Page 11 of Hard Wired

But Dominic also couldn’t imagine having some generic day job with a boss and paperwork. Even as a junior member of the Syndicate, he hadn’t been very good at staying focused.

Raymond scratched at his scalp on the screen. “I’ve been busy with school. The usual. How about you? Any news on the trial?”

“They keep delaying it. Which is fine with me for now. I don’t like being stuck at home, but at least nobody’s gunning me down on the courthouse steps.”

As long as he remained alive, a few captains would remain loyal to him as a Crane. His enemies would stand a better chance of taking over if they got Dominic permanently out of the way.

Raymond flinched.

“Sorry,” Dominic said. “Bad joke.”

“It’s going to blow over, right? All this stuff with the business. You and Warren are going to get it back.”

“That’s the plan. It’s all going to work out.” An unsettling thought came to Dominic’s mind. “Have any of the captains been contacting you? Any of our uncles?”

The most dangerous was their uncle Charles Traynor, who claimed he had both a right to run the Syndicate as the husband of a Crane, and the clearest vision for the business’s future success. To Charles, that meant being more merciless than anybody else out there.

“I don’t hear from hardly anyone except you.” Raymond cut his eyes to the side.

Dominic sat forward. “Is someone else there?”

“No. But I better finish that paper. I’ll talk to you later, Nic. Miss you.”

“Miss you, too. Love you.”

Raymond nodded, though he didn’t return the sentiment aloud.

Dominic hadn’t mentioned the DA’s latest offer. He didn’t want Raymond to worry. And it wasn’t important anyway because Dominic wasn’t going to accept the deal.

But if… If.

If he was even going to consider accepting the district attorney’s offer, then he’d have to ensure Raymond’s safety first.

He’d have to get his little brother away from their uncles, who might try to use Raymond for their own ends.

From the time he was a little kid, Dominic's whole family had talked about “the business.” Yet it wasn’t a store or an office or a medical clinic like any of the businesses his friends’ parents ran. Dominic had no idea that his family’s “business” wasn’t legal until he was in the seventh grade.

That was when he’d overheard some kids call his house the “mob house.” He’d asked his older brother what that meant. Warren had been seventeen, but he’d looked and acted far older. He’d finished high school early and joined the “business” with their dad.

“Some people might call Dad a mobster, sure,” Warren had said. “But who the fuck cares?”

Dominic had cringed at the curse word. He’d never liked to hear his brother or father swear. It made them sound angry. “But what does ‘mob’ really mean?”

Warren had just looked at Dominic with pity and laid it all out.

“Look, Dad helps people with problems. He might take something that somebody else wants. Which might be called stealing, except insurance just pays the first guy right back. Or he helps other people hide their money from the government.”

“Okay…”

“Plus, there are certain neighborhoods that his men protect from really violent guys, gangs, and Dad charges a fee for that service. Stuff like that. Get it?”

These activities sounded vaguely problematic. “But I thought the mob was a bunch of really bad guys.”

“Well, sometimes Dad helps people who want to buy drugs, too. Or people who want to buy sex with an attractive, willing woman.”

Selling drugs? Prostitution? That had to be wrong. “But why? Dad’s a good person. He loves us. Why would he do those things?”

“Because if he didn’t, somebody else would. There’s always somebody else who’s more cutthroat, more violent, like those gangs that he protects his territory from. You can’t see the world in black and white, right and wrong, kid. There’s only better and worse. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to take your place as a real member of this family. A real man. If you don’t? Then you’ll probably never sleep at night again. But it won’t make a single ounce of difference because Dad will keep on doing what he does, and the worst people will keep on doing their thing, too. The only person you’ll be punishing is yourself.”

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