Page 1 of Room One Hundred and Six

One

Jasper

“The deal is set. Tonight at midnight. Club Sin. Roof top. 9 p.m.”

I end my phone call and slide my phone onto the table in front of me. It’s been three months in the making, but we finally have a buyer for a few pieces of questionably obtained items.

“About fucking time. I’ve done a lot of things with our membership, but doing an exchange that doesn’t involve body fluids at the club is new for me.”

My gaze slides across the table to meet Voss’s, my youngest brother, who sits with an arm thrown over the back of a nearby chair.

I huff out a grunt. “True. They are in town for a night and want neutral ground. I figured here was as good as any other place.”

Voss nods his head in understanding, but his eyes are unfocused and I can tell his thoughts are on something else. Our ties hang loose and we lost our suit jackets about an hour ago. We’ve been on lockdown for a month now trying to find a buyer for our current loot. He’s probably thinking about finding a woman after the deal is done or food that doesn’t come in styrofoam dishes.

Voss wraps a hand around his neck and rubs at some kinks. He looks about the way I feel—tired as hell and starved for a change of scenery. Neither of us have had much sleep lately. The streets are restless with two warring crime families looking to make Seattle theirs and we are caught in the middle. Not my favorite place to be when bullets and blood are at play.

That said, if you put me in the middle of a negotiation I’ll make sure everyone comes out with a fair deal. We’ve built our reputation on that fact and it’s been very lucrative. We move anything you can steal except for humans and weapons. Nonnegotiable.

We’ve made a lot of people ungodly wealthy, but all that is about to come to an end. A new era is moving in and I want nothing to do with it. I can feel in my gut it’s time to cash out and put Seattle behind us.

You can’t make money if you’re dead. The two new heads of the families at each other’s throats recently took over for their aging fathers. New blood with new ideas don’t mix with people in the ranks who don’t like change. Neither of the naïve idiots want to listen to common sense and reason.

Everyone is stealing from each other and it’s getting harder to stay out of the fight when we are the only fences either side trusts.

I pour the diamonds back into a black velvet bag and cinch it closed.

The problem with being the only reputable fences in the whole of the Pacific NorthWest is when one family steals from the other and wants you to keep quiet while moving the booty through the back channels. It puts you in an impossible situation that leads to blackmail in the best-case scenario and an early grave if it all goes to hell.

Which it will.

It’s why we found buyers from out of town. They have no strings attached to what is going down here. It’s up to me to make sure my brothers are safe so I’m pulling the plug on Seattle. Some time away from all the dirty deals and shady fuckers looking to put knives in our backs at the slightest mistrust might help with my sleep issues, too.

Our other brother, Shayne, sleeps just fine. The crazy fucker enjoys all the chaos and turmoil. It’s good for business, is his excuse, but he’s looking for an early grave if he thinks war ever ends with clear winners. Everyone always loses something.

Shayne pulls out a fresh bottle of whisky and some glasses. “I guess it’s finally time to put Seattle in the rearview. Argentina is singing our names as we speak.”

Shayne pours us all a fresh round before raising his glass. “To a new life. May it have a woman for our bed and love for our hearts”

I shake my head. “The Romeo in you forever wishes.”

“Can you blame me? I’m tired at looking at you two ugly fuckers. We need soft flesh and sweet lips before one of us loses it. Tell me I’m wrong.”

He’s not. Sharing has been our way for a long time now. It’s easier to keep one woman happy when we all work together. We built our lives from the ground up that way. It only makes sense if all areas of our life are shared between us.

We raise their glasses, and we all toss back a healthy mouth full of Kentucky rye. The warmth sliding down the back of my throat kicks and burns before it mellows out. The heat contrasts the icy feel of eight point five million dollars’ worth of loose diamond cuts in my other hand. The buyer is as shady as the devil and just as untrustworthy. The rumors of him killing for sport are not lost on any of us, but he’s got the cash and we need to sell. Everything else is manageable.

The truth is, I don’t really believe rumors. They can be misleading. Scratch that. They are always filled with potholes and lies.

“This is our last deal and then we are out, brothers.”

I have every intention of making sure we walk away from this life with our lives intact. Nearly fifteen years of being fences for anyone from petty thieves with a good eye to the top kingpins running the city has aged me.

Fuck, it’s aged all of us. Shayne’s jet black hair has streaks of silver and he’s just hitting forty-two. Voss is five years his junior and the shadows under his eyes and the worry lines across his forehead are my doing. I kept us in the game for nearly too long. I’ll be forty-seven next week. We aren't hitting graveyard age yet, but if we don’t start looking at the areas of our lives we want to improve, we’ll never get around to it.

Voss reaches for the bottle and refills our glasses. “Yeah, it’s about that time.” There's reluctance in his voice I know comes from the areas of lack I mentioned a moment ago. I feel bad for the man who wishes he had little kids bouncing on his knee at this point in his life. I don’t know how the quiet yet deadliest one of us three turned out to be the most family oriented. It’s ironic if you ask me. I always thought it would be Shayne. He’s always nagging about wanting to find a girlfriend. Honestly, both he and Voss are good men with hearts of gold and a kink list a mile long. Any woman would be lucky to have them.

It’s me who is the problem. Love, picket fences, and kids are not on the list for me. I can’t seem to conjure the idea of happiness coming from any of those things. Voss says it is because we haven’t met the right one. Maybe he’s right. Who the fuck knows.

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