Chapter Three

After smoking the whole blunt to calm my shit to the point I can face my fuckup, I mimic a progress report under the bird who’s been on Cecelia’s detail for years on the off-chance Tobias checks in. Reasoning with myself that it’s the only way to keep my brother’s focus where it needs to be, I shake off the accompanying unease as I hit send. Pushing away from my desk, I stalk downstairs and am caught halfway by Jeremy making his way up with one of his regular girls in tow.

“Sean’s room, motherfucker,” I warn as he flashes a buzzed smile while sweeping his conquest past me. Spotting me as they brush by, I ignore her drawn-out stare and any others I attract as I cross the living room toward the sliding glass door.

In the next instant, I’m surrounded by bass and mixed smells of smoke wafting through a once-familiar crowd—people I grew up with, who now feel more like strangers to me. Mixed greetings die on their collective tongues with one glance in my direction, and I’m thankful for it. It should bother me that I instill that hesitance, but I prefer it.

When I first arrived home from MIT, I found myself in the position to defend my place amongst some of the inked due to my four-year absence, despite my summers spent at home. That lasted a matter of days because I made it so. It had nothing to do with flexing but an obstacle in the way of getting to what’s important, which brings me back to the matter at hand—my current hindrance. Scanning the yard, with a few twists of heads and moving bodies, I catch sight of the interloper standing next to Sean, their posture intimate.

As if she feels my summons, she turns her head, and our eyes collide. The second it happens, an odd premonition runs through me as a whisper snakes its way into my psyche. Shaking it off, I stalk toward her and enter her personal space, refusing to mince intent with useless words. Sean’s attempt at interception does shit to dissuade me from making my point, and before uttering a word, she already knows her place with me.

Our sparring begins and ends with a brief back and forth in which I make it a point to embarrass her. It’s only when I make it crystal that she’s not only uninvited but unwanted that she drunkenly acquiesces. “Whatever, I’ll go.”

Turning to head back inside, she grips my forearm to stop me. Her invasive touch feels like a burn as I resist the urge to rip my arm away while whipping my head in her direction. Defiant dark blue eyes—matching those of my enemy—clash with mine while she downs the rest of her bottle before dropping it at my feet. “Oops.”

It’s then that my mission runs with clarity through my veins as we continue to stare off. As it happens, a slight remorse brews because she’s completely unaware of the threat she poses.

Tyler was only partially right in his assessment but missed something vital.

Her beauty is fucking tragic.

If her presence here so much as alters any small part of the ground plan that has to roll out in the next few months, I’ll have no issue doing whatever it takes to erase her from the equation.

Just as the thought crosses my mind, she ends her tirade, intent on having the last word. “You know, you could say it was nice to meet me. You are kicking me out of your party. It’s the polite thing to do.”

“Never been accused of being polite.”

“It’s common decency, arsehole.”

The feel of her fingers wrapped around my forearm begins to gnaw away the last of my patience. Sean reads my rapidly changing demeanor, cursing before scooping her over his shoulder. His eyes linger heavily on my profile for some acknowledgment while mine remain locked on Roman’s daughter.

“And what a pretty arsehole you are,” she slurs out. Laughter spills out around us, cutting through some of the thick tension, and despite myself, I can’t help the slight upturn of my lips in response. That is until she makes her last declaration. “I am trouble, you know . . . just ask your brother.”

Dangling over Sean’s shoulder, she keeps her steady gaze on me as Sean hauls her through the sliding glass door to protect her from getting the worst of me. When she’s out of sight, Tyler sidles up to me, putting voice to the question we both already know the answer to. “What was he thinking?”

“That he’ll get his dick wet while convincing us he’s doing us a solid,” I clip out, staring in the direction Sean fled.

“And no one thought to tell him otherwise?”

“We did,” I glance over at Tyler. “He just wasn’t paying attention.”

Tyler’s wheels begin to turn as I recall a long-ago conversation that took place next to a roaring campfire when we were just teenagers. A night that is—or should be—easily accessible to all of us, verbatim, because it’s the night we truly began.

“We’re going basic with our strategy,” Tobias relays, staring thoughtfully into the flames.

“Meaning?” Tyler asks.

“We’ve got to play this just right. The only way to defeat a man like Roman is to play sleeping giant,” my brother replies in a tone that has us all perking up.

“Think Helen of Troy,” I offer, reading his line of thought and knowing all of us are well-versed in the Greek myth thanks to Mrs. Green’s annual eighth-grade lesson.

In the story, Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Mycenaean Sparta, was seduced and stolen by Paris, Prince of Troy, and remained with him, which sparked a ten-year war. My point in bringing it up has nothing to do with the love story but the tactic used by way of the Trojan Horse. Greek soldiers were able to gain access and take the city of Troy after a fruitless ten-year siege by hiding in a giant horse supposedly left as an offering to the goddess Athena. By using the same type of tactic, we could take methodical, measured steps to get to Roman.

Instead of rehashing that, I put a voice to my less complicated solution. “But it seems like a lot of trouble to go through when we can just eliminate the problem.”

My brother’s reaction is predictable and instant, a rare fear in his eyes as he weighs my words while assessing me. Saying it out loud forces him to acknowledge the side of me he’s been getting glimpses of but fears out of paternal concern. A side of me he’s terrified exists because it means, at one point, it will put me in the line of fire, where I fully intend to be. He speaks his objection a breath later. “I know you’re not fucking suggesting we kill the man in cold—”

“Eye for an eye.” I shrug. “Our parents burned to death. Don’t you think that calls for aggressive action? You, yourself, told Delphine you were sick of all the talk. The meetings are a joke, filled with nothing but pussies who like to bitch while she refills their coffee. Might as well be a book club for all the fucking good it’s doing.”

Taking it a step further, I lay out my simplified plan. “You know, if we boil down enough tobacco and dab the right amount of concentrate on his fucking car door handle, within minutes of it seeping into his skin, it’s game over. Heart attack on the autopsy report. Presented with the right opportunity, it’s a hundred percent untraceable.”

Though shrouded by the woods, there’s just enough firelight to make out the color draining from his face as he speaks in both alarm and warning. “He’s not a smoker, so there’s the first hole in that stupid idea, and that’s not who we are,” he grits out, “and not who we will be, Dom. That’s not what Maman and Papa wanted. There is a better, more diplomatic way to handle this, less merciful than death.” He gives me an adamant shake of his head. “No, what we’re going to do is change things for the better. Once we take Roman down, there’s a hundred like him to take his place. They exploit people like our parents and discard them once they become a liability.” He looks at each one of us pointedly. “What are we going to do about them?”

“Not our problem,” Sean says from where he rocks in his camping chair in his football jersey, beer in hand, high lingering from the pep rally.

“We’re going to make it our problem,” Tobias declares, “that’s the whole point of all of this. It’s not just about our family or this town. Not anymore.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turns and stares in the direction of the newly-erected construction of Roman’s house—a mere length of a football field away from our spot—his voice in a faraway place when he adds, “we’re going to do this in a way that will honor them.”

Sean pops another beer as he puts in his two cents. “This seems ambitious. I mean, come on, man. Look at where we’re at—bumfuck nowhere.”

“That’s exactly the point.” Sean’s focus flits to me because of the amount of bite in my tone. He’s still straddling realms, living in the created world and the one Tobias has envisioned and wants us to help re-create. Despite my warnings that Tobias isn’t going to take us seriously if we don’t step up, Sean’s under the impression we’re already in due to relation. He has no idea just how wrong he is in that respect.

“You want to end up just another line cook at Daddy’s restaurant?” I remind him. “What’s going to happen when they call in that bank loan?”

Sean’s eyes flare, but he remains quiet, picking at his beer label as I turn and fix my gaze on Tyler, whose situation is just as grim. “Are you going to be a career soldier?”

Tyler glares over at me, his father’s fate his own worse fear.

The truth is, none of us wants to trace the footfalls or repeat the fate of our parents. While Tobias and I have suffered greatly, our brothers haven’t been much more fortunate. Tyler’s endured the worst by way of remnants of his father, who left US soil as one man and came back another. Sean’s in the midst of witnessing the toll it’s taking on his parents just to keep their restaurant running and collective heads above water.

Their fear of repeating a similar path is one of the main reasons why Tobias has our attention—but he’s given us plenty of others. He was the first to break the small-town mindset chain and get out. The not-so-subtle changes in him during his trips back are what’s kept their curiosity stoked. I satiated mine by digging into why my brother’s more relaxed demeanor started to disappear over a short time.

This made me more determined to ditch any ritualistic teenage bullshit and man up before I was expected to. Not that I had much of a choice or that he’s noticed.

“This is exactly why we’re here,” Tobias asserts, “to get our priorities straight.”

“My priorities are perfect,” Sean lifts his hands and begins to tick off his fingers to spite us both. “Pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy, and . . .” he holds a finger on his thumb, “yup, I’m going to have to go with pussy.”

I laugh despite my annoyance with Sean as Tobias’s eyes flare in warning. “This is another reason why I called this meeting. You want a girlfriend? Have one, but pillow talk and this fucking club are never to go hand in hand. What the other birds do is not my business, but as far as we are concerned, women don’t have a place at this fire, not yet. And not until they are vetted by me personally. End of.”

“I thought you said women are a sanctuary.” Sean snarks, testing Tobias again before sipping his beer.

“They are,” Tobias spits, “away from business. Personal attachments are the greatest liability. And the first one who fucks up on that front will pay dire consequences.” He again looks to each of us in an attempt to drive his point home before adding, “no fucking exceptions.”

As the conversation progresses, I try to diffuse the tension that continually rears its ugly head as we all snap back and forth. The resentment for Tobias’s long absences only to come back calling shots has him getting twice as much venom as he’s giving. I can barely conceal my own grudge, especially when my aunt’s drinking is tossed into the mix.

“So, if I’m getting this right,” Tyler diverts, posture rigid, “we need a wooden horse to recruit an army to hide inside it and the opportunity to slip into the city.”

Tobias dips his chin in confirmation.

“I’m going to be a third-generation Marine,” Tyler declares, which is no surprise to any of us. “It’s a given, and if there’s one thing I know how to do—it’s how to build an army.”

Sean speaks up next, putting his petulant bullshit aside. “Me and Dom will cover the garage, and once it’s up and running, I’ll figure out a way to get us through the gate.” He ruffles my hair, and I slap his hand away as he finishes, “and we all know this asshole’s going to Harvard or Yale or some shit.”

“Guess that makes you the horse,” I clip to my brother.

“No, little brother,” he counters as we stare off, our tension much harder to ignore due to our earlier fight. Mostly because he refuses to let me join him in France and thinks I’m blind to what he’s started in Paris. Of the company he keeps and the constant danger he’s putting himself in.

“You’re the horse,” he declares as he looks between the three of us, “as of this moment, I no longer exist.”

After hashing out a little more strategy, I join my brother, who stands a few feet from the fire.

“What about Helen?” He stares back at me with unguarded surprise.

Until minutes ago, I was his gifted teenage brother and a tool capable of getting him out of tight situations along with doing recon that helps him gain ground where he needs it. To him, I’m supposed to be satisfied with the breadcrumbs he selectively decides to feed me while he keeps me a safe distance from his overseas dealings. At this point, I’m keeping my own secrets and choosing when and how I reveal them.

My crumb of knowledge about Cecelia is minor in comparison to the extent of what I’ve made it my business to know. Like Tobias, I saw her today, an innocent, young tender, with rebellion clear in her eyes as she shoved a book down her pants to spite Roman. His instilled bigotry apparent as he glanced around the library as if the walls were splattered with shit.

Staring back at me, Tobias speaks up in both order and warning that we aren’t going there when it comes to Roman’s familial ties, and knowing my brother, never will. “We’re leaving Helen out of it.”

Tyler stands next to me nearly a decade later in quiet contemplation as the party continues to bustle around us, our gazes in the direction where Sean fled with Cecelia in tow before I glance over at him. Within seconds, I see the recognition, his memory just as long and sharp as mine, his hearing . . . supernatural and the highest card he has to play—which he does, regularly. He proves it as he speaks up, dread in his tone as he pinpoints it perfectly by voicing an ironic, specific warning. “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” He runs a palm down his jaw as he glances over at me. “Jesus Christ. Helen just fucking landed in Triple Falls.”

Therein lies the tragedy.

Helen’s story didn’t end well for her, or anyone else for that matter.

Tobias’s warning rings sharp in my mind for the first time since that conversation because I felt the buzz start the second I locked eyes with Cecelia—and still feel it lingering. Knowing Sean’s reason for bringing her in without him trying to justify it, there’s no fucking way I’m looking this gift horse in the mouth—or anywhere else for that matter—because I know without a doubt if Cecelia has a part to play in this, it won’t end well for any of us.

“What’s your call?” Tyler prompts.

“Have everyone at the garage in twenty.”

She’s in it now, brother.