Page 63 of Sticky Fingers
Chapter Twenty-One
Malcolm
“Are we solid?”
Looking at Strong, who’s sitting by my side, I push a stack of documents across the table. He stares at me for a long moment, perches an unlit cigarette at the corner of his lips, and then finally reaches for the documents.
“As long as you’re not trying to play me, Malcolm,” he says, a growl hiding behind his words.
I don’t take it personally—Jeremiah Strong is the kind of man that can only speak with veiled threats, even when he’s doing his best to act like a caring surrogate father.
In a way, I appreciate that; blunt as he may be, the world needs more men willing to say it like it is.
“I’m not,” I reply, casually raising two fingers toward the bartender.
He turns around with a quick nod, grabs the bottle of whisky on the shelf behind him, and refills the two glasses in front of me and Strong.
“You’ll see.”
“I guess I will,” he growls once more, laying his cigarette on the counter and downing the whisky all at once.
Playing with his cigarette—a throwback to when he started out as a beat cop and every bar was permanently hidden by a cloud of smoke—he stares right back at me.
“You’ve come a long way, kid.”
“I have,” I agree, bringing the whisky up to my lips. “The times…they are a-changing, huh?”
He doesn’t bother to reply. With a small grunt of acknowledgment, he starts leafing through the documents I just handed him. Some he will need; others are just proof that I’m serious about making a change.
Contracts, leases, letters of intent—all of them signed with only one purpose in mind: burying the seedy side of the Push Organization. From racketeering and match fixing, to money-laundering and contraband, I had a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. Which means that I made a shitload of money over the past few years.
And I won’t lie: These past few years werefun.
I enjoyed it.
I thrived on it.
In the end, it was about more than just the money… It was about the power. The kind of power where you can bend a whole city—if not an entire country—to your will.
That’s probably part of the reason why I went through so many women, you know? Nothing got me harder than knowing I’m the baddest motherfucker around.
That was, of course, until Sonia showed up.
Then, the conversation changed.
For the first time in my life, money and power had to ride in the backseat.
“Seems like you mean it,” Strong finally says, stacking the documents together and pushing half of them back to me. “All loose ends have been tied, and the DA is willing to sign the deal once we have the last of your associates, Louis Abigale, in custody.”
“Good,” I nod, sneaking a glance at my wristwatch.
Shouldn’t be long then.
Now, don’t think I’m throwing my associates under the bus just to save my own fucking ass. It couldn’t be any further from the truth; as ruthless as I might be, I’m loyal to those who are loyal to me. Thing is, whenever you run an organization like mine, there’s always someone who thinks they can outsmart you.
Someone like Louis.
First, he started by skimming a few grand off the top, and then he moved onto moving millions behind my back. With the amount of money changing hands under the Push Organization umbrella, it wasn’t that hard for him to do. Then, when he was turning enough of a profit, he moved into setting up side-operations of his own, undercutting my own profits.
