Page 4 of Diamond In The Rough

“How’d that work out for him?” Felix taunts, chuckling. “Mancino is dead. That why you’re no longer using it?”

“Pretty much.” He drops his hands to his hips and studies the ground beneath scuffed shoes. “I mean no disrespect when I say this, sir, but when the mafia occupies a building, that building takes on a certain reputation, making it difficult to sell later to a regular Joe Blow. They fear that the wrong kind of people might come around.”

“Kinda shrinks your target market, huh? You can only sell to the mafia. Mancino’s dead, Pastore’s dead… Cordoza doesn’t want it?”

Delamont shakes his head. “He has not expressed an interest in it, no, sir. Do you, uh…” he brings his focus up to the brown brick building jutting up between two others. “Do we have a deal?”

Delamont owes our family ten million dollars, and in the last six months alone, Felix has cost us hundreds of millions more as he’s shut down certain income streams our father enjoyed… because they offend my brother and the women who are slowly but surely sliding into our family. The studious Doctor Mayet—Archer’s wife—and Christabelle Cannon, who recently came along and took Lix’s heart for herself. Truly, she wields almost as much power over this city as the man she’s declared hers.

Neither woman wishes to change the man they fell in love with—mostly—but they sure as fuck frown upon certain corporate ventures. So instead of doing as Timothy did, taking girls against their wishes and selling them for a tidy sum, Felix has decided he’ll own clubs instead. Provide a stage that the willing can dance upon.

“Mr. Malone?” Delamont presses. “Do we have a deal?”

“We have a deal.” Felix turns to Dustin and shakes his hand, even though the latter didn’t offer. “This club belongs to me now. Sign the title over within the hour and walk the fuck away. You’ll never again step foot inside, and if I catch you around here, you’ll be dealing with my men, not me.” He releases Dustin’s hand and clicks his fingers, summoning a half-dozen armed soldiers from the shadows.

They’re his army. I… well, I guess I provide personal bodily protection, in addition to consultation.

“Stovic,” he glances across and meets the eyes of one of our men. “Escort Delamont to his home and secure the paperwork to transfer ownership of this building. Ensure you get the security center specs and the codes to both the garage and the safe. Then meet me at the house.”

“Yes, boss.” He grabs Delamont’s arm and pivots, his stance rigid and his movements robotic. “I’ll report back ASAP.”

“Good.” Then to me, “Come on.”

Felix starts forward, only to stop at the closed front door and the chains wrapped around the steel handles. He merely has to glance over his shoulder before Michaels steps up and plants his boot in the middle of the doors so the wood splinters and our building is officially, unceremoniously opened for us.

“This makes seventeen, Micah,” Lix murmurs.

With a nod, I follow him inside, through dust particles floating in the rays of daylight spilling into the otherwise dark club.

“Are you bringing Ace on board to redo the security center?” I meander at my brother’s side, my eyes scouring the club, the bar on one side and the tables sprinkled throughout. Many are overturned. Chairs are stacked against the walls. Glass litters the hardwood floor, and the tang of musty water tickles the depths of my nose. “Secure the building properly?”

“Yeah.” He reaches into his breast pocket and takes out a pack of cigarettes, his movements automatic.

He smokes out of boredom. Or stress. Or routine. Not necessarily because he has an addiction. He smokes because our father did the same in the boardroom, and just as I was trained from boyhood to fill my role in the family hierarchy, Felix, too, was placed at a table filled with grown men conducting business, and taught to copy them.

He lines his lungs with tar out of sheer habit. And pisses me off with every inhalation he takes.

“I’ll call her,” he flicks his lighter to life and sets the end of his cigarette ablaze. “See what she says about it.”

“And you’re cool dealing with…” I stop on his left and try not to breathe at all, “another family? We hardly know them, Lix. We don’t trust those we don’t know.”

“Doctor Cutie Pie seems to know them. And they’ve had our backs in the past when shit has gone sideways.” He brings the cigarette between his lips and draws a long line into his lungs. And while he strolls the first floor of his newest asset, the remainder of his security team runs a check throughout the building to ensure we’re alone.

They don’t need to be told what to do. They just know.

“Minka says they’re solid.” He brings emerald eyes my way, and through a plume of filthy smoke, his stare stops on me. “I trust Minka with my life.”

I turn away and laugh. “Brave.” Because I’m pretty fucking certain that Minka—aka Doctor Mayet, aka Archer’s wife—constantly walks a tightrope between wanting to keep Felix alive, and wanting to be the one to slit his throat. “You’re a brave, brave man, Lix.”

“Whatever.” He wanders toward the bar, which is essentially a divider cutting through a fifth of the entire bottom floor. “She loves me. And Christabelle would throw hands for me.”

He sets his hands on the bartop and leans closer to look over to the other side, while between his fingers, he holds the smoking cigarette. “You think this was a good deal, right?”

I roam between tables, studying the floor intently, or risk tripping over a chair and breaking my leg. But as a throbbing ache works its way through my hand, spontaneous, and yet, so fucking predictable, I press the pad of my thumb into my palm and work to massage the pain away.

“Micah?”

“Yeah.”

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