Page 83 of Gray Area

“For now. Please tell Teresa I said hi,” he says darkly. “Go,” he commands, and Jeff turns, his head hanging, and moves quickly from the alley.

I keep my eyes trained on Lexington, and sure enough, once Jeff’s back is turned and he’s three steps away, the fuckerproduces a gun. A loud pop goes off, and the gun goes flying from Lexington’s hand, Jeff still on the run.

Lexington looks around, seeming to attempt to find the shooter, but I’m there before he can locate anyone. “Only a fucking coward shoots a man in the back after having him do his dirty work,” I tell him. My brothers remain hidden, one of them having shot the gun out of his hand, but this fucker won’t have known that. He’ll assume I did it, think I’m alone, and that’s what I want.

Lexington is able to school his face quickly, but his shaky hands and dilated pupils give his nervousness away. “And who do we have here? A white knight?”

“I’m a better man than you are, that’s for sure,” I tell him, moving to stand right in front of him. I’m a good six inches taller than he is, and I am absolutely certain that he has no other weapons. He is just pompous enough to expect his word to be followed and never challenged.

But I am about to rock his world.

He narrows his gaze and studies my face. “Wait a minute, you look familiar,” he says, squinting now. “Are you a Falco?” I just set my stare back into his, refusing to answer him. “Yup, you are. You must be Jude’s son.”

“Don’t fucking put my father’s name in your mouth,” I warn Lexington darkly.

“How’s he doing?” Lexington pushes. “Heard he is having some health problems lately.”

He is trying to get me going, and it is working, but I refuse to let him see that. So I just stare him down. Some men can handle silence. I am willing to bet that Lexington is not one of those men.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting, Falco? Declan, right?”

I ignore him. “You’re not answering my father’s phone calls,” I remind him. “So I figured a face-to-face meeting would be better.”

“Better for what?”

“For me to tell you it’s time to pay up what you owe my father, or I will be cashing in on the contract you signed.”

Lexington blows out a laugh. “There is no contract,” he says, moving to turn from me.

I reach out and grab his neck. I could have just spoken to him and gotten his attention, but his quick dismissal pisses me off, along with pretty much all of his behavior. So grabbing him by his fucking throat seems like the best and only option, and it makes me feel better to channel my anger into choking him.

“You just fucking burned an instruction manual, you idiot,” I tell him. “And you may think that you can fuck over everyone you want, everyone who you deem beneath you, but you think wrong.”

“That fucking contract is worthless,” he croaks out at me.

“Then why were you so eager to get your hands on it, to destroy it?” I ask. He doesn’t say anything so I let him go.

He makes a big production of straightening his tie once he is released, and I don’t miss the way he subtly steps back from me in the process. Everything this guy does is calculated. He is constantly trying to be one step ahead.

“I want the money in the next two days, or I will take the contract to my lawyers,” I tell him.

“That contract won’t hold up in court,” Lexington says, pushing his pompous attitude back into his voice, like I didn’t just feel his balls in his throat when I choked him.

“We’ll see,” I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest.

He shakes his head at me. “Like I told your father, if you try to sue me, I will countersue that you and your family of thugs pressured me to sign it. And that I did so under duress.”

“And what possible reason would we have to do that?”

“Well, because I found out about your illegal gambling operations, or maybe your loan sharking, or maybe your father is selling drugs in his bars or burning buildings that he can’t buy.”

I once again go silent on him and watch him. I want to kill him, but it’s better to keep him talking. He wants me to think he is in control, and he assumes now with my silence that he is. But still I know what I am doing, because my silence scares him, and he will fill the emptiness with words to try and show he’s in control.

“Cause you see, Declan, I am a well-known businessman, with a clean record. You and your family, however, are all just a bunch of fucking thugs. Running low-end dives that bring in just enough cash to make you think you have power. You assholes are nothing more than common thieves, bottom dwellers with a little cushion of money. You come forward with that contract, and all the skeletons your family has will be brought to light, and you will lose what little you have. And I will look like the poor white-collar billionaire that was bullied.”

He’d thought about this, and I hate that he is right.

“You see it too. I know you do. I know defeat when I smell it.” He laughs coldly.

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