Own Me (The Wolf Hotel, #5)

“Peter was here last week.” His cold gray eyes watch me. “He said our friends have been causing problems for Harriet again.”

By friends, Dad means the cartel, aka nobody’s friend, and by causing problems for Harriet, he means venturing farther into US territory and encroaching on my family’s foothold in the lucrative cocaine and heroin trade, a business that my father and his brother, Peter, have been nurturing for decades, originating with a supply arrangement from “our friends” down south.

A business that has amassed us impressive wealth and power.

“So what’s Peter going to do?” I ask carefully. My uncle is a crazy fuck—almost as crazy as my dad, who isn’t quite as crazy as the cartel.

His sagging skin contorts with his sneer. “What’s he going to do? How about what are my sons going to do!” He stabs at the table’s surface with his meaty index finger. “It’s time you two stop fucking around like a bunch of playboys and act like you’re ready to take care of the family business.”

I bite my tongue against the urge to remind him that we’ve laundered millions through Empire for “the family business,” and that it’s Caleb and me who keep the highly lucrative underground fight ring going. We can’t talk openly about it here, and besides, he doesn’t want to hear that. He definitely doesn’t want to hear the thoughts Caleb floated after the handcuffs landed on Dad’s wrists almost four years ago—that it’s time to let the cartel move in, wash our hands of the dirty drug business, and invest all this money in other, legitimate things. Things that won’t land us in this shithole with him.

But it’s like Dad reads my mind. “What do you think, that you two could afford any of your cars and your houses and your fucking club if not for all the sacrifices your uncle and I have made? All the blood and sweat that’s poured. The tears?”

I highly doubt any of those tears came from my father. He didn’t even cry when my mother died. The guy’s tear ducts probably don’t work. And I damn well know none of that pouring blood was his, though there’s been more than enough spilled thanks to “Harriet.”

He’s right though: we’ve gotten filthy rich off junkies shooting their veins with heroin and partiers filling their nostrils with cocaine.

I sigh reluctantly. “We’ll go talk to Peter.”

“Good.” He nods slowly. “Because I want things running smoothly for when I get out.”

You’re not getting out of here.