Page 415 of Filthy Elites

It didn’t seem worth the risk to say anything about my brother’s overall innocence. I focused on my own situation instead. “I know your dad sees me as potential leverage—something he might be able to use. I have no idea how this is all going to play out, but you can see why I feel like I’m walking on thin ice in more ways than one.”

“Well, first I’ll crush that motherfucker,” Darius began.

Lucan held up a hand to stop him. “Griffin’s been playing a game we weren’t aware of. I think we need to determine exactly what his ends are and then undermine him on the same playing field. If we attack him outright without proof that he’s done anything wrong, that might just convince Dad that we don’t have the family’s best interests at heart.”

“Fine,” Darius grumbled. “But when we do know, I’m looking forward to getting to the crushing part.”

He turned to me and took a step forward to set his hand on the side of my arm. With most of my emotional armor against him fallen away, the heat of his touch bloomed all through my body.

“And we’ll look after you, Lady Noble,” he said, with a promise in his eyes that nearly set me on fire. “Not my dad or Griffin or anyone else is going to lay one finger on you. You’ve got us watching over you now, like we should have been all along.”

Lucan and then Felix nodded in agreement. I offered them a smile of gratitude, my stomach knotting tight.

I still had my own investigation to carry out, and in the blink of an eye, the results could put me at odds with these three men I’d always found so compelling all over again.

SIXTEEN

Lucan

Once you knewthe right questions to ask, getting information was often pretty easy. It’d never occurred to me to check whether we were launching a war against the Nobles. But catch a random lackey in the hall and say, “What’s the latest on that Noble business we took over?” and a half hour later I found myself getting out of my car outside the office building.

It was obvious both that the takeover had been recent and violent, and that Dad had gotten moving on taking over the place quickly. A few small splatters of blood still marked the front entrance, where Hell Kickers lackeys were ducking in and out. Some of them were sorting through boxes of items that’d been carried into a few of the rooms; others were gabbing away on phones, making arrangements I knew nothing about.

I didn’t like it. Slaughtering the Noble people here and claiming the business for ourselves after a decades-long alliance, simply because of a single deal gone wrong? One that Ezra Noble was still claiming he’d fulfilled his end of, pretending we were somehow at fault? If there’d been any hope of sorting out why he’d turned against us, we’d lost it in an instant with this gesture.

He might not have been ready to launch into all-out war, but I doubted he’d believe he had any choice after this.

And where did Anthea fit in, seemingly trapped in the middle of the conflict?

I yanked my thoughts away from her—and her sly smile, and the passion that could burn in her dark gray eyes—to my current target.

“Hey,” I said to one of the lackeys. “Where’s Griffin at?” I’d gathered from my questions around the house that Dad’s new favorite underling had been out here more often than at the brownstone in the last couple of days, overseeing our new operations.

The guy jabbed his thumb toward a room farther back. I stalked down the hallway and found the beefy guy barking orders at a foot soldier who didn’t look out of his teens. Apparently he’d put a box in the wrong room or something. I’d have appreciated Griffin being a stickler for details if he wasn’t such a dick about it.

As I walked over, the kid scuttled away. Griffin flicked his beady eyes toward me from beneath the messy strands of his reddish-blond hair. I thought I saw him stiffen a little before his expression turned cautious but cold.

“What are you doing here?” he said in a tone that toed the line of being stupidly disrespectful. Something maybe he needed a reminder of.

“I’m checking up on how the transition is going,” I said calmly. “Part of the family business; gotta keep an eye on every part of it. I believe in being thorough.”

Griffin narrowed his eyes at me. “Marcel said I could take lead here.”

Oh, had he? I smiled thinly. “I’m not looking to take over. I’ve got plenty of other work to take care of. I just like to touch base so I’m aware of what’s happening on the ground. Mydadappreciates the hands-on approach.”

I emphasized my connection to the man in charge just in case Griffin needed a firmer reminder of who he was dealing with. The guy’s head was obviously getting too big if he was going to argue with one of the Rosano heirs about who had the authority around here.

Griffin simply grunted. I got the impression he wasn’t going to volunteer any information—that he’d rather not say anything I didn’t drag out of him. Cute.

I glanced around the room. “Things seem pretty busy here already. What all are you setting in motion?”

“Shouldn’t you already know all about that, since it’s your business?” Griffin said, dodging the question and aiming another jab at the same time.

I fixed my gaze on him again and folded my arms over my chest. “I’m asking whatyouhave managed to establish here so far. Seeing as you’re taking lead and all. Or do you not know what you’re leading?”

My own jab landed. The guy’s face flushed with a ruddy hue I suspected was both embarrassment and fury over the fact that I’d made him feel embarrassed.

“The Nobles had a gambling operation running out of here, among other things,” he said tightly. “We’re picking up as many threads as we can to get that up and running again. There’s a bunch of goods they were hiding behind the shoe store front that we claimed and are sorting through. And I’m still deciding whether we’ll keep the store as is or present something different as the legitimate front that’ll work to launder proceeds as well. Does that meet your satisfaction?”

---