Page 13 of Ruthless Son

The silence was comfortable between us as we entered our underground domain; the thick cement a calming weight around me. Threads hated it down here, couldn’t stay down here that long, he said the air was suffocating. To me, it was calming having the walls on all four sides, like I was protected from all the bullshit.

Our boots echoed as we hit the hallway, the cavernous space lined with racks of canned goods that’d last our family for weeks, maybe months. We hadn’t tested that theory yet.

“Will the little blonde be a problem?”

I didn’t know who Cal was talking about at first, the question just thrown into the ether, and with Sonic's secret extracurricular activities recently, I assumed he was talking to him—until his dark eyes slid to mine, a question in their depths.

“Why would she be a problem?” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I just met her yesterday.”

“I also saw the way you looked at her.” Prez pulled open the thick steel door that led into the inner sanctum, the middle of our maze. “You’ve never looked at other women that way.”

I wrinkled my nose at the stale air that hit me as we walked in, or did I sneer at the statement?! “I’ve only fucked club pussy for years, why would I look at them in any way except to tell them to suck my cock.”

Sonic snorted in amusement, a contrast to Cal’s disapproval. “I really hope that you don’t ever have daughters.” He rummaged around in the desk that was an exact replica of the one upstairs in his office, his point about ‘the little blonde’ forgotten.

I sometimes forgot that behind the hard exterior, he was a family man at heart. His daughter—and pride and joy—was old enough to date. Not that she was allowed to with the amount of uncles that scared off any suitors.

A shock of anger sprung through me when I thought of some cunt speaking about Bailey the way I talked about club pussy but then, they knew what they were getting into when they showed up in tiny skirts with their tits hanging out every night—they wanted club dick. They acted like whores so we treated them like whores.

Bailey—my niece albeit not by blood—was a good girl. And every single brother here would fall on a blade for her, ain’t no way any man would ever treat her with anything less than respect, not on our watch.

Sonic collapsed in an arm chair in the corner, his boots kicked out and splayed wide. His head fell back against the cushion, his eyes closing as if they were weighted down and he could barely keep them open. “What’s wrong, Brother?” I whispered as Cal continued his rummaging.

His lips pinched, lines forming around his mouth like he had words stuck in his throat. His head rocked side-to-side, and I left him to his solitude in the corner, because the man would only tell us when he decided.

But I hoped he pulled his finger out his ass soon and told us what his problem was, because we weren’t fucking mind readers. And I couldn’t kill his enemy if I didn’t know who I was fighting.

“Aha,” Cal shouted out, holding a piece of paper in the air. “I knew it was here somewhere.”

“You need to get a new filing system.” I grabbed the paper from him, looking over the scribbles and trying to decipher the chicken scratch.

“I have a filing system,” Cal grunted. “This is organized chaos.” His arms spread out to gesture to the piles of crap all over his desk.

“How comes your desk upstairs doesn’t look like this.” I shoved a box of books onto the floor to sit on the lone chair beside the desk.

“Because Jenna organized my shit up top, she’d ruin me if she saw this place,” he mumbled, a slash of red arcing across his cheeks.

Laughter bubbled in my gut, but I kept that shit tamped down, ain’t no way I was laughing at my prez, he’d tell Jenna, and she was mean as fuck sometimes.

“What are we looking at, Prez?” Sonic was wide awake now, his game face fixed on the forgotten paper in my hand.

“It’s the details of the new shipment that’s going to Mexico next week.” His feet kicked up on the desk, his boots crossed at the ankles. He looked relaxed if not for the tension in his shoulders. “I want a tracker put in the coffin. Get Gauge to sort it.”

The order details were for a 6 foot by 3 foot solid oak coffin, hand made with a gloss finish. Gauge would do the woodwork, and Threads would do the interior, sewing the satin sheets together and padding it out for comfort.

Although that always struck me as stupid, because why did the dead need to be comfortable, it’s not like they could fucking feel it.

Once we’d got the funeral home up and running over 15 years ago, it made sense to have the plush padded interior… it hid the drugs sewn inside so well.

The coffins were ordered online legitimately, and we shipped the beautiful, finished product across state lines. No one thought to check for packages hidden inside, especially considering Threads’ skill with a needle, the man made it so you could barely find the seam.

And it was even easier to ship across when there was a body inside, that was when it got fun. Those state troopers always paled at the stiffs we carried across.

Poor ‘Juanita’ was going home to be buried with her family on her home soil… they never questioned it.

“If we know where it ends up on their side, we can try and figure out who’s tampering with it and bringing it back over.” Cal sighed in relief now that he had a plan of action.

I squinted down at the paper, my mind racing with questions. “Why did you only bring us down…”

---