Page 209 of Hate Mates

Deadly Impression by Emma Luna

A RIVALS OF BLACKTHORN SHORT STORY

Prologue

BENJI

“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” says Marcus Morelli, though his expression doesn’t quite reflect the sentiment in his words.

I bite my tongue to stop the wrong words from tumbling out. After all, this man will soon be the leader of the family we’re loyal to. He’s training under his father at the moment, but it won’t be long before he’s running things, and with Dad gone, I’ll be the one reporting to him now, despite him being a few years younger than me.

At thirty-years-old, I knew I’d be taking over my role within the family business at some point, I just never expected it to be so soon. Then again, nobody expects to walk into the living room and find their dad hanging from the ceiling, but that’s what happened to me. Life is full of fucking surprises.

“Thank you,” I reply on auto-pilot, giving him the small but polite smile I’m sure he’s expecting.

The Madden family has worked for the Morellis for years, and my dad was close with Maximus, Marcus’ father. We’re based in a town, around an hour away from Blackthorn, calledHillsdale, and we run the drugs trade in the area, thanks to our connections with the Morellis.

Our business was booming, and we’d had no problems until a couple of months ago, when a small drugs shipment went missing, resulting in a loss of almost fifty-thousand pounds.

Naturally, Dad panicked. He did everything he could to find who was responsible, but they had covered their tracks well. The longer the drugs went unfound, the more paranoid he became.

He was terrified of facing the Morellis, and telling them their drugs were missing. Rather than meet with them, he killed himself and left me to deal with the fallout.

Marcus lets out a long sigh, pulling my attention back to him. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re starting your role as leader with a clean slate. Your father paid the debt owed to us with his life, and while that’s not the way I would have preferred to do business, it is what it is.”

I close my eyes for a second and focus on my breathing. Marcus sounds like he would have worked with Dad to find a solution, meaning he killed himself for no reason, and that breaks my fucking heart.

When I open my eyes, I let him see how very fucking serious I am. “Someone is responsible for my dad’s death, and when I find out who, I will bring them to justice.”

Marcus nods, though his expression remains unchanged. “When that day comes, if you have unequivocal proof of who is responsible, you can have your revenge.”

Almost two years later,I find myself sitting in the exact same office, opposite Marcus Morelli, who is now the leader of his family. He seems to have aged a little over the last couple ofyears, and I’m sure he thinks the same about me. This life ages people.

Under my leadership, the Madden family has flourished, and we’ve regained the respectable title we had before it was stolen from us along with our drugs. I have a great team in place, and that’s freed me up to concentrate on my main task—revenge.

Skipping over the pleasantries I know neither of us want to engage in, I slide a stack of papers over Marcus’ desk, and he takes them from me with a curved eyebrow.

“There’s your proof that Gary Kincaid is responsible for the missing drugs shipment, and my dad’s death,” I tell him as he inspects each page. “Bank statements show him depositing chunks of cash over the course of three months following the robbery, and the amounts total almost fifty thousand—the value of the missing drugs.”

“I see,” he replies absently, scanning each page before moving quickly onto the next.

“There’s also CCTV and doorbell footage showing his car was in the area at the time the shipment was stolen, which contradicts the alibi he gave.

“I also have a statement from someone who used to work with him, saying they seemed to have more product to push than usual around that time. When he asked about it, he was told the family were scaling, and they had our support to do so.”

The thought of him using my name as part of his alibi sends heat flowing through my veins as my murderous rage flares up. Given the way Marcus’ eyes darken, I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing.

“That’s…disturbing,” he says through gritted teeth, clearly trying to hold back his emotions and remain professional.

As he gets to thelast couple of pages, my heart starts to race, and I try not to think about what he’s reading, or how fucking disgusting it is.

“Those final few pages are an email exchange between my dad and Gary. You’ll see that over the course of a few emails, he fuels the paranoia that was already growing within Dad. He makes it clear that the Morelli family will torture him if Dad can’t find the missing product, and he hints that you’d probably think Dad took it, and would torture him into confessing.

“He then goes on to suggest that you may even kill me in retaliation for my dad’s mistake. ‘Only blood will wipe the slate clean’, he says in the final email… My dad killed himself the same day.”

No matter how hard I try, I can’t keep the emotion from my voice, so I let Marcus see it all. My revulsion at the way Gary pushed him to suicide, using my name as leverage, and I let him hear my voice break at the mention of losing my dad.

Even after two years of grieving, the loss never goes away. I still miss him every day, and I don’t think I’ll be able to even think about mourning his loss until the person responsible is brought to justice—the Madden way.

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