Page 1 of Mason

Mason

Sitting around doing nothing with a full stomach is the shit I daydream about while running jobs. Grady always paces, eager to get out of the house and back into the action, but I cherish the time. We’re technically working, but it’s nice to relax, even if we’re ready to blow a motherfucker’s head off at a moment’s notice.

My parents’ old Victorian offers a rare respite from reality. It’s almost as if we’re normalwithin its walls, just a family enjoying one another’s company—not a band of smugglers with blood on our hands.

Dad arrives at 11:00 AM sharp, never one to deviate from schedule. He kisses Mom hard on the mouth before heading to the study, Grady and I following as Paulie and Leo take over our posts in the living room. The pair usually run security at the house, but for meets, they travel with Dad.

“Anthony Giambelli is a greedy son of a bitch.” Dad doesn’t wait for the door to shut entirely before spewing the words. He shrugs out of his jacket and throws it in the general direction of the coat rack. It lands on the leather loveseat instead before sliding to the floor. “He won’t stop until he owns the entire tristate.”

“Get him his medicine,” I order, my eyes flicking to Grady, who stands closest to the liquor cabinet. We have a sliver of time to work with before he’s too far gone.

“I take it the meeting didn’t go well?” Grady cocks a brow at Dad while opening a fresh bottle of Eagle Rare.

“Fuck no. That cocksucker is relentless. He’s too goddamn grabby.” Dad plops into his chair behind the desk, a scowl deepening the craters in his face. He looks a hell of a lot older than fifty-eight with wrinkled skin and mostly silver hair, only a few strands of dark gold remaining. Hopefully Spencer’s got his beauty regimen ironed out. Otherwise Pretty Boy might be in for a rude awakening once he takes over. “You know that fucker’s got black eyes, right? Soulless. Dead. No life to ‘em.”

Anthony is the head of the Giambelli family, an Italian crew we’ve never seen eye to eye with—mainly because we don’t allow selling underage skin on our turf. Maintaining a healthy distance is always the chosen route, but with the government squeeze coming from all sides thanks to sloppy Russian drug running, the Mississippi gulf is a pressure pot forcing us within biting distance of one another.

“No explanation of why I ran off five of his men at the docks last week?” I ask, gesturing for Grady to hurry with the drink.

If Giambelli’s crew keeps up their shit, the wrong person will start shooting, and the result won’t be pretty for either side. We’re strong, but not enough to withstand an all-out war with the Giambellis. Anthony has money and men out the ass. Not to mention half of the police in his pocket and even more politicians from here to DC.

Dad shakes his head and accepts the drink from Grady, downing it like water. “That asshole is up to something. It’s too convenient that he wanted to have a check-in with all the bullshit going on. I’m not offering any more passes to that prick. The next bastard snooping around gets a bullet to the knee.”

I lean against the door and cross my arms, the .357 snub nose hard in its shoulder holster beneath. “Giambelli’s never given a rat’s ass about our business, so why is he poking around now? He’s got plenty of shit to keep him busy.”

The Giambellis usually stick to the prettier parts of the city that suit their business model, where gambling, corruption, and money laundering flourish. Biloxi. Jackson. The outlying casinos.

“He’s power-hungry,” Dad snarls. “He’s always quick to jump into everyone else’s shit. The Kozlov assholes crept in with their dope and hookers, and we let them slide to keep the peace. The greedy fuck wants in too.”

Letting them slide isn’t exactly true. We receive reimbursement from the Russians, though I’d prefer to go without it and not have needles littering our streets. But it’s Dad’s call, not mine.

“Did you tell him to fuck off?” Grady asks, reaching into his coat pocket to grab a pack of smokes.

“We have an understanding.” Dad lights a cigar before extending the lighter toward Grady, who lights up. “But that doesn’t mean shit. That bastard sold his own daughter’s pussy for port access.”

Grady coughs back a laugh as he pulls away and takes a drag from his cigarette. “Well, Dad, Anna wasn’t exactly worth much. He made out like a bandit with the trade.”

I grin, dipping to the side to avoid a direct hit of Grady’s smoke. “Come on, Grady, you wouldn’t have a go?”

His face twists in disgust with his cigarette dangling from his lips. “She’s practically Anthony with tits and heels.”

Dad raises a brow. “Have we ever seen them together in the same place? Maybe he moonlights asAnna to give the Russians some competition.”

The two Carlyles roar with laughter, but unease permeates through me.

Something bighad to come from the meeting of two patriarchs. Otherwise, it’d be a waste, and Dad wastes nothing. “Have you heard anything from the docks?”

Dad shakes his head. “Business as usual. No fucks creeping around overnight either. They have orders to shoot on sight. Not to kill, but maim. I want Giambelli to see what happens when you fuck with me.”

Son of a bitch.

“Fuck that—shoot to kill!” Grady exhales a cloud with a smile. The room looks like a goddamn casino floor with all the smoke in the air. “He’ll start listening when his men disappear.”

“We don’t need that kind of heat right now. We can’t afford to lose men either.” A headache blooms, the blood flow roaring in my ears. This is the last pile of shit I need to dig out of today.

Our crew is still rebuilding from the last clash, a shootout with a Mexican street gang over the summer taking out two of our men and downing another five with injuries. Even at our strongest, we couldn’t take on Giambelli. Trying now would be a suicide mission.

“We don’t kill,” Dad concedes, looking between us. “Yet.”

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