Page 3 of A Murderous Crow
I thought it suited me well enough. My eyes stared back at me, a whiskey brown with more gold and amber to them than brown, depending on what I was wearing. Today, I wore a dark suit, but in just the white shirt, they were molten caramel, the gold notes plucked out harder when I laid the neutral gold tie around the back of my collar, working it into a pristine Windsor knot at my throat.
I cinched it up, laid my collar down over it, and cracked my neck from side to side, cracking it, rolling my shoulders to settle the fit of my shirt.
I pulled on my vest – I tended toward three-piece suits. I liked the classic fit and the old-time vibe. Today, it was a navy suit with a gold tie, brown shoes, and a gold sock that was in tune with the tie.
It was a bit matchy-matchy, but I didn’t care. A white pocket square and a few tugs to get the jacket to lay right, and I was as ready as I would ever be.
I felt a bit of a twist of regret as I passed up my bike to get into my Porsche, but it was what it was. There would be time for a ride later tonight. First, I needed to get through the day.
I drove to my family’s set of offices on the riverfront, parked in my designated, bought-and-paid-for spot at the side of the building, and got out, briefcase in tow.
I gave Specter a nod as I walked past the corner where the club’s gambling op was held in the old warehouse building’s basement.
“Long one?” I asked.
“Too fuckin’ long,” he said, flicking his cigarette butt into the gutter, and hocking back whatever was in his sinuses and spitting right behind it.
“You could always get a real job,” I suggested.
“And make my daddy remotely proud? Yeah, I’ll fuckin’ pass,” he said, and we shared a laugh.
I stepped over his mess and shook my head. “Have the prospect clean this up. I don’t need prospective buyers getting the wrong idea about our town.”
“Whatever, you prima donna,” he said, giving me the finger behind my back, which I caught in the window of one of the gift shop doors opening up before me. I also caught him opening the door behind himself and heard him holler, “Prospect! Get out here with a broom or some shit…”
I stopped at the non-descript door with the etched brass plate of my father’s realty company and took my keys out of my pocket.
It was going to be a long day today, and I just wanted some more fucking coffee.
“Morning, Mr. Prescott,” Ashleigh, my assistant and one of our junior real estate agents, greeted me as I came through the door upstairs into the too-small, what served as our waiting room in our suite of offices.
“Morning, Ashleigh,” I said, and she traded me my briefcase for a rich black cup of coffee.
Good girl,I thought silently to myself, but I had no interest in Ashleigh. She practically threw herself at me at every turn, begging for my attention like an overly friendly, starved puppy hoping for some scraps.
Which was disgusting, considering we were cousins – granted, it was like third or fourth cousins and it was by marriage or something – but still cousins, and while I was a southern boy, I wasn’tAlabamasouthern. I was Georgia born-and-bred aristocracy, or as close to American aristocracy as you could get.
I hadn’t hated it as much as some of the others in the club, like Specter. I had instead leaned into it, however, I didn’t give two fucks about whether I made my father proud or not. We weren’t like that. We’d never been…affectionatelike that in our household. We’d always been purely transactional.
I wasn’t even sure my father and mother knew what love was. If anything, their marriage was just another contract drawn up by their parents, and likely their parents before them. I wouldn’t put it past the family line to make an arranged marriage, but for certain, my parent’s relationship felt purely transactional.
They were quintessential boomers in every regard. My father refused to retire even though he was in his seventies, pulling up the ladder behind him, lamenting about my generation’s lack of work ethic, and attempting to leave no crumbs behind when they finally did do us all a favor and shuffled off this mortal coil.
I couldn’t care less.
I’d used my position here at my father’s real estate company to leverage every bit of wealth I could, and if he’d bother to look up from any of his deals to scrutinize mine, he’d realize that I far outdid him. When he finally did croak? I would do just fine, if not better, without him.
His empire was mostly my empire now. I just didn’t think he realized or noticed.
I let him continue to believe that all was in order and mostly in his control, but he had, honestly and unwittingly, signed almost everything over to me, a little at a time. He reallyshouldn’t have trusted me so blindly when I’d put papers before him.
For as cunning as he thought he was, I had done plenty to outfox the old fox.
“You’re in early,” Ashleigh said, preceding me into my office and setting my briefcase where I liked it. I took my seat behind my desk and rolled myself up under it, setting my coffee on the coaster set out for it.
“Early bird gets the worm,” I said with a gusty sigh. “Old man in yet?”
She rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t get in much before ten anymore, you know that.”
