Page 11 of Brutal Collateral

Kai’s phone rings, and he looks down at it. “Ah, he’s here.”

I bolt to my feet. “Whois here?”

“Trust me,” Kai says.

“Trust you?” Connor snaps, a hand in his jacket, fingers around a piece.

“We don’t even know you,” Ewan adds, doing the same. But he’s calm.

Shane, the smoothest of us all, stands and struts to the security monitor on a console table under the window. “Holy shite.”

“What?” I get up and halt in my tracks, looking down at the monitor, too. Grabbing Kai by the throat, I say, “Why the fuck is Ares Zervas atmyfront door?”

“Hear him out,” Kai says, struggling to breathe.

“I’ll go frisk him for weapons,” Connor says, striding past us, like roughing up a Greek king will ease the need to fuck.

Only, raising a weapon to a mafia don is a death sentence. Fuck, I hope my unhinged, bloodthirsty brother remembers that.

“I got your back.” Ewan follows him, leaving me with Shane.

Forget weapons, I want to mutter, but they’re gone. I should be checking every roof for snipers and every parked car on the damn block for Zervas capos. Mostly made up of very ruthless, lethal, and psychotic brothers.

I let Kai go and take out my gun. Training it at his head, I say, “You’re not mafia. If Ares Zervas came here with ill intent,you’rethe first to die.”

Kai pulls at his tie. “Ill intent is in the eye of the beholder.”

I narrowmyeyes but shake away the temptation to solve that riddle when the office door opens. I heard neither shouting, a struggle, nor gunfire. I ready my weapon regardless in case my brothers were hit with poison darts.

I’m not sure what the hell Ares Zervas said to Connor and Ewan, but they come into the office without so much as a vein in their neck throbbing.

And holy shite, the head of the fucking Manhattan Greek Mafia is standing right there. Smiling at me.

CHAPTER THREE

Griffin

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