Chapter 10

Chapter

Ten

MILO

A rson took a while to make sure it didn't look like arson. I knew enough about setting fires to know I didn't know enough about making this work. Fortunately, Bodhi—a man of many talents—was not so similarly limited in scope.

"We don't have to make it look like it wasn't arson," he said. "In fact, we should make it look like someone set it deliberately."

"To distract," Mayhem said after a moment. "Focus everyone's attention on Wallace's enemies."

"Well they won't be lacking in that department," Adam said, raking a hand through his hair. His fists were bruised. They weren't broken open and bloody, but we'd need to make sure nothing of Wallace was left to match damage to his hands. "We need to be careful of one thing, however…"

"The coincidence of Harper dying in a plane crash and Dad dying in a blaze of glory at home?" Ezra's tone held the bitterest edge. Then who could blame him? While he may not have cornered the market on terrible fathers, he'd definitely suffered thanks to his.

For all that King had attempted to destroy me, I'd at least been spared his company most of the time. The fact that I'd had to endure seeing him day in and day out recently only reinforced my opinion that I didn't need or want Julius King or Jeff Hardigan or whatever he wanted to call himself in my life.

"So we make sure we make it look like what it is… an execution and cleaning up the mess." Sometimes, the best lies were the truth. "I don't care if they link it to Harper. Maybe they take a second look at the crash, but we keep everything else separate. Graham has enough enemies and the fact he just failed to honor an agreement with the Russians will only add to the suspect pool."

Expression taut, Ezra stared into the middle distance. "We need to make sure that while the authorities might get suspicious nothing links them back to Oksana's family."

"Agreed," Mayhem said. "We've already snipped off that thread, let's keep it that way."

"Electrical overload," I suggested and Bodhi nodded.

"It won't take out the temperature-controlled rooms downstairs, but that makes it look all the more authentic. They are on a separate system. Good thing we didn't kill all the guards yet. Smoke inhalation will also sell it."

Mayhem's expression shifted briefly at the mention of the guards that had survived so far. Only a handful would be allowed, the ones that could be absolutely trusted. None of the rest.

As much as straight up murder wasn't my favorite activity, if left alive they would be a threat to Mayhem. Not could but would. Men who were willing to work for someone like Wallace Graham and get dirty with him, would no doubt try to capitalize on their survival.

No, I didn't have to like murder, or in this case, preemptive defense, to agree to it immediately, I would not allow anything to come back at Mayhem. Not from the past.

We were over the past striking at her. My past. Adam's. Ezra's. Bodhi's—though I wasn't sure if anything from Bodhi's past survived long enough to even attempt a hit at her.

It didn't matter. We would take care of this.

"It'll take a minute to set up." Though I planned to defer to Bodhi, I considered everything we would need to pull this off. This wasn't my area of expertise. We would be better off if Kel were here. If I needed to get him on the phone so I could pick his mechanic's brain, I would.

"Agreed," Bodhi said and then he focused on Mayhem. I didn't even have to ask what he was thinking.

"I'll be fine," she said, eyeing both him and then me. "Tell me what I can do."

Go somewhere safe was at the top of my list. That said, I might not want her involved, but I liked the idea of her being out of reach a lot less.

Bodhi didn't appear to disagree, because he merely nodded before he glanced at Ezra and Adam. "Ezra, if there are any items you want specifically, go get them now. Milo, back him, Adam, you're with me and Lainey."

Once again splitting those three up. I got it. Ezra's expression tightened, but Ezra was a huge blindspot for Mayhem and Adam both. Bodhi would protect them, I would look after Ezra. When we got this shit wrapped up, they could work out the rest of their issues.

"Meet you in the main hall in ten." I was already giving Ezra a nudge toward the stairs. He frowned, but Mayhem just winked.

"The faster you go, the faster we get out of here. Besides, I'm learning all kinds of new things today."

A faint laugh with an underlining note of hysteria bubbled out of Ezra. "Kotyonok, I love you."

She grinned, her eyes lighting up. "Excellent. It means you are not remotely put off by my crazy."

I snorted even as Ezra shook his head, still chuckling.

"Let's go, Romeo," I said, giving Ezra another nudge. Mayhem caught my gaze and I shooed her away with a wink. "I got him, Mayhem. You keep those two in line."

"Done," she agreed almost too easily, but the relief in her voice said it was more for Ezra than anything else. They were so damn worried about him.

Time to work on the new cousin.

Cousin. That was still a strange thought.

Ezra picked up speed once we were away from Mayhem and I jogged up the steps behind him. The house was enormous. From the interior courtyard to the long marbled halls with their colonnade lined mezzanine that looked down into the courtyard and other areas of the downstairs.

It was strange, frankly, everything about the place felt foreign and old world. Yet, it was also gaudy in their choice of gold fixtures and the artwork. An obscene temple to wealth.

"You know," Ezra said as he pushed open a pair of doors into a suite that looked as clinically sterile as a place with overly dramatic decorations could look. It definitely didn't offer up anything of his personality. "I should have asked you about what you wanted to do."

"What I wanted to do about what?" I scanned the room as I moved from door to door. I had a gun in hand automatically, clearing the room just made sense. We had swept the place, but we'd also just been distracted with Graham senior.

"The house… Harrows Park," Ezra said as he pulled a bag out of the closet and then headed into his bedroom. Like the sitting room portion of his suite, there weren't a lot of personal items in here… at least not displayed.

He nudged something with his foot at the base of the bed and a panel slid open and a drawer came out. There were photos in there, a small bundle of notes, and a few other items.

Keepsakes. Mementos with emotional ties. Secreted away and not displayed.

"Better to not leave them where Dad or one of his spies could find them. I have a handful of spots. I moved it periodically, just safer for everyone that way." The last sentence ended on a sigh. "Not that it did much good in the end, I suppose."

I shrugged. "I get it. Growing up in the group home, we were careful about who we shared what precious few items we had and we guarded each other's with prejudice."

Ezra frowned as he lifted out the small packet of letters. No, not letters at least not all of them. Some were postcards. "I keep forgetting you grew up like that. I guess all of you did, except for Em."

"She would have," I admitted. "But when the Sharpes came looking, I thought their money and their affluence meant she wouldn't want for anything."

"I can't…" He frowned, the confusion evident in the way his brow tightened. "I can't picture them as offering any kind of comfort."

Shrugging, I holstered the gun and moved to stand guard at the door that looked out into the sitting room. "When you have nothing, you don't see the problem with having so much. You only see the benefits. I knew what it was like to go to bed hungry. I never wanted that for Ivy. Wealth—it seemed to offer a lot of those benefits with very little downside. Clearly, if you had money, you knew how to keep it."

"You don't really associate pretty perfumed people with the darkness all that glitz and glamor can hide." Not a question.

"Nope. My world was pretty basic. Good people. Bad people. Haves. Have nots. I've been on the far side of nothing for a long time. I value people. I value their time. I value their commitments and their loyalty. Those are worth a hell of a lot more than money." Like Mayhem. She was phenomenal all by herself. Her inheritance didn't interest me in the slightest beyond making sure no one bothered her.

"You're a poet, Milo," Ezra said as he stared down at some rock he'd pulled out of the drawer. "You look like a thug with all your tats, and like you belong with the rest of us thanks to that angelic face… but you're a poet. We would not have liked each other when we were younger."

"We didn't," I pointed out. "You and Adam were very intent on kicking my ass that first time we met."

His frown passed with a hint of fresh laughter. "Yeah, that didn't work out so well for us."

"Live and learn. Live and learn. I don't think you're such an ass now. I think you can be. I think you're a lot more than your money and your position in society—because neither of those things makes you happy."

The dark look on his face redoubled. "I don't know who I am without those things. I've spent my whole life disappointing my father and worrying my mother. Nothing I did ever seemed to be enough." He shook his head, closing his fingers around the stone before looking at me.

"Fuck ‘em," I said without missing a beat. "Shitty parents don't get the right to judge us. They had their opportunity. They failed. Not you." I shrugged. "Julius King is a walking, talking, piece of shit that thinks he hung the damn moon when all I will ever see is the man who walked out on my mother and baby sister. A man who wanted to punish me because I chose them over him. I don't give a rat's ass what he thinks about me."

"I wish it was that easy," Ezra admitted. "I wish…fuck, I don't know what I wish any more."

"Yeah you do, you're just afraid to look at the good stuff and see that it is good. You're braced for it to go bad. You're waiting for Mayhem and Adam to cut you loose. Or for me and Bodhi to kick you to the curb because you screw up. You're convinced you're going to—and I don't disagree. You'll fuck up."

Shock stamped its way across his face.

"But here's the thing, cousin ," I said, emphasizing that last word and punching it up. "Real family? They don't walk away because you fuck up. They don't let you chase them away. They might kick your ass, and they will definitely slap you upside the head if you take too long to get your head out of your own ass, but they don't abandon you."

I checked the time. It seemed a century and yet it hadn't been more than seven minutes since we came upstairs.

"You mean that," Ezra said, almost bewildered.

"I do. I told you once, I'll never let you hurt Mayhem. You've treated her badly, but you've also made up for it. You chose to suffer rather than let her get hurt. That matters. But you've also been hurt and it scared her. Scared Adam. That means you get to live with everyone being a little overprotective for a while."

"How long's a while?" He pocketed the rock then emptied the last few items from that drawer into his bag before he went to the dresser and popped out another secret hidey hole.

"Ten or fifteen years, I would imagine." The droll delivery pulled a real laugh from him. "Anyway, what were you saying earlier about asking me?" I hadn't forgotten.

"The house—Harrows Park. Technically, it should be part yours and Em's too. I mean, if my grandfather had ever claimed King beyond the private fund he gave him."

Wait… "Private fund?"

"Fuck, I knew I'd forgotten to tell you. I found out about it in some of Dad's old papers. Grandfather paid off King's mother, she was his mistress for years but he refused to acknowledge him. Just paid for everything." He zipped up the bag and slung it over his shoulder. "After he died, he left a codicil in his will that said if King were ever to sue for his name, he would lose everything. Every dime. Pretty ruthless. But King and Dad met at some point and became… friends I guess.

"At least until some other guy in the old Bay Ridge Royals chased King off. He was pretty vicious about it. So then King disappeared for a few years…and I guess he came back at the right time, Dad needed the help. King could do things he couldn't and well… you know how it goes."

Yeah, I did.

"Anyway, the house, the land—all of it. It should rightfully be half yours, half Em's…" He looked around the room. "There's actually some nice stuff, I suppose. The best art pieces are down in the vaults below, so not too worried about losing them and Dad's taste was pretty shitty."

"I really don't care about the house. I don't need some giant ass palace or pseudo mausoleum." Not that I'd tell Adam that, but the Reed place felt more like a crypt than a mansion. Lainey's grandfather's place had lots of personality but I was pretty sure that was Lainey and Leopold.

"You really don't care," Ezra said, amazement creeping into his voice.

"Nope," I said. "I'll earn my keep and do my work. This place? It's more a house of horrors for you. So burn it down, sell it, demolish it—and build something new in its place. But do what you need to do to heal."

"You do cousin real well," Ezra said after a minute. "Nicky says I suck at it, but I'm gonna get better."

"You're fine," I said. "Now let's go, we're going to be late and make Mayhem worry."

"She wants to know how to burn a house down and get rid of a corpse," Ezra actually chuckled at the end of that sentence. "Is that as attractive to you as it is to me? Or am I just warped?"

"Oh, you're warped," I assured him. "But it's really fucking attractive too."

Some of the weight seemed to leave him as we walked out of the bedroom and then the suite. He was abandoning a childhood that had abandoned him a long time before.

Frankly, it was a damn good thing. Burning this shit down felt right.