“He knows where she is, and it’ll die with him if you don’t come with us. Morphine makes him delusional. We need you back, Greyson.”
My face reveals nothing of the turmoil I feel. My mother. The only good I remember. I’ll never forget the look on her face when I made my first kill. Right in front of her, I lost my humanity and let my mother see that her son had turned into an animal. “Where is he?” I growl out.
“He’s flying to a fight location; we have a plane ready to meet him there.”
I shove things into a black duffel. A laptop. More weapons. When you deal with my father, you can’t deal with him straight. My father taught me to be crooked. Guess I learned from the best. I grab my Leatherman tool knife, cut deeply into my palm, and slam it into Eric’s hand, our bloods meshing. “Until we find her,” I whisper. The other men come over and shake hands with me.
I search their eyes and make sure they meet my stare. There’s a threat in my gaze and I know that if they know me, they’ll heed it.
No matter what words are spoken, what acts are committed, I never, ever take my eyes off someone else’s. The way they flick to the left or to the right, a tiny flicker, tells me more than when I hack into someone’s computer. But I do that too.
I trust no one. My right hand does not trust my left. But as the most powerful of the nine men I’m faced with, the one I least trust is Eric Slater. As it happens, he’s the one I most care about too. He and my friend C. C. Hamilton—but C.C.’s been visiting me even after I left, secretly helping me track my mother. I trust him as far as I could ever trust a human being. Which still means I interrogate the crap out of him every time he comes in. I can never be sure if my father knows he’s meeting me.
Hell, even with the blood oath, I’m going to have to test each and every one of these men’s loyalties before they can get any semblance of trust from me.
? ? ?
NOW, AN AIRPLANE flight later, we find my father in a closed room wired with cameras, in the Los Angeles Underground. The Underground is our livelihood. A place where fighters square off against each other every season, two or three times a week. We organize events, sell tickets, program the fights in warehouses, bars, parking lots—wherever we can get the people in and get a good deal. The tickets alone make us a fortune. But the gambling on the side makes us ten times more.
Tonight, we’re in a warehouse-turned-bar crammed with screaming people and rowdy fights. I used to enjoy strategically planning the locations where the fights would take place, which fighter would face who next, but it’s all being taken care of by the rest of the team. Everything from the organizing, to the fights, to the gambling.
I head down with Eric as the fights are under way, my eyes scanning the crowd, gauging the number of spectators, the location of security cameras, the exits.
We access a small dark hallway and then stop at the final door before Eric jerks it open. “I take your presence here tonight as acceptance of my offer?” my father asks the moment the door swings open and I step inside. I check the room for the exits, windows, the number of people.
He laughs, but it’s not a strong sound.
“When you’re done wondering if I have a sniper around ready to hit you, maybe you’d come closer. One would think my mere presence offends you.”
I smile coldly at him. Julian Slater is called “Slaughter” among his enemies; he’s been suspected as a man who silences his problems the old way. Even weak and in a wheelchair, I will never underestimate the damage my father can do. In a world measuring one’s destructive capabilities, my father would be the nuclear bomb, and wouldn’t you know it? Bastard’s already throwing verbal vomit my way. “You look fit as a bull, Greyson. I bet you still turn tires for fun and do a couple of cunts in your sleep. I’d give more than a penny to know what your thoughts are right now, and you know how stingy I can be. Hell, you know what I do if a single penny is stolen from me.”
“I remember clearly. Being I’ve done the dirty work for you. So let’s spare you that penny. I’m thinking, why bother to wait for you to die? I could smash your oxygen tank right now and take care of you nicely.” Slowly, I hold his gaze with a cold smile, pull out my black leather gloves from the back pocket of my jeans, and start sliding one hand inside.
He glares at me for a quiet moment. “When you’re done disrespecting, go and clean up, Greyson.”
One of the guys steps forward with a suit.
I calmly slip my hand into my other leather glove.
“As before, no one will know your name,” my father begins in a softer tone. “You can have money and the life you want as my son—in fact, I demand you live like a prince. But I need your head and heart in this. The job comes first, and I’ll have your word on that.”
“I have no heart, but you can have my head. The job is all there is and all that’s ever been. I AM my job.”
Silence.
We survey each other.
I can see the respect in his eyes, even, maybe, a little fear. I’m no longer a thirteen-year-old, easily bullied by him.
“For the past five years of your absence, my clients . . .” he begins, “. . . they’ve seen no weakness from us at the Underground. We can’t forgive a single cent owed or we’ll be seen as weak—and right now there are many collections left to be done.”
“Why not have your minions do it?”
“Because there’s no one as clean as you. Not even the fighters know who you are. Zero trace. You’re in, you’re out, no casualties, and a hundred percent success rate.”
Eric pulls out my father’s old Beretta and offers it to me as some peace symbol, and when I find it in my hand, slightly over two pounds of steel, I find myself flipping it around and aiming it at my father’s forehead. “How about instead I take your Beretta Storm and encourage you to start telling me where my mother is first?”