“Fuck it,” Dino exhales, grabbing the bottle, pouring out a generous measure for himself. Almost inhaling his drink in one go. Atta fucking boy.
“Have you heard from Jude?” He winces as the single malt does its job. “Are we going to get him out?”
“No, it’s proving harder than we thought. And he’s convinced Byron is in part of the facility he doesn’t have access to, so he’s not keen on getting out before the end of his sentence,” I snort.
“How long is his sentence?”
“Three months. I spoke to his lawyer. He’s done two thirds of it already. He’s got less than a month left. He should be out for exams,” I say.
“Fucking exams,” says Dino, squinting at me. “Are you going to take them? Finally fucking graduate?”
“I don’t need to, now that I have my inheritance.”
“Lucky you,” he sighs, taking a pair of dice out of his pocket. He shakes them and rolls. They land on a three and five. “Fuck me. I guess I’m turning up on exam day.”
“You still playing that dumb fucking game?” I say, brow raised.
He shrugs. “I only lose if it’s an eight.”
“Like you only drive your car into a fucking wall if it’s an eight?” I ask, reminding him of a time when he was dumb as shit. We never say it for what it is—Dino Vice tried to kill himself. It would embarrass him too much. But I can’t let him forget how weak he let himself become. I’m not scraping him off the tarmac again anytime soon. No fucking way.
“The Five want to meet with me,” I say to him. I’ve been waiting for the invitation ever since Joseph died. The Five meet once a month in a location only disclosed days before. I’ve met each one of The Five on their own terms and I can say that I’m not particularly fond of any of them. Kristian Vice, Dino’s brother, being the worst. Albert Marques, Jude’s grandfather who is still very much alive. Graham Baron, Finn’s uncle. And Royden Earlshore, Carly’s father. They all control some part of my grandfather’s organization. The same organization my adoptive father, Joseph, was at the helm of before he died, ultimately passing his position onto me.
“They finally contacted you?” Dino asks. “It’s been months.”
Like me, Dino was also beginning to think they weren’t going to accept me. “The card came this morning,” I say. I extract a crisp white card embellished with my name on it and hand it to him.
He takes it and studies it, running fingers over the smooth surface, flipping it in his hands.
“Shit, it’s at Harper-Black Enterprises?”
“Would you believe that he’s one of our main partners? He owns shares in each of our businesses. Apparently, we ran into supply issues a while back and needed his ports and shipping routes to keep up with demand.”
“You’re fucking joking. Kristian never mentioned that.” He hands it back and runs a hand over his head.
“Your brother tell you everything?”
Dino shakes his head. “You got a point. I thought Joseph was grooming you for this shit.”
I give a shrug. “Joseph never fucking trusted me. Part of the reason he was cutting me out of the will. Bet the fucker is turning in his grave now that I’ve got my hands on his empire and all the sick and twisted shit it’s built on.”
Dino grimaces.
He knows I’m talking about the child prostitution ring that the organization has let run rampant through their fucking city. The one that has become a fucking rite of passage for us all, including Jude’s grandfather, who himself sits at the top of this country’s bastardized and damn near corrupt justice system. It’s how the organization get their main source of income, and how my father maintained control.
“You still planning to destroy it?”
I arch a brow. “Does Finlay shit himself in the woods?”
Joseph’s complete fucking twisted empire is mine to burn to the ground. All of it. I knew he ran the ring since I was in it for most of my fucked-up childhood, but I never knew the extent of it and how much he had on people. That black book was just the tip of the iceberg. Celebs, politicians, even fucking judges—all have been clients of his. And rich, well-to-do families who ran into debt and needed the money, sold their kids to pay it off. Want an Ivy League education? Suck dick for a few months and Bob’s your perverted fucking uncle.
The only thing stopping me from exposing the whole sick and twisted network, is Saskia. I need to protect her. Every fucking one of us is implicated because we brought in the others to save our own necks. We’ll all go down. Of all people, she doesn’t deserve that.
But maybe it’s time the rest of us did.
“My father has thousands of names in his books. It would take a lifetime to clean up his fucking mess. And someone will put two and two together and murder me in my sleep.” I take a swig of my drink. “Taking down the whole network is the only way this ends.”
“Taking the network down will mean taking her father down too. If he was greasing palms for Joseph.”