Page 36

Twenty-Three

Aidan

Even so, if I have to hunt her down, I’ll have to put some restrictions on her outdoor time, something I really hope I don’t have to do.

The ideal situation is for her to never fully test the bars of her cage so she never has to know just how secure they are.

I’m afraid she’ll hate and resent me even more if she knows.

So I’m just trying to convince her that she doesn’t want to leave through various forms of bribery.

So she can have all the all-inclusive spa days she wants as far as I’m concerned.

I put my phone away because it’s rude. I’m having a sit down in an authentic family-owned Italian restaurant in a nearby city with a neighboring boss.

And when I say family-owned… I mean… Make you an offer you can’t refuse family.

Their territory has been encroaching on mine, and they thought because I was young that I’d be easy to intimidate and manipulate.

But I brought plenty of muscle with me. And Brian.

I’m relatively sure they can feel the waves of psycho rolling off me, but sometimes that’s not enough.

There are some people who will never take a boss seriously if he’s as young as I am.

It also doesn’t help that they think I’m “too pretty” to be in charge.

And even though I’ve made great efforts with my tattoos and the way I dress and move, and eyes so cold they can be made only through killing people…

sometimes age is the only thing that matters to these fools.

So I brought Brian, because my other option is shooting up this restaurant, and I doubt I could pull that off without going to prison.

They’ve reserved the entire back room for us. The wait staff are all Giovanni’s underlings, so they won’t talk. Even so, we keep it to small talk until we’re left alone with our food. Omerta or no, not everyone has earned the right to be in the big rooms.

The garlic bread is amazing, but I’m not about to tell Giovanni that.

It’s his grandmother’s recipe. And she got it from her mother who used to make it in Sicily before they came over on the boat.

I know this story because it’s printed on the menu.

Though maybe it’s just Betty Crocker, and they’re going for old world charm.

I mean, how unique can a garlic bread recipe really be?

“So what kind of a name is Stryker, anyway?” Giovanni asks even though I know he dealt with my father back in the day. And Uncle Martin.

“Were you dropped on your head? My company makes some of the best surveillance tech in the world.”

Brian kicks me under the table, and I glare at him.

“I don’t mean the front business, though it’s odd you don’t just go straight if you’re making that much money clean,” he says, eating a giant meatball in one bite.

“Who says it’s clean?” But I know what he’s asking.

He’s a purist snob, and in my short time as boss, it’s not the first time I’ve heard it.

You look Italian, but Stryker isn’t an Italian name.

Yeah, no shit. They all act like this is the first time I’ve heard about this.

I’m sure they didn’t fuck around with my father over it.

“So… Stryker…” he persists.

I roll my eyes. “It’s Dutch. Some ancient relative on my dad’s side.”

I’ve considered making up a backstory for this ancestor that keeps causing me all these underworld social problems—like a viking warrior—to shut these people up about it.

The only thing they respect more than names and lineage is efficient brutal violence.

Apparently tales of my own efficient brutal violence aren’t spreading fast enough to impress, which makes my hand itch for my gun.

Is there a situation in which I could make a big splash right now, end this kind of nonsense forever, and not go to prison for it? I doubt it.

Sloppy , Brian mouths silently at me like he knows what I’m thinking. And he probably does because he’s probably also thinking it. But he’s got more self-discipline than me. That’s the only way he’s got the kill count he has and no record.

“So… the Italian is on your mother’s side, then?”

I roll my eyes at this continued line of questioning. “No. She was Irish.”

He looks even more aghast at this. “Well, you don’t look it,” he says as though it’s a compliment. But I would give anything to look more like my mother and less like my piece-of-shit father. I can’t stand that every day I look in the mirror, I see the face of the man responsible for her death.

“None of this is related to the fact that you’re encroaching on my territory, and I don’t fucking like it,” I say.

Giovanni notices Brian for the first time. “And who are you?”

“Brian Sloan,” he says calmly, giving him a meaningful look.

Giovanni’s eyes widen, and I am so annoyed right now. Is he motherfucking kidding me? So Brian’s name gets respect, but mine doesn’t?

“ The Brian Sloan?” he asks, and I swear if this motherfucker asks for Brian’s autograph I’m killing everybody in this fucking building.

Brian shoots me a hard look because he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

“The one and only,” Brian says.

“Thought you were dead. Heard about a pretty big contract… what was it? It must have been twenty years ago now. Our worlds don’t collide that often but it was big news around here.”

Brian shrugs. “Death was boring, so I came back.”

Giovanni laughs at this, and I think these two might become best friends before we get to the tiramisu.

“Listen,” Brian says, “If I were you, I’d deal with Aidan just like any other boss. I wouldn’t be disrespecting him or his territory. I wouldn’t be underestimating him. I’d just be reasonable, and fair, and keep the boundaries clean and where they are.”

There’s a twinkle in Giovanni’s eyes as he leans back in his chair, amused. “Oh, yeah? And why is that?”

Brian’s expression hardens. “Because I trained him, and he will bring a war to you that you are not prepared for if you don’t.”

Giovanni turns and he looks at me… really looks at me for maybe the first time since we sat down.

And I can tell this time he doesn’t see a kid he can push around.

He finally sees what he should have had the self-preservation to see the moment we initially shook hands.

My killer’s eyes. And maybe he sees something that scares him even more than Brian…

the realization that I could be reckless.

Nobody likes a reckless boss. Anything could happen. It might motivate him to bring a war to my door himself just to maintain stability, but for now all he has to do is honor our previously drawn map and everything stays peaceful.

Finally he nods at me. “Mr. Stryker, I apologize. We don’t want trouble, but we don’t think our business dealings are truly competing with yours… and it’s not that far into your territory…”

I just stare at him, because one thing I learned from Brian is, the less you talk, the more it unnerves people.

Most people want to fill silences. Talk less and you’ll win most negotiations was one of the first things he told me when he started training me in earnest to take over my family’s business.

Giovanni, now properly motivated by the Great Brian Sloan at the table, rushes to fill the silence. “Perhaps we can move the line and I can give you 10% off the top of profits from that area.”

“Twenty,” I say, not blinking. He’s changed his tone and form of address, but he’s still just trying to placate me. He doesn’t think I know what I’m doing. He doesn’t think I can handle this. If Uncle Martin handled it, I can sure as shit handle it.

“Twenty is high. What about fifteen? I could do fifteen,” he says.

“You can do Twenty or you can fucking get out of my territory. Or we have that war Brian just mentioned. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that it’s going to take a big display of carnage to reach the kind of sane agreements we could otherwise reach peacefully if you weren’t going to treat me like a fucking child. ”

Giovanni raises his hands. “Okay, okay. You’re right. I’ve got enough on my plate right now with some family matters at home. My daughter just had a baby, and nobody wants a war right now. Twenty percent it is. For the business that happens in your territory.”

I nod. “I’ll be sending a guy every quarter to audit to make sure I’m getting paid right.”

“Of course,” he says. He says it like this is standard procedure, but at the same time, I bet he thought I wouldn’t be checking things, so he could just lie about the numbers and pay me ten… or less.

I stand up and reach across the table to shake his hand, and then Brian and I leave with our security detail behind us. Once outside, I instruct the team to go back home and not to follow us. They take the second SUV and head out.

“Am I going to have to babysit you everywhere you go?” Brian says when we get in the remaining car.

“Don’t start,” I say.

“I will fucking start. You wanted to kill everybody in that room, and I’m telling you, that’s not the way to survive in this world. He was just testing you. He’s heard rumors but he wanted to see how you handled yourself in person.”

I start up the car. “How do you know that?”

“I heard one of his guys talking when I went to the bathroom. They wanted to be sure the rumors weren’t just talk.

You’re going to be fine if you can hold it together and keep cool.

The reputation you’re building for yourself will walk into a room before you do…

just like how it is with me. But you have to be committed and never waver in the face you show them. ”

I want to argue because I’m so over this pseudo father figure nonsense.

“I thought you said this was going to take a few days. I cleared my schedule for you,” Brian says.

“Good because I’m taking out four people on the list that live out this way.”

“And you need help?” He doesn’t ask it in a judgmental way, more of a just to be clear kind of way.

“I want to handle the torture and kill myself. Don’t interfere. But I could use help planning some of the logistics on one of them, and disposal.”

He nods. “No problem. Mina isn’t expecting me back until the end of the week.”

I won’t be able to do my ritual after each kill.

I’m going to have to somehow “batch it” when I get back home.

The very idea of this is making me want to crawl out of my skin.

Even just the thought of not doing this “right” is making me feel like I’m about to have a panic attack.

I need Brian here to keep me steady and so I don’t fuck up and leave evidence behind. But I don’t tell him any of this.

If I’m being really honest, half the reason I was so on edge with Giovanni was thinking ahead to this whole situation.

I didn’t want to have to go out of town four different times to do this my standard way.

And I don’t know how I’m going to handle the ritual when I get home.

Am I destroying my ritual right now? It’s the only thing keeping me together.

It has to be done a certain way. And it’s all unraveling.

I haven’t even figured out who I’m confessing to, and what I’ll say.

Fuck, I should have saved Father Rossi for last, but the reception was such a convenient time and place.

I was never going to get an opportunity like that again.

If Brian knew I plan to keep going to confession after my kills even with Father Rossi gone, he’d rip me a whole new asshole.

I can’t let him know. He can’t know how deep all these compulsions run.

If he did, he’d think I was being more than just sloppy. He’d think I was suicidal.

“Where are we staying while we do this?” Brian asks, either not realizing my internal mental breakdown or choosing not to address it.

“The Four Seasons,” I say. “I got us adjoining rooms.”

He smiles. “I taught you well, kid.”