Page 130 of His Pretty Little Duet

Loyalty.

Devotion.

I inhale the cigar, and answer around the exhale, my words rolling along the smoky ribbons. "A history lesson… A lesson in loyalty. In your loyalty to the Family. Your loyalty to Alceu’s ancestry, the bloodline that runs through this boxer's son's veins." As the words leave my mouth, Xander receives a bolo punch that throws him off his pace, allowing his opponent to land a cross jab on the right side of my brother's jaw.

The impact hushes the crowd.

The sound of Xan's grunt instinctively brings me to my feet. With my eyes glued to the match, I watch my sweet brother takea second jab to the eye, the first having clearly rattled his vision, the follow-up throwing him into the far rope. My father and brothers have also risen to their feet, large ominous shadows backing Xander.

All Butcher's on their feet.

Joe's voice wraps around my spine as he says, "Let's talk about loyalty." He is standing beside me now, and I turn my chin towards the snake to listen to every word without breaking my arrowed watch on Xander. "Your father took an oath but left the Family. Alceu had to hunt him down when he should have left the man in the ring where he belonged, not make him a Boss. No refinement in him—that was apparent when he fucked another made man's wife."

His words boil my temper between my ears. I pinch the cigar and throw it to the floor, grinding it into the cement with my heel.

Xander hops from foot to foot, but he's behind pace, careless, receiving another cross to the same gash below his eye socket. I hiss at the contact.

"Your father," Joe continues, "the Family favourite, drove a divide between our association in Australia, but Jimmy… Jimmy kept him under his protection because ofyou. Because of your brothers, because he lacked his own male soldiers, his own heirs."

Jolted backwards, Xander hits the rope, bouncing on it for a moment of careless reprieve until Eddie meets him in his recovering position, jabbing his face in brutal succession. My father barks orders at his son from his flank. The crowd is a calamity of boos, cheers, and vicarious groans.

"Grow up, boy," Joe sneers at me, and I ball my fists in tight, volatility creeping along my shoulders like a beast wrestling with my muscles that twitch to jump the rope and teach Eddie a lesson of my own. Using the lump of meat to splatter blood allover Joe's face. "Do you think we wanted to work for a boxer? And now you think we are all going to call you?—"

"Boss," I hiss as Xan finds the strength to cut a jab to Eddie's ribs, the snap of a bone almost audible through the detonating spectators.

Joe finally looks at me and I at him. "What?"

"Boss," I ground while in my peripherals, Xander ducks and then pushes up, driving an uppercut into Eddie's mandible, the lights dimming from his opponent's eyes on impact.

The crowd explodes. "Butcher!"

My last name, the name of a boxer, rumbles through the gym as I smoothly say, "If you ever address me as boy again, you will find parts of your children stuffed inside the cow I gift you for your Sunday roasts."

"Butcher!"

"The Butcher!"

I continue, "I'm so glad we had this conversation, Joe. I've been meaning to ask you where the fuck Dustin Nerrock is hiding, and now I'm certain you have an answer."

Joe's face is bright red with rage as he huffs like the sixty-year-old man he is and snatches his jacket from the back of his chair. "You want a war, Butcher?" He stares up at me for a moment, and I smile. "You've got it," he growls.

He thunders away, shouldering his passage through the disorderly audience that is now on its feet, the chanting like tangible waves of intimidation my associate seems desperate to escape.

"Butcher! The Legend."

I watch him leave.

Turning back, now alone, I tower over the arena.My space.I gaze past the ring at my brothers as they pat each other on the back, celebrating Xander's win. And at my father, whoaccepts Bronson's commentary and understands Max's nod of approval…

I now stare at the Irish. The Capos. The sharks.

Perhaps devotion and utter loyalty are unrealistic expectations at this early stage in my reign. In the meantime, I will, of course, settlefor fear.

Clay

"She's beenin the bathroom for over an hour," Bolton calls after me, hesitation and uncertainty tightening his vocal cords, not unlike my palms will be to his jugular should she be in any discomfort.

When I push the bathroom door open, the steam blankets me, curling around my body as I stride over to where she sits. A tiny figure amidst thick humid air. She's huddled on the tiles, her knees held to her chest by her slender arms.

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