I exhaled sharply and nudged the back of his seat with my knee. “Yeah,” I replied. “I’m good.”
Alessandro slowed down as we approached an old cement warehouse that had been converted into a rather depressing block of apartments. Chai was the owner of this property and most of his customers were residents. This place was on Roman’s regular rounds; he stopped by here on schedule every week or so.
Obviously, the entire situation wasn’t exactly what you would call moral. Capitalizing on an entire apartment block of addicts in a rather unfortunate part of the city had been Chai’s business plan, and we’d certainly supplied him with the resources he needed to make that happen. But, questions of morality aside, it was lucrative. After all, money makes the world go around. Denying the reality of that was, as my father said, foolish.
Still, Chai would not be impressed by what was about to occur; he only did business with our family. In fact, he usually only did business with our runner Roman or directly with Angelo. The Randolphs were fools if they thought they were about to show up and trick Chai into doing a deal with them. Despite the annoyance, though, I knew the Varassos would never lose his business. In fact, he might even help us clean up the Randolphs.
I held on to the door as Alessandro yanked the Escalade into a narrow alleyway at the last second.
We’d pulled up right behind a familiar bright orange Chevy Camaro and I pursed my lips in distaste. So, Jackson Randolph himself was here. He was the second cousin of the family patriarch’s daughters. Angelo had always laughed at the fact that old Remy Randolph had been blessed with nothing but daughters, but truth be told, those women were formidable. I would have been much less happy to be stuck in a narrow alley with one of them than Jackson.
Jackson Randolph was tacky, just like the rest of the family. Arrogant, self-obsessed, and downright tacky. The neon orange Camaro was evidence enough, but the gold chain and dirty wife-beater he wore really brought the whole image together.
I sighed heavily and cocked my gun. Gabriel snorted in the front seat, knowing exactly what was going through my head.
“Okay, boys,” said Alessandro, heaving a loud exhale. “Let’s get this done.”
With synchronized nods, Gabriel and I got out of the vehicle, guns tucked into our waistbands underneath our shirts. Alessandro stayed behind the wheel, taking his turn at operating the getaway vehicle, just in case things took a turn for the worse. You could never be too safe, especially in this line of work.
Jackson Randolph leaned against the hood of his ugly car and smirked at me and my brother. He had a couple of backup guys I didn’t recognize standing on either side of him, but they didn’t look particularly intimidating.
“Well, look who it is,” purred Jackson, his disgusting mustache curling as his thin lips worked their way into some semblance of a smirk. The expression revealed a row of teeth in serious need of some dental hygiene and my stomach twisted a little at the sight of them. Yikes; just because he was a filthy drug rat, didn’t mean he had to look like one, too.
“Hey, street rat,” I replied, lifting a hand in mock greeting.
“Hmm, it’s the Prince and the bastard,” said Jackson. Gabriel tensed behind me, but kept his cool. “We’re getting the royal treatment today, boys. What an honor.”
Jackson loved the sound of his own voice. In fact, he talked so much, it didn’t take me long to realize that the best way to piss him off was to pretend you didn’t hear or understand a word he was saying. I guessed that it was a side effect of being the lowly boy cousin to a pathetic fledgling drug lord’s street business; he didn’t get enough attention or prestige growing up.
Not to mention, he’d had to grow up as part of the family that was always being compared to the successful and terrifying Varasso clan. Next to us, the Randolphs were just kids playing hopscotch. Funny, and almost endearing in their lack of real power. It was no secret that the Randolphs wanted what we had. It was the reason why they intercepted our runners and caused annoying bouts of trouble in our business; they were trying to get on our nerves so that they could sneak in and get the upper hand while we were distracted with our own frustration.
But, the Varassos didn’t get distracted.
“Heard you messed up our runner,” I said, ignoring Jackson’s taunts.
Jackson shrugged casually. “He’ll survive.”
“Lucky for you,” added Gabriel.
Jackson narrowed his eyes and cocked his head to side as he observed Gabriel.
“Look at you,” crooned Jackson to Gabriel, a sickly sweet smile spreading across his pale, sweaty face. “Always one step behind your big brother.”
But, Gabriel wasn’t a child. He didn’t give in to pokes and prods at his status in the family, or respond to attempts at emasculating him. None of us did. Angelo Varasso raised his sons to have thicker skin than that.
Gabriel didn’t deign to respond to Jackson’s remark.
“Well, anyway,” I said
after a beat of silence. “A little birdy told me that you guys stole our stash.”
Jackson snorted. “Is that so?”
“It’s probably best you give it back before things get ugly here.”
The guy on Jackson’s left shifted forward slightly and I trained my eyes on him. He was short and skinny, but had a scrappy, tough look about him. Some stray street fighter the Randolphs probably picked up along the way.
“Now, now,” tutted Jackson at his guy. “Luca here doesn’t mean me any harm. He wouldn’t want to get blood all over his clothes.”