A Captive Situation (Kings of New York)

Everything was completely screwed.

I could hear Sawyer crying inside, but fuck. Fuck!

Because of my dipshit decision, she was involved. Kidnapping. Jesus Christ. If we survived—no, fuck that. We would. She and I together.

My phone began ringing, and looking at the screen, a hollow laugh ripped out of me. I hit accept and went to the kitchen, pouring myself a stiff drink. A very stiff drink.

“Walden. What gave you the idea I’d want to speak to you again?”

Ashton Walden laughed smoothly on the other end, but I expected nothing less from him. He was the head of the Walden Mafia, one of the two families in control of the city. The other was led by his best friend, and while I had hatred for Ashton’s best friend and the best friend’s woman, that was on a personal level. The same wasn’t so for Ashton himself. There was a sort of past with him that filled me with regret, self-loathing, and the odd mix of fondness. Another life and we might’ve been friends, but not this life.

Ashton said, “Want to meet up so I can take pictures of your dead body and collect two million?”

I was a dead man walking, on the phone with a Mafia head, and he was joking about my death contract. For some reason, that relaxed me. “Only if you promise to give your wife the money.”

He laughed. “I could never tell Molly. She’d be aghast that I might’ve benefited off your neck.”

“How about instead you tell me why there’s a hit put out on me? That’d be helpful.”

He got quiet. “You don’t know?”

I snorted. “About the hit? No. I have no fucking idea who’s behind it. My family? Your family? Trace’s? This came out of left field. Someone with a vendetta against me as a cop? Think if I put out a memo that I retired, they’ll take it down?”

“No, but I can tell you that if I wanted you dead, I’d be doing that torture shit personally. You know me. That’s my thing.”

Indeed it was. It was widely known he enjoyed torture.

I picked up my glass of bourbon and went to the living room. With my back to the wall, I leaned there with a perfect view of the bathroom door and took a drag of the liquor.

I never felt the burn.

I replied, “If you’re trying to trace this call, you can’t. FYI, Mr. Cybersecurity Expert.”noveldrama

“We already got the location bounced back to us, and you sent a virus into my favorite laptop. I was impressed, Worthing. I didn’t know you were capable of that sort of cyber sophistication.”

Of course he’d try to trace me. He was Mafia.

I scowled. “You really don’t know who put the hit out on me?”

Ashton got serious. I heard a squeak on his end, maybe his chair was pushed back as he stood. “All I know is that it’s someone in your own camp. I don’t know the name. You need to clean house in your family.”

My gut twisted.

Fuck that. Fuck that so much.

Frustration welled up, and I said roughly, “Thanks for the advice. I’ve been a cop most of my life. You got any other tips on how to not be a cop and go up and murder half of my family because they’re all fucking criminals? If so, I’d love to know how to get myself to do that.”

Everything I said was the truth. I gritted my teeth.

Ashton was the head of the Walden family. His best friend Assface was head of the West family, and me? According to a call from one of my uncles, my family, who mostly operated out of Maine because it kept them under the radar, said they took a vote and I was the new head of the Worthing Mafia.

Me. The head of any Mafia.

It was a sick joke, and I already knew the hit came from someone on the inside because the second shooter had been one of our guys. He was usually used as a gunrunner, but he was in the city, and he’d tried to kill me.

I was a lone wolf for this. No police friends. No family.

Then again, if I’d been asked my preference, it would’ve been this way. I might’ve had resources offered to me, but when it would come down to it, I wasn’t a guy who stood in the back and gave orders. I was the one who went to the front line.

I was the weapon.

If I was going to order people dead, I was the type who preferred to do it myself. I’d like to say it was because then I knew it was done right, but that wasn’t the truth. It was the adrenaline of being in the fray, of being the monster hiding in the shadows. There was a sick fascination of feeling your enemy’s blood spilling over your hand. In that moment, when you were the reason someone’s life was draining out of them, that was when I felt the most alive.

Ashton replied, “Though, according to the street cameras and how you reacted to the second shooter, you were already aware of that fact. Who’s the girl?”

I ignored that. “I’d hoped you would have a name for who’s going after me in my family. No one’s reached out?”

“I have a cordial relationship with you. I would not with anyone else in your family.” Ashton’s voice cooled significantly. “If you indeed take over your family’s business, I may entertain the idea of working with you, but it would only be under those circumstances. You misunderstood me. I meant that you needed to go and clean house in the legal way.”

I frowned, considering what he just said. “You want me to arrest my family?” Also, “How very not-Ashton of you. I’d assume you were all for me going in and killing everyone.”

“That would be my way, yes. But since your identity is still wrapped up with being law enforcement, I’d assume you would want to do it a way that would let you sleep at night.”

A dark churning filled me, and I looked down at my drink, swirling the liquid around.

Ashton didn’t know me anymore. Then again, maybe he never had.

He added, “They turned their back on you after Justin was murdered.”

I said harshly, “You don’t know anything about me and my family.”

A pang went through me at the mention of my own brother, but Ashton was right. I’d reached out for help and instead had been led on a goose chase by my cousin, and when I reached out for assistance on reining him in, all four of my uncles laughed in my face.

That was the day I went rogue, going on the path that led me to the truth. The end result was a dead cousin, a multitude of our soldiers dead, and most of my family in denial about how much they fucked up when they appointed Nicolai as the head.

“Why are you calling? You’re not being helpful at all.” I eyed the bathroom door again. She was taking too long.

Ashton laughed again, softly. “I called to offer assistance. What do you need? I found the girl, by the way. Also, found her family that’s concerned because she went to New York to run away from an ex-fiancé. Did you know that her mother sent a text to her aunt about possibly having an intervention when she returns from New York? I found his new woman. He did not trade up. I am guessing that’s your woman and you’re into bondage role-play? Because if not, it looked like you kidnapped a woman, and my guess is that you got her at some safe house you kept for this particular reason. Tell me how wrong I am. Go ahead. I bet you can’t.”

He was so fucking smug, and I did not need to hear half that shit from him.

“You need to stop talking about her. That’s what you need to do.”

He was quiet. “Jake—”

“Not another word about her. You hear me?” I growled, taking the rest of my drink like it was a shot. Sawyer had been in the bathroom too long by herself, and Ashton was starting to piss me off. “You want to help? Use some of that hacking ability on my family’s texts. Find out who I need to take out to get the contract off my head.”

“Killing whoever put it out won’t get the contract taken down. You need to have them do it or they’ll keep coming for you. Money’s already loaded for the winner. You know how it works.”

I did, and nothing he was saying was helping to take the edge off. “Find me a name, Ashton. I’ve done a lot of shit for you over the years, saved your ass a few times. Save mine this time.”

I didn’t wait to hear his response. I ended the call, pocketed the phone, and went over to the door. “Sawyer, we need to talk.” I waited for her to reply, but there was nothing. No breathing. No water running. No toilet flushing. It was silent.

I didn’t stop to question it.

I reared back and kicked open the door.

She was gone.