Page 97 of Jayson
“Tell him he doesn’t get his sit down,” I snap into the speaker. “But you and I will meet.”
“Tomorrow,” Emilio relays. “Ten a.m. Private suite at The Selene. I’ve already made arrangements.”
Of course he has.
“I’ll be there,” I say. But my molars are aching again.
Cedar smokelingers in the air, thick and cloying like the ghosts of men who never left this room. The Mariner’s Cigar Lounge is paneled in walnut the color of old blood, its brass sconces glowing low—more ember than flame. Privacy is promised here, but so is danger.
Only four chairs circle the low marble table. Two are already taken.
The Cavalho brothers rise as we enter—Emilio first, crisp in a charcoal suit tailored within an inch of its threads. Cufflinks shaped like saints, grin shaped like sin. Ferris flanks him, leaner, meaner, eyes flicking to Lucky, then to the door behind us, calculating angles, exits, dangers.
Lucky Gatti doesn’t offer a handshake. He just drops intothe chair opposite them like he owns the foundations it’s built on—heir to the Coast’s ports by marriage, feared in five languages by name alone. I stay standing, eyes moving over the corners of the room, cataloging shadows before I sit beside him.
A server glides in like a whisper, places a bottle of rare Scotch, four tumblers, and a bowl of cut-glass ice that no one here would dream of touching. Then she vanishes. The door clicks shut behind her.
“Gentlemen,” Emilio greets, raising his glass in a toast warm enough to baptize betrayal. “To old ties.”
Lucky clinks crystal without looking. Drinks. Sets the glass down like a warning. “Cut the ribbons, Emilio. What’s this about?”
Ferris leans forward, elbows on his knees. He speaks like a man who knows blood leaves the mouth faster than the lungs. “Richard Maddox came to us with a request. A favor. Concerning a woman who, from what he tells us, is being detained by your man, Jayson Caluna.”
“Detained,” I repeat, voice flat. “That the word he used?”
Ferris nods, pointed. “It is.”
“She’s not a prisoner. She’s under our protection.”
And if they’re smart men—and they are—they’ll hear the weight behind that word. Protection in our world is sacred. Maddox would have to go through the Morenos to touch her. Through me.
Emilio steeples his fingers. “He alleges she’s unstable. Hallucinates. Might hurt herself if left unattended. He’s… concerned for her welfare.”
My laugh is quiet. “Concerned? Funny. She didn’t seem in the least bit suicidal when I met her.”
I swirl the Scotch but don’t drink. “What exactly is his relationship to her?”
Emilio’s smile tightens. “He’s an old friend of her father’s - what you would call an ‘uncle’.”
Lucky huffs a dark laugh. “And let me guess—he wants us to wrap her up and send her back with a bow? Girl in one hand, death in the other? How charming.”
“It’s not a demand,” Emilio says, palms lifted. “More a courtesy visit. One family to another.”
Outwardly, I relax. Inwardly, I load the chamber. Family. That word gets thrown around by people who’ve never had to gut a man to keep their bloodline breathing.
Family is pulling your sister out of a locked bathroom because her mother’s latest boyfriend tried to drown her.
Family is watching your boss bleed out and choosing to stand between his wife and the bullet meant for her.
Family is what I burn for. What I kill for.
So if Maddox thinks he can whisper that word and walk away, he’s already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.
“And what’s your arrangement with him?” I ask, tone casual. Deadly.
Ferris lifts his glass but doesn’t drink. “The police commissioner. What would our relationship to him be? He’s managed a few of our cases over the years. Done us some favors. We owe him.”
Fuck.
