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Lucian
Present day …
It’s not often that I venture out of the manor, but one thing I’ve learned from doing business with a crook: never let him see where you live. The ferry ride, plus hour and a half drive to Boston, is worth not having a scumbag like Franco Scarpinato step foot in the place where I sleep.
I sit on a bench at the end of McCorkle fishing pier, elbow kicked over the back, as I watch a young kid eyeing me. Beside him, an older guy, I’m guessing his father, hooks a worm on a fishing pole, holding it up in as if instruction, but the kid seems too focused on me to care.
The scars on my face tend to scare the younger ones, but the unwavering stare of this kid has me wondering what he’s seen, so much worse that he can look a monster square in the eyes without flinching.
I tug my cigarettes from my pocket, and that’s when his father grabs him by the jaw, giving a hard jerk toward the hook. The kid keeps his head cocked where his dad put it, only sliding his eyes toward me when the asshole goes back to baiting the line.
I light my smoke, thinking back to the one time my father took me on a chartered fishing trip, miles out from shore. The idea of floating out on the open sea with him was unsettling enough, but when I saw the liquor he packed away for the excursion, I wondered if it was worth the risk of him calling me a pansy for backing out. At no point was any part of the trip what I’d consider to be a happy memory, but there was a single moment, before he got too drunk, when he set his hand on my shoulder. He was introducing me to the captain of the boat, and for a fleeting second, I felt like any other son accompanying his father.
An hour later, the same hand that’d rested on my shoulder pushed me with enough force to knock me over the edge, into the water. He’d gotten trashed and belligerent, and it took three crew members to pull me aboard, while my father sobbed in the galley of the boat.
As I bobbed in the ice-cold waters with whatever the hell swam below the surface, my lifejacket tight around my throat, all I could think about was how good it felt to scare the shit out of him for once.
“You had to pick the last fucking bench on this pier, didn’t you?” Franco’s voice reminds me of something out of Goodfellas, a wa
At five-foot-five, Franco doesn’t seem like much of a threat, but considering his co
Unfortunately for him, I never really had what I’d call a healthy appreciation for the line that separates life from death, so I anticipate this meeting to go over like a porno mag at a Catholic school. Makaio waits within shooting distance, and Rand sits alongside him, probably ready to respectfully chide my ass when he finds out what actually went down. I’m not stupid enough to come alone, despite sitting here by myself.
“Thought it’d be quiet out here,” I say.
Franco plops down at the other end of the bench, lights up his own cigarette, and looks around the pier, no doubt gauging the proximity of ears that might be listening. “Sorry I’m late. Got some shit going down with one of my distributors who skipped town with about fifty grand worth of product.”
“Sounds like a management issue.”
“I had a bad feeling about this kid, but he was buddies with my best guy. Who’d have fuckin’ thought? Just goes to show, you can’t put in a good word for anyone these days.” Leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, he flicks his ash onto the deck. “So, we got a shipment coming in. Big. Over a mil, direct from Columbia. Your guy told me they loaded it on a container two days ago.”
For the last few years, his family has relied on my father’s shipping company to bring in pallets of cocaine straight out of South America, by offloading a few miles offshore and having local fishing fleets deliver and, in some cases, distribute the drugs, while offering a modest cut for our troubles. It’s a system that has existed below the radar, fortunately, but I believe a man’s luck only lasts so long.
I turn my attention toward the kid again, who stands holding the fishing line at the railing of the pier. Arms crossed, his father stands beside him, shaking his head like the kid’s doing something wrong. “This is the last job I’m ru
“What?”
On a sigh, I turn to face him and take another drag of my smoke. “You’ll have to find another company to run your shipments.”
With the usual Scarpinato theatrics, he throws himself back against the seat, then leans forward again, tossing his cigarette to the ground. “Are you fucking kidding me? Do you even realize what you’re saying right now?” Holding up a finger, he shakes his head when I open my mouth to answer. “I’ll give you a minute, because I think this fucking fresh air is messing with your brain.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing. You’re to find another company.”
“That’s not the way it works, Lucian. We’ve been partners a long time. You can’t just back out.”
I stretch my arms across the top of the bench and look out at the water. “It’s a big ocean, Franco. I’d hate for a million-dollars-worth of cocaine to get lost at the bottom of the sea somewhere.”
He shoots up off the bench. “Are you fucking nuts?”
As I turn to look up at him, the sun hits my face, and I’m forced to squint. “Depends on who you ask.”
“My uncle isn’t going to let you just walk away. As someone who’s known you a long time, I’m urging you to reconsider.”
“And I’m urging you to lower your voice.”
He looks around, as if he’s suddenly aware of the man and his son standing off from us. “This is big, Lucian. Bigger than you realize. You fuck with my family’s livelihood, it’s not going to end well for you.”
“I’m not out to fuck with your family’s livelihood. It’s no longer worth it to me.”
Plopping back down on the bench, he moves in closer. Too close. Asshole is about one hard shove from my personal space. “We’ll talk about a bigger cut. Is that what you want? More money?”
“No. I told you what I want. I’ll deliver this shipment, as promised. And we’ll part ways. Amicably. Seeing as we’ve known each other a long time, that’s not too much to ask, is it?”
Groaning, he strokes his hands over his head, like he intends to rub the hair right off his skull. “Look. I can’t go back to my uncle with this. He’s going to go ape-shit, and your face will be on every hitman’s shit-list in Boston.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a fact.”
I slide my arms down from the bench and rest them on my thighs as I lean in closer. “Well, since we’re sharing facts, let me offer one, as well. I have more money than the entire New England Mafia combined. Certainly more than your scrappy ass. If you even think of retaliating against me, know that I will seek out the most skilled hitmen in the world to hunt down every one of your family members, and your henchmen, and have your heads mounted on stakes as a lesson for why you should never fucking cross a Blackthorne again.”
Shaking his head, he backs away, eyes wide with what I surmise as disbelief and perhaps a small bit of fear. “You really are the Mad Son, you know that? You’re fucking crazy.”