Adrian laughs again, earning a scowl from Phoenix.
“You’re such a fucking psychopath,” he grumbles. “And, no, I’d never do that shit to my sister. You have my word.”
“Wonderful. Now run along and go trade that expensive ass car in for another stupid Jeep. We have to go over a mountain of shit. The sooner you get back, the sooner we can get to it.” I wave him off with a flick of my hand.
Phoenix rises and gives Adrian an incredulous look. “Does he talk to you like that?”
“He grows on you,” Adrian says with a snort.
“Right,” Phoenix grumbles. He stops mid stride and turns to glower at me, making me tense. “And Jeeps aren’t stupid. They’re practical.”
Adrian laughs. “Go on, boy, before you get bitch slapped.”
“You assholes can fucking try,” Phoenix says with a smirk that reminds me of Talia. Ornery fucker.
As soon as he’s gone, I pull up my laptop and dive back into business, both legit and nefarious. A villain’s work is never done.
I wake up in the dead of the night to my phone ringing off the hook.
“What?” I snarl into the line.
“Your father’s place,” Adrian barks out. “I’m on my way. Meet me there.”
He hangs up on me. What the fuck? I slide out of bed and start throwing on clothes.
“Where are you going?” Talia asks, her voice raspy from sleep.
I lean over the bed and kiss her mouth. “Business. Phoenix and the men will be here. Your gun is in your bedside table. Use it if you need to.”
As I start to pull away, she grabs my wrist. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Within five minutes, I’m dressed and locking the bedroom door behind me. I stalk down the hallway to the guest room where Phoenix is staying before pushing inside. When I flick on the lights, he snags his Glock and has it aimed in my direction. Good reflexes.
“Need you to keep an eye on Talia and Zoe. Something’s happened at my father’s place,” I tell him before turning on my heel.
He pads behind me. “Another diversion?”
I stalk into the spare room where we have a gun safe and turn the dial on the lock. “I don’t know, but we can never be too sure. Just in case”—I toss him an AR-15—“use brute force to protect them.”
In nothing but boxers and socks, Phoenix still manages to look formidable with a Glock in one hand and the AR in the other.
“You think he’s coming out of hiding?” he asks.
“Nah,” I grunt as I push past him. “He’s just fucking with me. It’s what he does.”
“He’ll slip up one day, Kostas,” Phoenix calls out after me. “And we’ll make him fucking pay.”
“Damn right we will.”
The drive to my father’s is quick as our new home isn’t too far from there. I’m less than a mile away when I see what the fuck happened. That asshole set our childhood home on fire. I push back memories of my mother and me in the kitchen. Many nights when I was small and she’d read stories about heroes to me. The scent of her perfume that still lingered even a year after her death.
Fuck Aris.
It was his mother too.
This just proves to me he’s nothing but a sociopath. All he cares about is number one. Himself. And his favorite way of pleasuring himself is to fuck with me. Sick bastard.
By the time I reach the home, it’s completely engulfed in flames. The firefighters are already doing their best to control the fire so it doesn’t spread elsewhere. I pull up next to Adrian’s SUV and hop out.
“What the hell?” I snap, trotting over to him.
He scowls at me. “Aris.”
“No fucking shit.”
“And, Boss…” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I can’t get ahold of Basil.”
My blood runs cold. “It’s the middle of the night. Understandable.”
“Wesley says he never came back to the hotel last night.”
“Aris took him?”
Adrian’s features pinch. “He packed his shit, man.”
A rat. I had a hunch before and I was right. Unfuckingbelievable.
“Put Wesley in charge at the hotel. I want you on point hunting Basil down.”
“I thought we were done hunting,” Adrian huffs, irritation making his voice gruff.
“Aris. Basil is a different story. We find Basil, we’ll find Aris. Find out where the fuck he went, when he went there, and why he thought fucking me over was a smart plan. We find Basil, and I’ll bleed out every detail he knows about Aris.”
Adrian scowls but nods. “Yep.”
I clutch his shoulder and give it a squeeze. “Brothers can turn. But you and I? We don’t fucking turn. You feel me, Adrian? We’re better than brothers.”
“I’m gonna find his ass and haul him in myself. This shit will end soon,” he vows. The exhaustion from this entire Aris debacle over the past year has worn down on my longtime friend.
As soon as he gets in his SUV and leaves, I pull up my security cameras. Talia is asleep in the bed and she’s moved Zoe with her. Phoenix paces the hallway right outside their door dressed all in black, the AR slung over his shoulder. Thank fuck. The rest of the men are stationed around the perimeter of my house. At least they’re safe.
But they won’t be until I deal with my fuckface brother.
I’m going to find his crazy ass and end him because I’m getting too old for this shit. Can’t a man just settle the fuck down and have one goddamn week to be a normal fucking husband and father?
Until I drag Aris’s ass into that cellar, I won’t.
I need to start thinking like him. If I were Aris, what the hell would I do next to fuck with me? Cars are a dime a dozen. He doesn’t know the location of our new home. That leaves the hotel. I text Adrian to secure the property from every angle. Next, I text Josef.
Me: I want every cop hunting down Aris Demetriou. Every fucking one of them.
Josef: And compensation?
Me: Money. Lots of it.
Josef: And?
Me: Reelection.
Josef: Done.
If Josef leads me to Aris, I’ll get him into any political position he so fucking desires. My next text is to a low-level punk gangster with a big mouth—someone I pay to get messages out.
Me: Aris Demetriou to me alive. 50 mil. Spread the word.
Jaws: Poppy needs a new pair of shoes. On it, Boss.
I don’t care if my brother drains me dry. I’d gladly lose every dime if it means having him strapped to a chair in the cellar. Every goddamn dime. Because once he’s dead, I’ll just make more fucking money. I’m a Demetriou. It’s what we do.
Talia
“Guess what today is?” I ask Zoe as I pick her up out of her crib. She flails her chubby arms and babbles like crazy, excited to see me.
Last night was the first night in her own room and I swear I got up thirty times throughout the night to check on her. I know she needs to sleep in her own room, but it’s hard to be away from her.
With Aris having burned down their family home recently, Kostas has our home on lockdown. Nobody is allowed to come or go except for him and his men. Stefano had to leave for Italy to get back to work, but my mom has extended her stay. Thankfully, we have a beautiful pool house, complete with its own kitchen and laundry room, so while she’s here, she’s staying there.