Page 39 of The Prodigy

“Word?”

“Completely useless. I had to bring him on at the firm just for him to be able to get a house.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t even wanna talk about it. Brett’s doing exceptionally well. He finished up his residency and opened his own practice up in Southland.”

“Oh. Nice. Good for him.”

I didn’t give a fuck about none of that.

Ten minutes later, with wine in hand, Gray finally got to the business of why I was here. I was glad, because I wasn’t comfortable in his house.

“I have to tell you,” he said, “I’m concerned about the future of our enterprise.”

Ourwas a strange choice of words, but I let him cook.

He sipped his wine. “Ever since you’ve been back, there’s been an uptick in crime.”

“Aside from that incident at Sliders, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A murder is hardly an incident.”

I shrugged that off. “What else was there, man?”

He set his glass on the table. “A shooting on Hyacinth near the barber shop. A fire at the bakery. And just yesterday, somebody broke into that clothing store near the new Publix. These were all Windermere establishments, last I checked.”

His eyebrow raised as he studied my face. “You didn’t know?”

“Of course I knew,” I lied. “I’ve been busy the last few days laying my father to rest. Wasn’t much time to deal with anything else.”

“Of course. I understand. It’s just…I don’t need the city council up my ass. And don’t get me started on the police.”

“I’ll handle it, Gray. I just need a little time.”

He picked his glass back up and swirled his wine. “I’m curious about something.”

“What’s that?”

“Why did your father leapfrog over your brother to put you in charge?”

I took a deep breath. “To be honest, it’s complicated. He had his reasons. But we all respect it. We’re on one accord.”

Gray chuckled. “Family dynamics are complicated. I get it.” He took a slow sip and swallowed. “When Naymar came to me a while back—”

“Wait. My brother? When was this?”

He was trying his best not to smile. Messy ass.

“Last month.”

I spoke slowly and tried to keep my voice even. “And what did he want?”

“He wanted the same thing I want.” Gray downed the rest of his wine. “For the transition to go smoothly. He was speaking of the future, of course, but we were in agreement.”

I let that sink in. My mind raced for a minute thinking about Nay and the fact that he didn’t tell me none of this before I walked my ass up in the Hightower house. But I shook that shit off and got myself together.

“Well, I agree, too. I want everything to go smooth. There shouldn’t be any changes to the setup, the traffic, the points. Matter of fact, if I had my way, the points would be going up by a percentage or two. But I’ll need to figure that out.”

Gray nodded. “It’s uncanny.”

“What is?”

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