Black Collar Empire Read online

  A N LATRO

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of any wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction including brands or products.

  Copyright © 2013 by Nazarea Andrews.

  Black Collar Empire by AN Latro

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Crabby Books.

  Summary: Seth Morgan returns after two years to find his family’s crime syndicate in shambles. With his cousin, he delves into the secrets that led to his brother’s murder.

  ISBN

  1. Mafia 2. New Adult 3. Romance

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Edited by Rachel Bateman

  Cover design by Melissa Stevens of The Illustrated Author

  Cover art copyright©: A&A Literary

  Ebook Formatting by Gonet Design

  Paperback Formatting by Gonet Design

  For Seth, and Emma.

  Woodlawn Cemetery, New York City. October 16, 2011

  Rain pounds on the tops of two huge black umbrellas, one slightly higher than the other. Two brothers stand as the remnants of a long and winding funeral party that has already departed to seek shelter at a reception organized for the mourners. The brothers have been silent since well before the line of tossed roses ended. Their uncle had stood beside them for some time, wearing heartbreak on his face, watching the men in parkas doing their ghastly work. Even he had turned away when the casket began to lower.

  The world around them is a dreary, soggy weight, but the faces beneath the umbrellas are dry. The taller takes a long pull on a cigarette, hand moving mechanically. Mirrored shades set the scenery at an acceptable visibility, dimming the details. The pole of his umbrella rests against his other shoulder. His knuckles are white against the handle. The shorter, darker brother holds his umbrella in his right hand, abandoned in front of him as if it were some sort of lifeline. His suit jacket rests on his shoulders, covering the sling that will confine his left arm for some time. His deep brown eyes are heavy, with dark pools beneath them. The roots of his teeth are numb. Their shoulders are touching. They ignore the cautious glances from the men who start the machinery that will cover their dead father with the earth from whence he came. Ashes to ashes, or something like that.

  The Marzetti clan has been mercilessly slaughtered, wiped from the city's books in a series of well-disguised and strategic hits. Anyone with a direct tie to that family's fronts is as good as dead. Retribution seems little more than routine on a day like this.

  “He didn't talk to me,” says Caleb, the taller, older brother who has no regard for the serenity of silence he destroys. The younger, Seth, looks questioningly to him, searching Caleb's blank mask for some explanation. He can't tell where his brother is looking and, for some reason, it makes him angry. “He didn't have any last words of wisdom for me,” Caleb says, face front, voice carefully neutral. He introspectively hits his cigarette.

  Seth gasps, unable to hide his raw emotions from his family after upholding his charade of 'dealing with it' all day. He had presumed, after the way they had woken him from dead sleep the night his dad died, and rushed him upstairs to speak to his father alone, that Caleb had already had his time with their dad. What Seth's brother is telling him now is that the scene didn't play out that way. His dad's last words play so differently with that change in perspective.

  Caleb watches the mud dripping from the mouth of the backhoe as it struggles against the waterlogged ground. He imagines the grave filling with rain before they can cover it, and all Gabe’s transgressions and guilt float to the surface. How many skeletons would that flood unearth? Mud to mud, that is all it comes down to in the end. “He didn't talk to Mikie, either,” he continues, battling against an irrational aggravation at his brother's innocence and surprise.

  Seth looks away, eyes unwittingly falling on the same sullied scene as Caleb's. What a fittingly messy tribute to a gruesomely mucked up circumstance. Slowly, deliberately, he answers, “He said that if you find yourself cold inside, you're not fit to be a king.”

  Seth can sense the tension take hold of Caleb. He can feel muscles pull and tighten beside him, though Caleb never moves. Seth recognizes the storm that takes his brother, he has seen it a thousand times. Caleb has always been chillingly good at hiding his feelings, but Seth knows them all as well as his own. Caleb is partly jealous, partly crushed that a birthright that should fall to the eldest son has instead gone to the younger. Seth looks back to the other, knowing without a doubt that Caleb can feel the attention. The cigarette burns unheeded. “Family is most important—”

  “Don't mock me!” Caleb cries. What is left of his cigarette snaps in his fingers. Ash scatters into the rain as he flings the pieces at the ground.

  Seth sighs. Maybe it is too soon to talk about it. Caleb only ever works at his own pace, and he hardly lets anyone in on his progress. Seth looks to his mud-covered shoes. “I love you, Caleb,” he says, voice barely audible over the hum of the heavy equipment.

  He sees Caleb in his periphery, watches him jerk his shades off to rub at his eyes with the back of hand. He hears him sigh, too. “I love you too, Seth,” he whispers, and fixes the sunglasses firmly back in place. Only then does he allow himself to glance at his sibling, who looks so much like his dad.

  Louis Blues and Booze, New York City. January 19, 2013.

  He is sitting at the bar, drinking Gentleman Jack on the rocks. The bar is trimmed in neon yellow paled by frosty glass. His back is to her, but he knows she's there.

  She sits in a booth for two with vinyl seat covers the color of midnight. She wears a little black dress. She's sipping on a Manhattan, dry. Two more collect condensation beside her. She could be wasted, but she's not. She doesn't want charity drinks from men who want her number. She doesn't even see what they look like anymore when the cocktail server brings them.

  Seth can't help but overhear a group of guys his age debating why she hasn’t touched the drinks they bought for her. They don't know her; he takes pity on them. “She's here for the band,” he says without looking at them.

  Their chatter dies away as they turn their pack-animal eyes to him. He's wearing a white button-down shirt with a black tie, knot hanging halfway down his chest. His top two buttons are undone, and he's wearing expensive jeans. They don't know what to think of him in their Armani suits and their professional haircuts. One of them snorts indignantly. “This guy has been burned one too many times,” Mr. Corporate laughs, exuding masculinity.

  Seth smiles. Once—he's only been burned once. How can he explain that when you're as rich as he is, it only takes once? They cease to be worth his time. They don't understand the situation upon which they have happened, and they obviously don't know him. That's the problem with these uppity types, they never appreciate anything.

  Finally, he swivels to face her, muse of his dreams. He orders white wine, Riesling, from the bartender in a bow tie who has suddenly materialized behind him. The professional brigade is bolstered by superiority, the irresistible self, and they snicker at him. He catches the closest server with merely a glance. She blushes. Most likely, she knows who he is. It’s been two years, but he wasn’t forgotten. “Will you please take this to the lady at the booth over there?” he asks, setting the glass carefully in the center of her tray.

  “With all d
ue respect, sir, she hasn't touched any gifts yet this evening,” the server says, eyes glancing toward the suits with whom she did not share the same advice, then back to the godly creature before her. Yes, they are suddenly watching the exchange with hardly disguised interest.

  Seth smiles. He understands,—the drink is overkill at this point. He slips a ten dollar bill beside his wine and lets his smile disarm. His brother always told him that it didn't matter what he actually said, as long as he smiled. The server's disappointment shows as her expression falls. Seth knows she'd just as soon offer herself in the place of the cool lady across the room, but she leaves him with only two words. “Thank you.”

  Seth chases away thoughts of his brother with a deep drink and the thickness of anticipation. He has only been back in town for a couple of weeks. He has stayed off the radar so far, hasn't even seen the brother he has sorely missed, or Emma, or the rest of his family. The city must have time to forgive him for leaving, and he must have time to learn his city from an entirely changed perspective; as an outsider, like he never could before he left.

  He's heard things have changed. He's heard that power has been shifting behind closed doors. Even after two years, old connections aren't hard to rekindle. They tell him that traditions and morals on which his kingdom has been based are now failing, a fact that the little communication he survived upon failed to mention.

  He left to gain an ally, to expand the empire. Now, he has seemingly lost his place in his family and it's crumbling at its foundation—all rumors from trusted sources that he doesn't want to believe. It is so much easier to focus on her and this moment than face the inevitable.

  The drink is being presented. The cocktail waitress is telling her that the gentleman at the bar wanted her to have this. She's taking the wine with wary stiffness. She says, her voice dazed, “Thank you.”

  She stares at the carbonation. The wine is something that comes into one's life like news of the death of someone close, unsolicited and gut-wrenching. She passes the glass under her nose. It is fruity and acidic, inviting. She can imagine its taste, full and citric, and her blood runs cold in her veins. In her mind, she sees the night-time cityscape from a rooftop. His arms are around her. She hears him say, “Someday, we'll rule this city. We'll make it everything we want it to be.” They were drinking Riesling together.

  The band has died away. In the now, she forces her body to turn, hoping to see some blundering idiot who just happened to order her favorite wine, oblivious to the memory it summons. But no, her wide eyes find him immediately. He is casual, errantly comfortable, and brown against white, devilishly sexy. He smiles, the bastard, and raises his rocks glass. He is like a living saint among men, washed in holy neon yellow, back from the blackened hells.

  Why now, when she has finally stopped believing his family when they tell her that he's still alive? Her hands are shaking.

  Beside him, the suits are wondering in hushed tones how he got her attention. He is lost in her eyes, which have been missing from his life for too long. It's like his dreams have stepped out of his head. She looks more amazing than he could have ever remembered. “White wine is her favorite,” he tells the suits, without looking away from her. She breaks eye contact first. “Excuse me,” he adds, downing his courage as he grabs his long, dark coat.

  She is collecting her little black bag and her jacket. She moves toward the exit, leaving the wine abandoned on the table. She hasn't tasted it in over two years and tonight is not a good one for reminiscing. She avoids the eyes of strangers, doesn't take the time to put on the jacket as she rushes out of the bar. The biting cold is like a knife to the chest, but his reappearance hurts more. Her breath rises in front of her and, suddenly, she hates the metal and concrete around her. Who would want to rule this? Her mind goes blank. Her heart aches. She feels so much that she feels nothing.

  “Please wait!”

  His voice grips her, his first words to her in so long. They seize her feet. Despite all her resolve, she is bound by his voice, like black magic. She stops in her tracks, but she will not face him. “You're dead to me,” she spits through her tightening throat. Tears are fighting to surface. She swore that if she ever saw him again, she wouldn't cry. “You're dead to this place.”

  “No,” he says to her back. “The city is cold, but she's not that cold. She won't turn her back on one of her own.”

  “You abandoned us. What could you possibly want now?” she asks the night.

  His voice and presence surround her, pull her in. She sees him in her memory, two summers ago, against the green of Central Park. She can still feel the warm afternoon rays. That had been the day before he told her he was leaving, the last perfect day and the end of a fairy tale in which she can no longer believe. It was for the good of the family, he said. He would come back soon, and everything would be different.

  Well, it's different.

  “I had to go,” he says.

  “For the family, I know,” she says shortly. But it had been too soon after his father's death. The change of power was too new. They had done it for the opportunity, but no one understood how he could leave at a time like that, and as people do—even family—they turned on him. Her jaw clenches. She bites down on her bitterness. “And now your goddamned family is falling apart!” She turns away.

  “Then I'll fix it!” Seth calls. He almost watches her walk away. Almost. But he can't. She feels his fingers close around her arm. “Please wait,” begs the man who would die rather than be a beggar.

  She whips around upon the contact, pulled by some invisible force. The moment before her open hand connects with his face, her eyes lock onto his. He has to know she really means this. And she smacks the shit out of him. His head snaps to the side, and a tang rises in his mouth. “Dead people don't speak,” she says flatly and rips her arm away from him. Then she turns on her heel, leaves him stinging in the relentless cold, alone with his hot breath that bleeds white upon the freezing air.

  “You sure know how to get a girl's attention,” a voice says from behind him. Seth turns. He's not quite alone. It's one of the suits. He's smoking a cigarette and leaning against the railing to the stairs of the bar. A curious expression plays upon the man's face as he studies Seth, as if he might recognize him. Seth makes a sad smile, for he is merely a ghost in this place these days. Once, he would be followed by reporters and cameras. Once.

  “Some people are just born with it.” He shrugs, laughing humorlessly into the night. He looks up at the haze of light emanating from the city. In the south, sometimes he could see the stars. He misses them, suddenly.

  “That was some stunt, straight outuva movie.” The suit says, grinning.

  Seth laughs again, shaking his head. “No, what you mean to say is desperation.”

  “Buy you a drink, buddy?”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I've got some business,” Seth says, eyes shifting down the street where he imagines he can still feel her.

  “Well, good luck.” The guy laughs, flipping his cigarette at the sidewalk and stamping it out. He is shaking his head in disbelief, then he adds, “This may sound weird, but I swear you look familiar.”

  Now, a real smile turns Seth's lips. Perhaps his people haven't forgotten him altogether. He says, “That's because I'm Seth Morgan. And I'll need more than luck tonight. Have a good one.”

  He sets off down the sidewalk as the realization dawns upon the other man.

  He's not in the mood to play the dangerous celebrity, so he makes his pace quick until he is several blocks away from the little bar. Despite the cold, he convinces himself that it's a good time for a walk, so he wanders for a while to take in the sights and impersonal assault of his city. He lets himself believe that he's walking aimlessly, but he knows he is getting closer to her. He tells himself he won't end up at her door, that he's just a dead man, traveling among his memories; but once his toes are numb and his nose is too cold to run, he turns down an alley that hosts a little stoop about half way down
the block. There, he stares at the gray door with the bare bulb above it. He can't quite make himself climb the two steps that lead up to the door. Her address was the first thing he found when he learned that she no longer lived in her father's palatial home, yet this is his first visit. He wants to knock, but his arms betray him. Can it be true that she doesn't want to see him?

  “You've gotten sloppy, making scenes in public,” a voice says from the darkness at the other end of the alley. It is a voice Seth has both missed and hated, dressed in a callous tone he can perfectly understand. He has missed the sound, because it belongs to his brother. He has hated it, because the last thing his brother told him was that he was making a mistake.

  He sighs in aggravation and turns toward someone who has been his rival and best friend. He does not have an answer, only raises his eyebrows expectantly. He knows Caleb is also someone who won't be rushed into anything, a trait that has been consistently true since childhood. Two years away, and this is the hostile welcome that the only living member of his immediate family has for him. The tall, angular blond spreads his hands before him in a shrug and says, “It only took me a week to find out you were back. I’ve been following you for a week.”

  “I'm not hiding,” Seth answers. This isn't the homecoming he had anticipated.

  “You couldn't bother to let your only family know that you were back before going to her? You couldn't really have thought we wouldn't know you were here. We own these streets, every crevice and every alley. Even this one.”

  Seth stands his ground. He knows there are guns in the darkness. He wonders what they see —a golden-skinned, shaggy stranger; an impossibly casual, relaxed-fit man who was once a clean-cut youth. “Of course I know that. Are you jealous you weren’t my first stop, Caleb? Are you mad you were number two?” he says. How can he say that the readjustment to his city has been damn-near immobilizing? He can't.