Black Collar Beginnings: New York (Black Collar Syndicate) by AN Latro Read Free Book Online Page B

been mercilessly slaughtered, wiped from the city's books in a series of well-disguised and strategic hits. Anyone with a direct tie to that family's fronts is as good as dead. Retribution seems little more than routine on a day like this.
    “He didn't talk to me,” says Caleb, the taller, older brother who has no regard for the serenity of silence he destroys. The younger, Seth, looks questioningly to him, searching Caleb's blank mask for some explanation. He can't tell where his brother is looking and, for some reason, it makes him angry. “He didn't have any last words of wisdom for me,” Caleb says, face front, voice carefully neutral. He introspectively hits his cigarette.
    Seth gasps, unable to hide his raw emotions from his family after upholding his charade of 'dealing with it' all day. He had presumed, after the way they had woken him from dead sleep the night his dad died, and rushed him upstairs to speak to his father alone, that Caleb had already had his time with their dad. What Seth's brother is telling him now is that the scene didn't play out that way. His dad's last words play so differently with that change in perspective.
    Caleb watches the mud dripping from the mouth of the backhoe as it struggles against the waterlogged ground. He imagines the grave filling with rain before they can cover it, and all Gabe’s transgressions and guilt float to the surface. How many skeletons would that flood unearth? Mud to mud, that is all it comes down to in the end. “He didn't talk to Mikie, either,” he continues, battling against an irrational aggravation at his brother's innocence and surprise.
    Seth looks away, eyes unwittingly falling on the same sullied scene as Caleb's. What a fittingly messy tribute to a gruesomely mucked up circumstance. Slowly, deliberately, he answers, “He said that if you find yourself cold inside, you're not fit to be a king.”
    Seth can sense the tension take hold of Caleb. He can feel muscles pull and tighten beside him, though Caleb never moves. Seth recognizes the storm that takes his brother, he has seen it a thousand times. Caleb has always been chillingly good at hiding his feelings, but Seth knows them all as well as his own. Caleb is partly jealous, partly crushed that a birthright that should fall to the eldest son has instead gone to the younger. Seth looks back to the other, knowing without a doubt that Caleb can feel the attention. The cigarette burns unheeded. “Family is most important—”
    “Don't mock me!” Caleb cries. What is left of his cigarette snaps in his fingers. Ash scatters into the rain as he flings the pieces at the ground.
    Seth sighs. Maybe it is too soon to talk about it. Caleb only ever works at his own pace, and he hardly lets anyone in on his progress. Seth looks to his mud-covered shoes. “I love you, Caleb,” he says, voice barely audible over the hum of the heavy equipment.
    He sees Caleb in his periphery, watches him jerk his shades off to rub at his eyes with the back of hand. He hears him sigh, too. “I love you too, Seth,” he whispers, and fixes the sunglasses firmly back in place. Only then does he allow himself to glance at his sibling, who looks so much like his dad.
     

 
    Part One
    Coup de Main
     
     
     
    Chapter 1
     
    Louis Blues and Booze, New York City. January 19, 2013.
     
    He is sitting at the bar, drinking Gentleman Jack on the rocks. The bar is trimmed in neon yellow paled by frosty glass. His back is to her, but he knows she's there.
    She sits in a booth for two with vinyl seat covers the color of midnight. She wears a little black dress. She's sipping on a Manhattan, dry. Two more collect condensation beside her. She could be wasted, but she's not. She doesn't want charity drinks from men who want her number. She doesn't even see what they look like anymore when the cocktail server brings them.
    Seth can't help but overhear a group of guys his age debating why she hasn’t touched the drinks they bought for