Page 50 of The Company We Keep

Dust had noticed the way the man would move in hissleep sometimes, clenching his fists and grinding his molars with a sickening squeal that would jar Dust out of his own dreams. Certainly, Dust thought, it wouldn’t be unusual for The Company to have nightmares.

They all had sins that could only be acknowledged in the unguarded moments when they gave in to their subconscious minds.

But that night was different.

He woke up because he was being moved, because hands were grasping him, pulling him out of sleep. It was disorienting, and Dust pushed away from the needy hands before he remembered where he was, could comprehend the feeling of the smooth, cool sheets against his bare skin. Carrow. The Company.

The man in bed with him let out a ragged noise that could’ve been a sob when he drew back. Dust moved immediately to correct the error, vaguely panicked by the sound.

“Hey,hey,” he said soothingly. “Hey,Carrow,come on, you’re dreaming.”

The man was faintly visible in the dark, lying on his side and blinking, still half-asleep maybe. Dust snaked an arm under Carrow’s neck and put the other around his waist, drawing the larger man closer, squeezing him in the dark because he didn’t know what else to do.

“Hey, you’re safe, ok?” Dust said softly.

“The Company,” Carrow said, his voice tight.

“Yeah, everybody’s here. We’re all safe.”

He pressed his lips against Carrow’s, trying to be soothing but almost pulling back when he felt that the other man’s face was wet. Before Dust could even comprehend it, Carrow was turning away, flipping to his other side, embarrassed maybe.

“Fucking nightmares,” he said. It was clear that he was trying to keep the trembling out of his voice, but Carrowwasn’t entirely successful. He soundedfrightened— something Dust had never heard before in the other man’s voice.

Carrow had attempted to sleep after that, sitting in bed for several minutes until Dust guessed he’d had enough of recalling whatever awful thing he’d been dreaming of. The man rose, careful not to wake Dust — who he must have assumed had already fallen back to sleep — shouldered into a light robe, and slipped out of his bedroom. Dust didn’t try to follow him.

When he came back — maybe it was an hour later or maybe it was more — he smelled like cognac and cigarettes and city air. Dust didn’t know if he’d managed to escape the nightmare or if he’d just dulled it with enough drink, but the man fell into a deep sleep afterwards.

He was still sleeping when Dust got up to start the next day. He didn’t try to rouse the man.

Before the daythat launched a million nightmares for Carrow, there had been decades of success for The Kettle Syndicate.

Carrow had been just 25 when he took over as the acting boss for the gang.

Riley sent the word once he was established in prison — and of course it hadn’t been difficult to make the appointment, even behind bars. TKS was just as well-connected inside the pen as it was in the free world of Southern California. His conviction was meaningless to the chain of command. Riley would remain the true boss. It was just that he couldn’t direct the type of on-street action that he needed to from within a cell.

So the young Carrow became Riley’s right hand on the outside. The acting boss.

The move was controversial. There was talk of dissent throughout the gang, of soldiers who were unhappy at being passed over for promotion and men in the top tier of leadership who resented the favoritism that Riley had always shown for A.R. Carrow since he’d joined up as a teenager.

The first man from the inside who crossed Carrow was found executed in his own bathtub.

The second, bound and suffocated and left in a ditch.

There wasn’t a third.

Carrow insisted from the start that he hadn’t had a hand in the revenge killings in the ranks of The Kettle Syndicate — and it had been true. Carrow never asked for people to cleave to him out of fear and didn’t believe that intimidation made for great leadership. He led by example, challenged the men surrounding him to work just as hard as he did, and was in perpetual motion from the moment he joined TKS. That didn’t change when he became the boss on the outside.

No, someone else had taken up the mantle of protection for him, and that someone never did come forward. But it just took two lives lost before the rest of the gang fell into order.

(Two lives too many, Carrow thought. But two lives nonetheless.)

The Kettle Syndicate, named for the rundown industrial area south of Las Abras where the gang was founded, flourished like never before in the years after Carrow took the reins. Their membership swelled as men abandoned their old gangs, drawn to the power of TKS, to the charismatic and serious young leader who became more infamous each day.

Riley died in prison half a decade later, waiting on an appeal. It had been cancer — and anyone who had visited himor seen him on the inside knew that the diagnosis was accurate. He’d wasted until he was almost unrecognizable. Still, rumors flew that Riley had been assassinated — by a rival gang, maybe by the Aryans, and sometimes in rumors even by Carrow’s own order.

Carrow ignored the rumors easily. Riley had been like a father to him. It was ludicrous to think that he’d ever have harmed the man.

The reality of the situation was quite the opposite. Carrow feltlostin the year after the boss’ death. TKS had been Riley’s vision from the start, even if Carrow had been effectively running the organization for six years. Carrow wrestled with himself over how to proceed as the true head of the gang.

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