Page 100 of The Wrecked One

Stef’s lips curled into a sneer. “Two billion more than my current bid.” Clearly irritated, he stomped his cane.

“Aren’t you an upstanding businessman? Don’t really see how you’d fit in here with the clientele. In fact, having you run this place may make them nervous.” Carter stepped closer to Stef, invading his personal space, towering over the man. “Well, unless there’s something you want to tell us.”

Our team leader was a better actor than me, because it was taking Mya patting my hand on her arm to keep reminding me not to lose my shit. It wouldn’t take much for me to pull a Carter and use a fork to kill these two men. And she knew it.

“You see now,” Stef said while hitting his cane against the grass again, “you’re right about not fitting in, but that’s you, not me. You’re pretending to be bad, whereas I’ve been pretending to be good. I’ll be just fine here.”

“I can vouch for Dominick,” Nicholas said without hesitation. “And I guess you don’t know each other all that well.” He snapped his fingers, and a server came over with a tray of tumblers and a bottle of expensive scotch. “Carter has offered an interesting proposal to this conundrum of ours. One I’m in the mood to entertain.”

Nicholas waited for the server to pour their drinks and hand them out. Carter politely accepted one, but I doubted he planned to drink, even if he was a scotch man.

“I would like to ensure I pass this property over to the person best suited to run the place. I have no heirs to hand it over to, and Carter helped me remember that money is not always everything, even if my wife likes to think it is.” He faked a laugh before turning serious once again, addressing Hugo directly. “Dominick mentioned you enjoy boxing. There’s a big fight coming up at Yas Island next week.”

With the cigar between his lips, Hugo answered with a brief, “Yeah. And?”

Nicholas adjusted the lapels of his black blazer, a match to his hair, and addressed Stef next. “I take it you wouldn’t be personally running this place long, given your advanced age, and that means your eldest son will be taking over.”

Stef shot a conflicted look Hugo’s way that read, Jury’s still out. “What are you getting at?” he asked Nicholas instead of offering confirmation. “Are you suggesting we settle this the old-fashioned way? Duke it out?” He laughed, and thankfully, Nicholas didn’t that time.

“You can pick any of my men to fight you at the island,” Carter commented, just as we’d rehearsed in the suite earlier.

“We’re not considering this,” Stef said with an accompanying adamant shake of the head. “I won’t have Dominick calling the shots here.”

Carter sighed, continuing to play the role of unbothered damn well. “Nicholas, do you mind if I have a word with the Sorens?”

“Oui. I’ll call my friend who owns the arena to see about getting things rolling in the meantime.”

“Merci,” Carter responded, then waited for Nicholas to leave us before setting his tumbler on a nearby high-top table.

“Let’s cut the bullshit,” Stef jumped right to it.

“Happily,” Carter responded. “You know who we are. We know who you really are.”

Stef snickered, stomping his cane like an angry old man again. “What makes you so arrogant to think I’d ever agree to this? Why go to some island so you can try and corner us afterward?” He surveyed the four of us before pinning Carter with a dark look. “You don’t get to where I am in life by walking right into traps.”

“It’s not a trap, it’s an invitation,” Carter remarked, keeping his tone level. “You came after my people in Thailand, then after all of us in Singapore. Then again recently.” He opened his hands, palms out. “You wanted us, now you’ve got us.”

Stef backed away from Carter, fixing his red tie beneath his suit jacket without losing hold of his cane. “This isn’t a game of Marco Polo. You don’t call us out and expect us to call back.”

“You don’t know your history,” Mya spoke up for the first time. “Marco was a sailor who didn’t know where he was going. We do. That island, and you’ll be there.”

Stef locked eyes with Mya. “Just like your mother, aren’t you? Headstrong.”

Those words sent Mya faltering, and I kept hold of her and counted back from three so I didn’t take his cane and use it to beat him to death.

“Do you really think it was my people who targeted you the first time in Canada the other day?” Stef waved away the smoke from his son’s cigar, but at least the fucker hadn’t been stupid enough to blow it in any of our faces. “My family would never be so sloppy as to allow that man’s family to survive the fire. Not after he didn’t do what he’d been tasked to do.”

Steve . . . and that impossible choice he’d been given. God, I really hated these assholes and their games.

“We shouldn’t have listened to your parents,” Stef went on, presumably believing this was news to us about the Vanzettis. “They wanted the chance to take out the rest of your team for us in exchange for keeping you alive.”

“That’s not The Collective’s way, you’re right,” I gritted out, unable to stay silent any longer. “They eliminate anyone who knows about them, regardless of who.” Would he read between the lines there? Would he get what I was suggesting when it came to his own family and their parlor tricks to deceive their own group in an attempt to protect their asses?

“You don’t look shocked,” Hugo spoke up, not letting his father answer me. “You already know this about the Vanzettis, don’t you?”

I’d have to start thinking of her parents as the Vanzettis instead of as her mother and father now. Separate the emotions from the equation somehow. But how in the hell would Mya be able to do that? We’d cross that bridge later, I supposed.

“We know a lot,” Mya responded, keeping her tone steady, not letting the asshole get to her.

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