talking the way you are, and I don’t know, Gabe.” He shakes his head. “What do you got planned next? Have you been shopping for rings yet?”
“Fuck off. Don’t even go there.” I’m a long way off—like, from here to the moon—from ever so much as considering putting a ring on any woman’s finger. Though, if someone put a gun to my head and said I had to choose tomorrow, I could think of far worse things than calling Mercy my wife. The woman is easily my match in intelligence, and she’s got guts.
Plus, she is hands down the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Jesus Christ. Never thought I’d see the day.” Caleb shakes his head. “Just make sure nothing else leaks out of you while you’re shooting your load into her, like, you know, shit that will land us with dad.”
I glare at him. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Says the idiot who bribed a woman to fuck him and is now falling for her,” he counters with a sarcastic laugh.
“I’m not falling for her.”
“’Kay. Let me fuck her tonight.”
My stomach churns with just the idea of that. “You so much as touch her and I’ll kill you!”
Caleb throws his hands in the air. “Point made.”
“Focus, shithead! We’ve got bigger things to deal with right now.” I wave Merrick’s business card in my hand and then punch in the numbers written across the back in blue ink.
A flicker of worry darts across my brother’s face as we wait for someone to answer the call.
I wonder if we’ll ever look back and think … yeah, this was the moment we signed our death certificates.
SEVEN
MERCY
The night air is muggy when I step out of the campus building on Wednesday night, my books tucked under one arm, the keys to the SUV dangling from my fingertips. There must have been a flash shower while I was inside the lecture hall, listening to Professor Pearson drone on. After so many years of toiling away at this degree, it’s getting harder with each class to keep my focus. That could be because I’m so close to being finished.
But now it more likely has to do with what’s waiting for me at the other end of my drive tonight.
A mixture of anxiety and excitement courses through my veins at the thought of seeing Gabriel again. He came to bed after I fell asleep again last night, tidying my books for me. He didn’t stir in the morning when my alarm went off, and I’d be lying if I said a part of me wasn’t disappointed.
That I didn’t want to feel his lips on mine before I started my day.
But what will tonight hold for me?
“Hey, Mercy! Wait up!” My classmate Ben, a lanky blond guy, rushes out the doors, panting as if he’s been running. “So, you want to meet on Saturday afternoon to study for the exam? You know, so I have a chance at passing?”
I can’t help but smile. The only person getting help out of that scenario is me. Ben is super smart and patient, and in the four years since I’ve known him, I’ve always done better in the classes we take together. I credit my good grades up until now partly to him. I know he tutors students, but he’s never even suggested tutoring—and charging—me.
It’s likely because Ben has had a crush on me since the first day I met him, when he spent the entire class ogling me from across the lecture hall. He’s never acted on it though, and he’s always been sweet if not a little bit awkward, so I don’t mind pretending that I don’t notice.
“I can’t on Saturday. I’m going up to see my dad.”
“Right, of course.” He pushes a hand through his mop of brown curls. He’s only twenty-one, and he looks sixteen. I doubt he shaves more than once a week, if that. “I’m sorry, I forgot. Sunday, then?”
“Sunday could work,” I say tentatively, even as my mind churns. Unless Gabriel demands that I’m somewhere. Though, I did tell him that this weekend is for studying, so he can’t interfere with that. Besides, weekends are party central at the house—booze and boobs all day long. I’ll be better off toiling over books elsewhere.
