Page 58 of Velvet Cruelty

He’s got me there. I have no idea. And I need one fast before more petty bickering breaks out.

Doc snaps his fingers. “What if she still gets to decide?”

“She’s had ten fucking days to decide,” Adriano growls.

“Ah, but she won’t be deciding on her own. We’d be giving her a little help.”

I stare at Doc. “Do you mean…?”

“I do.” Doc grins. “Gimmie an hour and I’ll knock some up.”

Orchard.

The reason we’re all here. If I close my eyes, I can still see Doc swaggering up to my school gate, hair tucked behind his ears like Kurt Cobain. The girls at Trinity weren’t supposed to like a lowlife like him, but whenever he showed up selling, he walked away with a dozen numbers. Adriano was there too, glaring over Doc’s shoulder. Two years older and already hitched to a psycho with more brains than sense. They ran everything alone. No cartels, no bosses, just the pills Doc mixed in his basement and Adriano kicking the shit out of anyone trying to steal from them.

“You need money to expand,” I told Doc. “And you need leadership. Someone with the foresight to protect you.”

I was an arrogant shit. They did need a leader, but to think that at seventeen I was that leader… Ridiculous. I take a deep swallow of scotch.

“Fine,” I tell Doc. “Mix it up. We’ll give it to her.”

“Ell…” Bobby’s face is tight. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

I could command him upstairs. Tell him to go pray a rosary without us if it’ll make him feel better. But I know Bobby. As a teenager, Doc got Adriano laid by giving girls free weed. I got Bobby laid by inviting our classmates back to my father’s Manhattan apartment. The leggy, dark-haired girls Bobby could barely speak in front of. They’d show up all shy, saying they only wanted to watch a movie and a few hours later they’d be getting fucked at both ends and screaming for more. Bobby always went to church afterward, but he never told me to stop. He’s scared of his dark side. Scared of what he likes. But I know how to push him to happiness.

“You want to be with January,” I remind him. “You want her as badly as any of us do. Maybe more.”

“Then can you see why I have a problem with this?”

I smile. “You’re supposed to. That’s the point. None of us get what we want. All our plans with January Whitehall end tonight. And believe me, twenty years from now you’ll regret not having her more than you’ll regret joining in.”

Bobby lets out a long, slow breath, and I can tell his resistance is waning.

Doc claps him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Bash. You’ll feel better about all this shit once you give the girl a good old-fashioned fucking. So where should we dose her? In the cage? See who she tries to fuck through the bars?”

I shake my head. January’s shown too much cheek in her cage already. I want her rattled. Off balance. “We’ll bring her to the sitting room. Put her in lingerie in front of the fire and watch the show.”

“Fuck yeah,” Doc grins around at us. “Ten grand says she begs me to break her open.”

Bobby downs the rest of his scotch. “We’ll see.”

I laugh, mostly in relief that he’s accepting our plan.

“What do you mean, ‘we’ll see?’” Doc demands.

“January had a crush on me before all of this started. You give her Orchard, and you think she won’t come for me?”

Doc scoffs. “I’ve kissed her.”

“I’ve kissed her,” Bobby shoots back. “And unlike you, she wanted me to.”

This time my laughter is real. “Sorry to tell you both, but Miss Whitehall can barely look at me without blushing. She’s as good as mine.”

“We’ll fucking see,” Doc mutters.

“What about you?” I ask Adriano. “Are you in?”

He shrugs, but there’s a smile playing on his lips.

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