Page 1 of When Sinners Fear
CHAPTER ONE
KNOX
Money.
Strange fucking word really, when you think about it, and the more you say it, the less like a real word it sounds. Still, it is real. Especially to the likes of me. Shame this guy, who’s trying to get out of paying up his share of it, to me, is too dense to understand my point of view on the expressive nature of language.
He’s still talking, though.
“Poe,” he says. “You know we’ve been down on supply since Ortega has been here.”
True enough. Don’t care.
He looks tired as he gets up and goes to his safe, as if Lexi’s empire is starting to take its toll on his version of distribution. It is. Her reach goes straight through our borders now; she’s got a cheaper product given her cartel’s size compared to his, and, with the fine ass line of supply now I’ve helped her with, he hasn’t got a hope of competing with her.
“You still cross our borders, Ike.”
He gets a bag of cash out and puts it on the desk in front of me. “Yeah. That’s all I’ve got, though.”
I look at it. “Not how this works, Ike. You’ve been around us long enough to know that.”
“What do you want me to do? Magic it up from thin fucking air? It’s your goddamned family ruining me.”
A smile twitches at my mouth, and I shrug as I look sideways at the new version of my brother who’s come with me. He’s standing by the door, his back against it and a look of hatred shining through. “Maybe you need a reminder of hierarchy, Ike.” Kai’s face doesn’t change in any way. No smile. No deeper frown than is already there. He’s like stone. Nothing like Dante at all. He would have been itching to get off that door and kill something by now, but not Kai. Stoic. Still, no denying his ability to look threatening.
“I don’t need a goddamned reminder, Poe. I need some fucking leeway.”
I look back at Ike. “You need to back down, give up, or move somewhere else before I’m forced to make one, or all of the above, happen.” He sits and cools himself, an eventual sigh rattling through him as he looks at his desk. “Maybe go further south. Try fighting there. It won’t work here. I’m sure as hell not bartering about border prices ‘cause you can’t keep up with the going rate.”
His head rears up, anger coming back at me. “They’re your fucking rates. You let Ortega come here. What the fuck did you think would happen when you did that? None of us can cut it with her all over our ass.”
I stand and make a grab for the bag of notes. It’s light by at least forty thousand dollars, which means we’re shy of half, but I put it in my own bag. “We didn’t let her come here, Ike. We married her. She is us. Cortez. Watch your mouth.” He looks at Kai this time, probably waiting on a beating for disrespect. Normally a certainty, but not today. Today I’m in a good mood, regardless of this crap, and Kai has more cool than my brother ever did. “When can you get the rest to me?”
“I can’t, not until next month.”
“That’s not going to work for me.” Because the basic laws of economics suggest if he’s forty thousand down now, there’s no way in hell he’s going to be up an extra hundred thousand by next month. “Time to call it, Ike. You’re done. Our borders are closed.”
He stands. “Wait, listen–”
“No. Sit down before one of us makes you, or you get yourself in too deep. I’m giving you an out. Take it. We’ll deal with the extra money because you’ve been good, Ike. We’ve run well together, and you’ve been respectful. Let’s leave it on semi-friendly terms. You don’t want the other side of those terms. Your daughters sure as hell don’t.” His mouth opens, so I keep staring and wait because one more word or attempt, and I’m likely to start thinking about how much I can make out of two nearly sixteen-year-old twin virgins in the next few years. It’ll be a damn sight more than one hundred thousand dollars he now owes us.
That thought must catch up in his head because he does sit, and his glare finds the desk again rather than me.
“Good. We’re done here, then. Kai?” Asshole looks at me and sneers as if that fight we had about Mariana is nowhere near done. It isn’t. It might not be his fault Dante’s gone because of her screwing up his relationship, but I’d rather fight with him about it than I would her. “We're leaving.”
He opens the door, and we both fold out into the corridor as I pull my long coat on. There aren’t any further words from Ike,and I doubt there will be. He’ll follow the cord of command like he should, knowing all too well that I don’t need to physically make threats after all these years. They all know. Everyone. Maybe they aren’t scared of me alone, but I’m not alone – never have been.
Although, now Dante’s not here, they should be wary as hell. He was my counterpart – the flip side of me that kept me contained and checked somehow. He did all the shit, happily, so I didn’t have to. I hadn’t realised it before, but since he’s been gone, I’ve been more aggravated than ever. I feel it building throughout each day, like it’s brimming and bustling, ready to explode on anyone for anything. Not today, though. Today, I prefer gentlemanly. Or some guise of it.
“Why Poe?” Kai asks upfront.
I sneer at his shoulders moving, irritated that I’d need to explain. “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” He looks back at me, confused. “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
More confusion.
My eyes roll. “Poe?”
Nothing. But what did I expect?