Page 66 of The Mobster's Mate

Dare nodded as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. Quinten stepped out, but before the doors could close, he put a hand on them to keep them open.

“For what it’s worth, I know I was wrong.”

Dare met his eyes for the first time in hours.

“You guys are right. I didn’t want to believe it, and I kept saying it wasn’t true, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t. Caden and Liam are right. You were right. I need to get over my own insecurities and accept that even if I never dreamed of this or wanted the responsibility, I have it. I owe you all better than to continue to deny it.”

Dare didn’t say anything, but Quinten had known him for over a decade. He could tell that he was affected by his words, his face and stance softening just a touch, and then he nodded. “Apology accepted.”

Quinten snorted and let the elevator doors close.

As soon as he stepped into the penthouse, he could feel that there was something off, a sinister tension to the air. He flicked on the lights and started moving through the place, and it didn’t take long before he found the man dressed in black waiting in his living room, a glass of one of his bottles of wine sitting on the table in front of him, half-drank.

“By all means, make yourself at home,” Quinten said through clenched teeth.

“Thank you. I have been.”

“Tiho, I presume?”

“At your service,” Tiho said, lifting the gun in his hand to salute Quinten sarcastically.

Two more men stepped out of the shadows, and as Quinten watched, their eyes began to glow, and their teeth lengthened.

“You know,” Tiho said, leaning forward to grab the glass and take another sip, “your security is a lot less tight when you’re not in this building. Did you know that?”

Quinten didn’t respond, just shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair before unknotting his tie.

“It’s true,” Tiho continued the conversation without him. “I thought I would have to try and hit you at that country house of yours. Very swanky, by the way.”

Quinten clenched his teeth.

“But then a friend of mine helped me see that this place would be the best opportunity.”

“Is that friend of yours a seer?” Quinten asked, glancing around his apartment. “Is he here right now?”

Tiho waved the gun at him. “Oh, no. He doesn’t really get out that much. Arthritis.”

He said it with a wince, like he actually gave a shit about the guy, but Quinten had known a psychopath or two in his day, and he could tell it was all fake. He had a feeling most everything about Tiho was fake, except for the gun in his hand and the shifters standing behind him.

“But he did tell me that you’d be arriving here tonight all by your lonesome, no shifter friends with you.”

Quinten nodded slowly, rolling up his tie and setting it on top of his suit jacket. “I see, and what is it exactly that you felt the need to break into my home to say?”

“Say?” Tiho repeated. “Oh, nothing really. But I did come to kill you. That was pretty much the only reason.”

Quinten undid one of his cufflinks and dropped it in his pants pocket, folding back the sleeve. “I see. May I ask why?”

“Sure,” Tiho said cheerfully. “So you know how my dad died?”

“You mean how you killed him.”

“Tomatoes, tomatoes,” Tiho said. “The point is, after he died, I thought I would finally be able to move up in the family business. But Vlatko, well, he was as much of a tight-ass as the old man was. He said that I couldn’t be trusted, murderous tendencies, blah, blah, blah.”

Quinten popped out his other cufflink, palming it before rolling up his other sleeve. “Well, I can see how your brother might feel that way.”

“Oh, because of this?” Tiho said, waving his gun in the air and then pointing at the shifters behind him. “Yeah. I didn’t say he was wrong. But it is annoying, and the fact of the matter is I’m a Borko too. Even if my slut mom gave me her name instead of his.”

“You didn’t really answer my question,” Quinten said.

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