Page 22 of Fierce Monarch

Had I thought I’d hurt her? What an understatement. This was Mari shattered. Decimated. Living in a world without enough stitches to put her back together because I’d chosen to keep my silence and hide my secrets. I’d held my cards to my chest, hoping I could have it all—safety for my family and the people I loved—and instead, I’d walked away with nothing.

“I didn’t want this to happen,” I confessed. A small sliver of the truth she was owed.

It did nothing to thaw the ice in Mari’s voice. “Even if that were true, it did happen, and now we both have to live with the consequences. Mark my words, Nathaniel Beckstrom, I’m moving on, and the day I forget you exist will be the happiest day of my life.”

The beep startled me, and I pulled away to find the screen black again. She’d hung up on me, and I couldn’t even blame her.

The day after I returned, two Aces and I made our way to a dilapidated warehouse downtown to shake down some of Cash’s middlemen. The reason my brother was so successful in Seattle could be narrowed down to one thing: blow.

While he’d been waiting for Mario Marcosa to die, cocaine had become Cash’s drug of choice, both as a buyer and a seller. His addiction got worse when Antoni took over, until Cash was a full-blown cokehead by the time Mari was sworn in.

She’d outlawed most of the harder drugs like fentanyl, meth, coke, and heroin before her throne was even warm, but her strategy wasn’t perfect. She hit the dealers and the suppliers she knew about, but she didn’t realize there was already an underground market, established long before she took over, one fed by secret cartel connections.

She didn’t know about Cash.

When she started her war on drugs, he gained a platform. He kept his network low-key, not wanting to reveal himself too early, and the business thrived to the point that he could’ve bought the city outright if he wanted to. But that wasn’t fun for Cash. He wanted to take it for himself and destroy the Marcosas in the process.

In trying to clean up the city, Mari gave Cash more control than she’d ever know, but I doubted she would’ve stopped even if she had. Some things mattered more than money or power.

One of Cash’s drug dens was underground in a warehouse so derelict, it was practically falling down around my ears. It was also dead center in Marcosa territory, but the condition kept it from looking like a possible hiding spot, exactly why Cash liked it.

The three of us headed in through a hidden entrance, walking straight into what felt like a shitty movie. Women clad in nothing but ratty underwear with more holes than substance counted money and sealed the weighed drugs into small baggies. Unlike what most people assumed, every one of them was clean. You couldn’t have addicts moving your product if you wanted to get paid.

A quick glance showed everything exactly how it was supposed to be, but I jerked my head for Cash’s dogs to sniff around. I had other things to occupy my time.

It took seconds to find two men playing cards in the corner in their ill-fitting suits and big egos. They looked like kids trying to play king.

I said nothing as I invaded their space. I didn’t have to. Everyone knew why I was there.

Cash was a psychopath, but he preferred to let his favorite enforcer mete out warnings…and punishments.

Cooper looked up first, concern flickering through his face before he schooled himself. Renaldi didn’t acknowledge my existence at all beyond a single, lazy question. “Is there a reason you’re here, Beckstrom?”

“Here about your last shipment. You were missing product.”

Renaldi contemplated his cards before dropping two on the table. I’d never been one for poker beyond the few times Jorey and Stowe forced me to play, but it must have been the right move. Cooper cursed, despite his discomfort at having me close. I moved even closer out of spite.

The more off-balance he was, the better things would go for me.

“One kilo won’t kill the bottom line.”

I rolled my eyes, leaning casually against the wall at Cooper’s back. “But ten could. Especially given that’s the low end of the scale for how much you two have taken, am I right?”

Everyone froze, staring at me while I stared right back. I didn’t move while I took in everything. Every guard in the room had a gun, but three of them had additional knives. One was strapped with a veritable arsenal, and that was just what I could see. The four of them stood close enough to Renaldi to defend him if necessary. Playing king, indeed. An internal war will help Mari, a voice in the back of my mind said. It sounded suspiciously like Grey. I wasn’t sure how to fix what I’d fucked up with her, but this was an easy, untraceable start. The guards didn’t have to be my problem.

If Cash wanted to play drug lord, he could do it himself. I wasn’t interested in following in our father’s footsteps, and he knew it.

Cooper was fidgeting under my silent gaze, sweat beading at his temples, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t admit shit. I expected it from Renaldi, but Cooper was the weak link. Stronger than I’d assumed, though. Stealing drugs from a psychopath who snorted as much of his product as he sold was just fucking stupid, and to keep their silence was something close to brave. I knew all about silence, though, didn’t I?

The part of me that remembered Mari’s drunken phone call last night winced. I’d had her right there and still couldn’t tell her the only truth that mattered right now.

That I was sorry.

That I loved her.

That we weren’t a lie.

I couldn’t tell her shit, so why was I expecting Cooper to cop to anything?

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