Page 28 of Double Standards

Then he catches my eye in the rearview mirror and smiles.

“I don’t want you dead.”

I swallow hard, my voice dry. “Well, that’s comforting.”

“At least not until Axel’s in the clear.” He laughs again—loud and full-bodied, like he just told a good joke. But all I feel is the icy press of dread winding around my ribs.

“You don’t get tired of this?” I ask, my voice edged like glass. “Running around after him?”

He bristles. It’s small, but I catch it.

“I don’t run after Axel,” he grumbles. “Ihelphim.”

“Right. And why is that?” I press. “What do you get out of it?”

His jaw ticks, but he keeps his eyes on the road. For a moment, the silence is thick enough to choke on.

“It’s not something you’d understand.”

I scoff, folding my arms. “Because I’m not in the mafia?”

“No,” he says, quieter this time. “Because you’re notus.”

That shuts me up.

It hits harder than I expected. Because for all the rumors, all the whispered stories about The Five, he’s right—I wouldn’t understand. I don’t know what it’s like to bethem. To bleed for it. To be bound by it.

Colombo drives for another block before speaking again. “You want him to come to you? Ask him. Say it to his face.”

I laugh under my breath, the sound bitter and humorless. “Sure. Let me just write out my suicide note first.”

“He won’t hurt you,” Colombo tells me, voice low and steady. But there’s a strange weight behind it, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as me.

“How do you know that?” I ask, and this time I don’t hide the shake in my voice.

He doesn’t answer right away. Just parks up and steps out of the car, circling to my side. He opens the door and extends his hand.

“Trust me,” he assures as he pulls me to my feet and grabs my bag from the seat, handing it over like a peace offering.

I stare at him. “I’m trusting the mafia now. That’s where I’m at.”

He grins in response. “Better get used to it.”

I turn with an exhale, noticing the neighborhood we’ve stopped in is almost laughably normal. Three-story brownstone homes with trimmed hedges and cracked sidewalks line the street. It looks like a place where people barbecue on weekends and argue over parking spots. Not the kind of area where someone like Axel should exist.

Colombo walks ahead, stepping up to a black wooden door. He punches a code into a keypad beside it while I trail behind, my heels crunching over brittle leaves, breaking the quiet of the street.

The door clocks and Colombo holds it open, eyes gleaming. “Give him hell,” he says with a wink as I step inside.

I don’t respond. I already know hell might be the only place this path leads to.

Chapter Ten

Ithrow back the last of the whiskey in a single, burning gulp, barely registering the taste—just the fire, the distraction. I refill the glass with a hand that doesn’t quite shake but wants to. Ten in the goddamn morning, and I already need a crutch to get through the day. That should tell me everything. But I don’t stop.

It’s not prison I’m afraid of—hell, we’ve all done our stints. It’s getting buried there. Rendered irrelevant while the empire I built gets picked apart by scavengers in suits and smiles. I’m the oldest of us. The one who promised to carry this thing until my last breath.

I made that pact when I took over. The old way—our parent’s way—was rotting, It was corrupt and clumsy. I restructured us into something more refined, notoriously untouchable. That’s when the name stuck—The Notorious Five. It meant something. Still does.