Shattered Dynasty by Ava Harrison
26
Trent
Today is a shit day.
I went for a run, but that didn’t help.
Ever since I saw Henry and his son together, I’ve been off.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them, but my own wounds are still fresh and making it hard for me to concentrate.
Now, I’m fucking around on my computer.
Story of my life.
Work. Work. Work.
The only time I play is when I’m giving Payton a hard time.
I lock my gaze on the screen in front of me, but I swear the words are blurry as I stare.
I’m not looking at the numbers. I’m looking past the numbers. Basically, I am one hundred percent useless today.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t clear my thoughts.
I should answer emails, but I’m just not in the mood for anyone’s bullshit.
Instead, I close out the screen and open a new one.
Solitaire.
Yep, it’s that kind of day.
If one of my clients saw me right now, they would probably put out a hit on me. I’m supposed to be making them money, not fucking around on my computer, passing the time, because I have the motivation of a five-year-old asked to read a math book.
Just as I’m about to start the game, the door to my office swings open.
It’s not hard to guess who it could be.
Not many have the balls to roll up on my place without an invitation, which leaves Cyrus, my mother, or a pissed-off, straight-outta-the-underworld victim.
At first, I can’t tell who’s walking in, but when I look up from my computer, I instantly know.
Ding, ding, ding.
I’ll take pissed-off victims for five hundred, Alex.
Although I have never seen him in person, I am well aware that the man standing in front of me is Paul, the most recent recipient of my shady practices on the stock market.
The first thing I can tell as his feet stomp on my marble floors is that he isn’t happy. But I guess I wouldn’t be either if I lost hundreds of millions of dollars in one day.
That’s the consequence of pissing off one of my clients. I refrain from smiling. That action will get me a bullet in my head. I have to assume the only reason I don’t have one already is because security cameras are all over this place, and Paul is trying desperately to go legit.
When he stops moving, I inspect him.
He’s an older man, probably close to my father’s age, had my father lived. I’d guess late fifties or early sixties. His hair is salt and pepper, and his forehead is creased with lines. Crow’s feet edge his eyes, but it’s what’s under them that gives him away.
He’s barely hanging on after my attack. The dark hollows tell the tale of many sleepless nights.
Probably my doing.
Yet I can’t seem to find it in me to care.
“Paul, good to see you.” I meet his eyes.
“Oh, so you do know who I am,” he responds tersely.
“Of course. Your name precedes you.” Adding a little flair is certainly going to piss him off, but I’m beyond caring right now.
The dick isn’t going to kill me in my office.
“Or it could be the fact that you’ve chosen me as your enemy.”
I shrug, pressing start on my solitaire game. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, no?” he challenges, his face serious, his brow lifted.
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t.” I nod to the seat in front of me, not really looking, focused on matching up numbers and suits on the screen. “But if you’d like to take a seat, I have to assume you would like to invest with me.”
His hand hits my desk while the door opens again, and this time, security decides to step in. I make a mental note to figure out why Paul was able to get this far. To figure out whether my security officers need to be changed.
“Do you need me to escort him out, sir?”
“Give us a minute,” I say to the guard before continuing back to Paul, finally looking away from the solitaire game. “Now that you have my undivided attention, why don’t you get to the point, seeing as you’ve made it very clear you’re not here to invest?”
“Cut the shit, Aldridge. You know why I’m here.”
“Spit it out. I don’t have all day, I’m busy.”
Busy playing solitaire.
But I don’t say that.
Instead, I pretend that I’m looking over something important.
He rounds the table and moves closer as though his presence will rattle me.
It doesn’t.
“I know what you did,” he seethes out.
“I do a lot of things. You’re going to need to be specific with me.”
Leaning back in my chair, I make myself comfy. He wants to intimidate me. I’ll show him he can’t.
“You tampered with my product!”
“Your product?” I offer a small shake of my head. “Oh, you mean your special sauce. I heard about that ordeal. Sounds like you got screwed. Sorry. Can’t say that I tampered with anything. Plus, I don’t eat your shit. I’m more of a Rao’s guy myself.”
There is no missing how his hands clench.
“I don’t know how you did it, but you fucked with my report.”
I tsk. “Again, that sounds like something highly illegal, and I am simply a man who likes to invest. I wouldn’t know the first thing about tampering with a recipe.”
“I don’t think you were the one to tamper with it.”
Another step closer.
“Isn’t that what you just said?” I tsk again. This one says, you’ve lost it, dude. “Paul—I can call you Paul, right?” A vein on his forehead pulses. I ignore it. “I think you’re confusing me with someone else. I said I wouldn’t know what to do, and you agree.” I turn to the guards hovering by the door and lift a brow. “Right?”
One of them nods, and Paul is straight-up seconds from losing his shit.
“Fine. Maybe it wasn’t you.” And another step. “But Lorenzo tampered with the sauce, and you shorted my stock.”
“Do you have any proof of this supposed plot . . .” I trail off because if he had anything, he wouldn’t be here, and I would already be in jail.
I spare a glance down at the floor.
Dad, you could have had company.
Paul’s fists land on his hips. “Of course, I don’t have any proof.”
“Slandering is beneath you, Paulie.” I shake my head. “I would leave before I have to throw you out.”
“I know it was you.” He points a finger at me. “I know it was Lorenzo. I know it was all you guys and your idiot friends making money off my back.”
“I don’t get involved in this type of shit. I can’t imagine that Lorenzo is your only enemy. However, that being said, you have no proof, so you should keep your mouth shut.”
And he’s finally around the desk, right in front of my face. “I don’t need proof to go after you.”
I lift a casual hand, stopping my guards from spurring into action. “Is that a threat?”
“No, Aldridge, it’s a promise.”
I lean forward, placing my elbows on my arm rests and leveling him with my stare.
“Your time here is up, Paul.”
Lifting my hand, I signal the security guards to take him away. He sees them approaching him right before he spots the solitaire game on my desktop. He lunges for me, but I casually kick my chair to the side and watch as he loses his footing, toppling to the wooden planks.
“Oooh.” I fake a wince. “You scratched my floors. That’s African Blackwood. Expensive stuff to replace. Tell you what,” I say as the guards flank either side of him. “Since I’m sure you can’t afford it at the moment, I can put you on a payment plan.”
Paul lunges for me again. I make sure he’s on camera, clear as day. This is great evidence, should I need it.
The guards stop him just before he reaches me.
Shame.
A bit of blood and a bribe would’ve done the trick, landing him in jail.
The guards grip either side of his arms tight.
He shrugs them off and points at me again. “I will come after you. I will come after all of you. I will find the things you care about, and I will dismantle them the same way you dismantled my company.”
My security guards lead him out.
Once, not so long ago, he had power.
Then Matteo and Lorenzo squashed him like a bug.
A part of me feels bad. After all, he was trying to go legit. But a bigger part knows he’s full of shit.
Like most of my clients, men like him might say they are trying to go legit, but it’s really a front.
Take Tobias, for example. No way will he ever really be out of the game.
Look at Alaric, Matteo, and Cyrus. They’re married and starting families of their own. They still get involved with illegal shit all the time, even if they technically aren’t working in the same capacity anymore.
Pulling out my cell, I call my brother-in-law.
He answers on the first ring.
“What?” the prick says.
“Hello to you, too, Cyrus.”
“I’m busy, Trent.” He sighs. “Unless this is important—”
“It is,” I cut him off.
My relation to his wife is the only reason he allows me this luxury of speaking back to him and keeping my life.
“Speak.”
“Paul was here. He’s on to us. He knows we shorted his stock.” Standing from my desk, I begin to move to the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“How?”
I take in the city. As if New York will have the answers I need.
“Not sure.”
He groans, clearly annoyed by this new information. “I thought you handled this.”
“I did. I bought everything with our offshore accounts. It’s not traceable.”
The line is silent.
Cyrus is probably thinking about what I said.
Finally, he says, “Well, obviously, it is.”
I nod despite him not being able to see me. “That’s for sure.”
“Tell me what he said.”
“He said he knows everything.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Yes.” I know his next question will be how, so I beat him to it. “Honestly, I don’t think it stems from my office. The shorting of the stock is pretty obvious if you know who tampered. If he thinks it’s Lorenzo and has proof of it, it’s not a far jump to make the conclusion that the men in charge of Lorenzo’s finances shorted the stock.”
And that unlucky fucker is me.
“We need to tell Lorenzo and Tobias someone spoke within their ranks,” Cyrus says.
“Yep.”
“Fuck!”
The sound of a glass hitting a table echoes through the line.
“Exactly.”
“There’s a traitor in their house.”
Not a question. A statement.
“Seems that way.”
“Talk to Lorenzo. I’ll speak to Tobias.” There’s a pause as he talks to someone. My sister. He assures her it’s okay, even though we’ve just made her life a hell of a lot more dangerous. “Make sure nothing is traceable,” he orders, returning to our conversation once Ivy leaves. “He can speculate all he wants. As long as it doesn’t trace it back to us, it will be fine.”
He hangs up, and now I have to make a phone call I dread.
Lorenzo Amanté is not a friend. He’s a client who I took on after Matteo Amanté stepped down from his role in the family business.
His role being straight out of The Godfather.
The man ran the whole mafia.
But after Matteo stepped down, his cousin Lorenzo took his place.
Now he runs the whole fucking show while Matteo runs the legitimate side of things.
I can barely believe that this is where my life went after what my father did, but I don’t regret it.
I like the power.
Even if it comes with scary motherfuckers on speed dial.
I hit the call button and wait for Lorenzo to answer.
“Aldridge.”
“I need to see you.”
We’re a lovely bunch, us two. Full of manners and good vibes.
“Well, that sounds ominous,” he clips out, and I think I hear a muffled gunshot in the background before he returns to the conversation at hand. “Did you lose all my money? Because if you did—”
“I know. I know. You won’t be happy,” I taunt, knowing full well he would probably cut off my hands if that happened.
“Understatement of the year. I’d be lethal.” His comment would be funny if it weren’t accurate. Death would be too easy for the man or woman who stole from this man.
“Got it. No. The money’s still there.”
My mouth twitches with amusement. This is one sick fucker. I’m happy to have him on my side.
“So, spit it out.” His voice is the usual cool tone that I’ve grown used to over the past few years since Matteo introduced us.
“I’ll tell you in person,” I say to him.
“Even more ominous.”
He laughs, figures he would―again, sick as fuck. The sketchier or more dangerous a situation is, the more entertained Lorenzo is.
“When are you free?”
“Tonight. Seven. Meet me at the dock.”
He doesn’t have to tell me which dock he means. It’s the main one they have been using ever since they switched locations after that shit went down with Salvatore, Matteo, and Lorenzo’s cousin.
“I’ll be there.”
I hang up first. Looking down at my watch, I see it’s only four, which means I can’t go home first.
It’s fine.
There is plenty of work for me to do before I make this meeting. When I add in the commute, I don’t have that much time at all.
I pick up my phone and dial Gail’s number, calling to inform her of the list of chores I want Payton to do. I honestly don’t give a crap what she does. My house is spotless, but I like to keep her on her feet. So, tonight, instead of the gym or my bathroom, I’m going to have her redo my pantry.
It’s not a nice task to thrust upon her.
Chef will be pissed.
I’ll tell Gail to skip on the laundry and let Payton do that, too.
Yep.
Gail can throw in some extra towels and sheets for good measure. Maybe I’ll tell her to make them extra dirty beforehand. Spill some ketchup on it or something. That thought makes me smile.
With a shake of my head, I focus my attention back on the call. Gail isn’t happy with my tasks. She’s officially joined the dark side. Actually, for a second, her change in loyalties makes me consider the possibility that my side is the dark side.
But I push that thought out and hang up the call.
I stare at the computer screen in front of me.
My fingers hit the keyboard. The tapping drowns out everything else.
I spend the next few hours researching companies I think would be a good investment.
Then when it’s time, I get up, head to my car parked under the building, and leave to meet Lorenzo. I trust my men, as I hired them all from Jax, but you never can be too careful. After all, they let Paul past them earlier.
Traffic is a bitch today, and it takes a good forty-five minutes for me to get out of the city. When I’m pulling onto the docks, it looks to be in its usual abandoned state, but I know better.
I pull up, shut the car off, and get out.
Heading inside, I throw open the heavy metal door. In the corner, I can see that they have a massive shipment a few men are currently going through. I imagine it’s one of Tobias’s shipments of pills.
He’s trying to get out.
Well, he’s gotten out of most.
No longer selling cocaine or heroin, the only thing he still has his hands in is Molly.
I imagine, by the time next year comes, he’ll be fully out.
Or that’s the hope, at least.
Like I said, no one really leaves.
Since he knows I’m coming, Lorenzo is already waiting for me. He’s sitting at the table, a tumbler of scotch in his hands.
I walk over to him, take a seat, and reach for the glass he left for me to use, pouring myself a few fingers.
“Well,” he drawls, leaning back, “since you reached for that drink pretty fast, I have to imagine this isn’t something good.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure what this is,” I admit with a sigh.
“Talk.”
“Is there anything that can lead Paul to the tampering?” I ask. Point blank.
It’s probably not a smart question to ask Lorenzo, seeing as he can easily kill me and find someone else to invest his money for him, but I ask anyway.
Glutton for punishment and all.
“There are no loose ends,” Lorenzo responds, brushing the offensive accusation off with a sip of his scotch.
“Are you sure?”
“Really, pretty boy? Do you want to question me?” He laughs.
There’s no question I think Lorenzo likes me, but that doesn’t mean he appreciates me questioning him.
“Well, someone said something to him.” I shrug.
“What do you mean?”
“I had a visit.”
“From Paul?”
I nod at his question.
“Interesting,” he says, leaning forward in his chair. “Go on.”
“He accused me of not only shorting his stock but also of tampering with his product to short his stock.”
“Wow.” His head bobs up and down. “I’m impressed.”
“Yet I’m not,” I fire back, setting aside my glass because I need to keep my wits. “This was never supposed to get out. How does he know? Who spoke?”
“None of my men said shit.” His tone has lost all sense of humor. Now it’s replaced with an edge to it. Cold and direct.
“Okay, well, it had to be someone,” I respond, trying to tone down the accusation in my voice.
No part of me wants to get killed today. But the way Lorenzo has narrowed his eyes, I’ve done nothing to calm him.
“Are you questioning the people I work with, Trent?” he bites out as a vein throbs on his temple.
Two choices present themselves to me at this moment. Stand my ground. Sure, I might get stabbed. But the other option is to backpedal like a son of a bitch and risk losing his respect forever.
Is my pride worth it?
I decide that it is, mostly because ego is vital in my industry. My clients need to see me as the cocky son of a bitch who’s so skilled, his confidence cannot be breached. Lucky for them, I’m a special type of full-of-myself.
“I’m saying I said nothing. We covered all the tracks on my end,” I say, choosing to stand up to him.
Time will tell if it was a mistake.
Lorenzo stares at me for a minute. Lines form on his forehead. He’s assessing me, but he smiles. Not one that says he’s about to gut me either, which is nice.
“That might be so,” he allows, “but let’s be honest here, Trent. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know it was me, and if it points at me, it points back to you.”
He has a point.
“You’re right.”
“Is that all you got? Or did you have something else to talk about?”
“Nope, that’s it. I just wanted to double-check that there were no loose ends.”
He lifts his glass, takes a swig, and places it back down. “There are never loose ends.”
“Do I even want to know what you did?”
“Haven’t you figured out by now that you never want to ask me that question? No one is talking, Trent. Anyone who was involved, anyone that could have been a possible liability, is in the ground. You got me?”
He winks.
A fucking wink.
Shit.
“I got you.”
“Good.” He slides my glass back toward my hand, and it slams into my palm with more force than necessary. “Now, let’s drink and forget this shit. It’s been a shit day, and I need to get drunk.”
My fingers curve around the scotch. “I’m driving.”
“Stop being a pussy and get drunk with me.”
And seeing as that wasn’t a question, I decide to say fuck it.
I grab the decanter and pour myself another.
This is going to be a long night.