Page 4 of Enforce This

Mark had been the leader of the Steel Disciples since we were snot-nosed children. He’d been there for me when my parents died, and he was still there when I fucked up my military career and had nowhere else to turn.

I trusted him.

I downed the shot glass, and growled, “Sit the fuck down. You’re all acting like his goddamn mother. Is he the president or something we need to coddle and steer? He is goin’ to put his ol’ lady in the ground, can you fuckers let him do that in peace?”

Mark grunted and quickly headed out the door, leaving me and my brother to stare at each other for several tense moments.

“Go about your business!” Anthony barked, when the women and the nosy bodies lingered to watch our showdown. “You heard the man, get on the phone. Call the liquor store and have a couple kegs delivered. Get this shit set up already.”

The moment they pretended to do so; he flew toward me. I jumped off the barstool, but I wasn’t fast enough. He pinned me against the ledge of the bar and wadded my shirt with his fist.

It was a date with Vick to fight another club member.

I held both hands up, wanting no part of a Big Vick beatdown, but that didn’t stop his nose from kissing mine.

“While you were out there playing soldier boy in the fucking sand, I was here. I’ve been in the club for eleven years, Eric. When I voted to let you in, it wasn’t so you could go around countering my advice,” he growled through gritted teeth.

His pupils were so blown that his eyes looked like two big black marbles. It was some seriously demonic-looking shit, but I knew it was just the coke. It had to be. He never got aggressive with me. The club was a melting pot of drugs, damaged souls, and criminal enterprise, all being cooked to perfection by a recent uptick in police pressure.

Nobody had been acting like themselves lately.

I tried to stay levelheaded. I’d been doing good with sobriety and meetings and all that horseshit. Someone had to be on their game around here or we’d all end up in the joint.

I kept my eyes locked on Ant and fought the urge to show him and everybody else just how weak his little coke habit had made him. I swallowed my pride and gritted my teeth, even if it left me raging inside.

He was my older brother, I’d never shame him like that, but damn did he need to leave the shit alone for a few days.

“Woah. Woah. Woah,” Sasha’s voice carried and amplified as she rushed toward us.

She’d been Makaveli’s old lady since high school. She knew better than to put herself between two brothers, especially when they actually shared a patch and blood, but she also knew there were a whole lot of eyes on the pair of us right now.

“Ant, … Not today, please…” She stepped beside us and stared up at him with her big, green eyes while quietly pleading.

She was a pretty, freckle-faced ginger with a gentle way about her that was nice when shit went wrong. She was also a veteran at dealing with our bullshit.

“Beat his ass in the morning if it makes you feel better, but for now– Find some club pussy and work it out, alright, big guy?” She whacked his upper arm, like she’d suddenly forgotten that he was the Road Captain and most successful drug trafficker in the Midwest.

His hand loosened on my shirt and his gaze went vacant for a few brief moments before he nodded and leaned back enough to allow for me to stand up straight. When she accepted that we weren’t going to kill each other, she gave his ass a ‘good game’-style swat and moved along to check on the guests, leaving my brother to clutch his ass cheek and glare at the back of her head.

“Mark said he couldn’t let Makaveli go, because he was afraid his son would put himself in the middle of any hit that might be made against him, if shit goes wrong,” Anthony whispered, once he turned to face me again.

“Mark is an original disciple. Nobody is going to fuck with him.” I scoffed, even if I wasn’t sure I believed it.

He was a god in the streets, but nobody fucked with the Valentino family. Mark hadn’t meant to fuck with them, he’d just gone through a little mid-life thing and decided he wanted a little young, mafia princess on his arm for show. He didn’t intend for her to get mixed up in any of this. All the woman did was pull a fucking cordless phone out of her bathrobe when the cops kicked the door in unexpectedly.

But somehow, we all knew the mob wouldn’t see it that way.

Her brother had begged Mark not to marry her, but the prez, in all his cockiness, had assured the mob boss that his love was so sincere that he would take a bullet for her. He promised the Valentino family that she would be safe with him and agreed to the mob’s ways of keeping his wife out of his organization’s criminal activity.

Now she was dead at the age of thirty-nine.

“He’s the last disciple,” Anthony ground out. “What do you think happened to the other eleven?”

I snorted and looked to my right; at the shot glass I’d forgotten about. I pretended to really take an interest in it as Sasha ventured back through and headed off in Makaveli’s direction again.

My brother didn’t move, so I shifted and poured myself another drink before answering, “Our father wasn’t killed by his enemies, Anthony. He was killed by his own supply.”

Anthony’s jaw jutted forward, and that darkness crept into his eyes again.

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