Page 65 of Prodigal

It was a barn. The faint smell of manure and animals reached André’s nose, and he wrinkled it as he took in the people who’d been conversing amongst themselves in a low whisper. They sat around a long table in the middle of the space, men and women who all shut up and turned toward the door.

André sucked in a breath, keeping his head up. He couldn’t show weakness. Nobody had told him that, but he just instinctively knew that this wasn’t the place to broadcast fear or any other kind of weakness. Those sharks sitting around that table would pounce at the first sign of blood in the water.

“You’re late,” one of them said.

“Let this be the first and last time you summon me,” Gideon responded. André had never heard him sound like that: cold, deadly, and powerful. It raised the hair on his arms and nape.

“Some things have been brought to our attention, Winters. We demand an explanation for?—”

“You don’t get to demand anything,” Ennis interrupted. He stood to Gideon’s left with Samir at his side, and if André didn’t know better, he’d think that Samir was the only reason his father remained upright. “What you do get to do is hand over my daughter to me.”

“Sienna Canto is a proxied member of our council. She cannot and will not behanded over. You know that, Ennis. Now, explain yourself. Why didn’t we know you had a son?”

“Why the fuck would I tell you about my son?” Ennis exploded. “So you could sanction his death?”

A chill ran over André at those words and he stiffened. These people didn’t play. They could do that? They could so easily take someone’s life?

“Papers have been filed and submitted to The Council to make my firstborn, my rightful heir, my proxy,” Ennis said. Was he sounding a bit winded or was that just André’s imagination? He had to force himself to keep from glancing over at his father. Instead, he kept his gaze on the men and women at the table who eyed him as if he were something under a microscope to be studied.

“That is not happening.” The soft, feminine voice sounded first before the speaker stepped out from another doorway. His sister. André had never seen her in person, only on his TV screen and in magazines, but Sienna Canto was even more stunning up close. Blemish-free dark skin, a curly afro, tall and leggy. Her presence was magnetic. Even the cunning in her eyes added to her allure. “Hello, Father. Big brother, I’m so glad I finally get to meet you.”

André swallowed when she winked at him.

“This council”—Sienna motioned to the table—“is my birthright. I will not have a usurper swoop in and take my place.”

“Is that why you tried to kill him?” Gideon asked.

Sienna shrugged. “Things like that happen when you try to take what doesn’t belong to you.”

“But I don’t want it,” André blurted out. Couldn’t she see that? “I didn’t know any of this even existed until last night.”

“And why did you try to kill me?” Ennis asked his daughter. “How could you do that, Sienna? I’m your father.”

“Because you hurt me, Daddy. You tried to replace me.”

“I didn’t?—”

Bang.

André jerked, mouth opening in horror as he watched Sienna crumble to the ground with a hole in her forehead.

Silence filled the room as everyone stared.

“It’s against council rules to openly attempt to take the life of a sitting member,” Gideon said in monotone as he lowered the hand André hadn’t even seen him raise. The hand holding a gun. “Punishment for that is death.”

21

Gideon only had two regrets:that André had to witness him take a life and that Sienna got away so easily. He wanted to make her suffer for what she tried to do to André, but he would accept her death—as quick as it had been—as payment.

He heard André’s gasp, saw the way the other members of The Council stared at him, silent, all of their expressions passive. But aside from André, the one he really tuned into was Ennis. The older man hadn’t known Gideon’s plan; it wasn’t as if Gideon would tell him that he would shoot his daughter on sight. But Ennis had to know how things would go.

Nobody got a pass from Gideon.

Especially not for threatening André’s life.

He didn’t look, but he felt Ennis’s stillness next to him. Felt, too, the way André’s father’s breath died and didn’t seem to return. But Ennis didn’t speak. Didn’t make a sound. Good, because Gideon would have no problem giving him a bullet hole to match his daughter’s.

“Now that that’s been taken care of…” He refocused on The Council. “There’s a new proxy member to approve. Which,” he reminded them, lest they forget, “is merely a formality.” WithSienna lying dead at their feet, they had no choice but to accept André as Ennis’s proxy.

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