Black Collar Empire Read online

  Why here? He crunches his expression as he scours his memories: the bar, Nicolette, Caleb—his insides twist. Caleb with his gun ready to end his little brother. Everything beyond that is a blur of pain and phantom images like fever dreams. Nicolette saved him from Caleb's wrath, but what then? What else? She called Mikie.

  He shakes his head as if it will clear his certainty, but it only sends needles of pain through his nervous system, starting in his ribcage. There are pain killers in his system; he feels their woozy, whimsical effect. No, there will be no order for his thoughts today. His stomach growls with a hunger that he cannot feel, and suddenly he can no longer bear the thought of being in the bed where his father died. He excavates himself from the confines of the blanket, and after spending several minutes trying to dislodge the rails, climbs over them. His movements are lodged in slow motion, and no matter how hard he wills himself to go faster, he creeps over the bars and lowers himself to the lush carpet so slowly that his low-slung pants threaten to slip off him. As he tugs at his waist band, he notices that the skin of his ribs and abdomen have turned a violent purple. He brushes his flesh with his fingers, gazing at the tender remnants left there by his brother's foot. If Dad could see me now, he thinks, pressing on his skin just to make it hurt, to feel how close to the threshold the pressure takes him. The pain makes his vision swim. How many sleepless nights did he spend in Cuba, illegally, sweating alone and thinking the exact same thing?

  He steps up to one of the huge windows, so close his nose is almost touching it. Judging by the sun's angle, it is already late into the afternoon, glaring from the other side of this monument built by crime. It casts a long shadow on the building across the street, a subtle reminder that this life does pay, if you pay the right people. The city is silent from here; the hush like a spell. He feels, suddenly, at a loss as to what to do next. His old home is so different now, and he left his new home miles behind him.

  The elevator door far behind him dings, and the doors discreetly swish open. He endures the tension, lets his imagination present all the possibilities of what he will face when he turns around. It's better not to rush it. Don't break the spell. His visitor enters quietly, moves unobtrusively across thick carpet to stand by his right side. He takes a difficult breath and slides his gaze over, sidelong. All bonds he has on his own heart snap and drop it far into the pit of his stomach. His greatest fear is always that he will never see her again, yet she is here, with her hair glowing against her shoulders. Where she belongs—a queen at his right hand.

  His shoulders drop when he takes in her pencil skirt and slim suit jacket. She is dressed for business, to kill. She stares out across rooftops and he says, “You didn't come to see me, did you?”

  “I came to tell you that Mikie is on his way,” she answers, eyes stubbornly seeking something, anything of interest outside.

  “Really?” he asks, eyes following hers out beyond his world of pain. “Is that it?”

  She sighs reluctantly. “Seth, he's housecleaning. That's why I came.”

  Seth feels the tension creeping into his sore muscles. He can't quite see the street from here. It's not right, he thinks, to come from there, yet pay it no homage. But he's a prince, he should hold his head high. It hurts to lift his chin when his heart is bleeding. What she came here to say—his brother has not yet been punished for his actions, but he might be very soon. His family is not an issue he will willingly face at this moment. She is so much easier to focus on, so he says, “Nic, what has happened to my life here?”

  She bristles a little. She tries to play it off, but she cannot hide from him—he’s studied her movements for so long. Their marriage was all but arranged when they were children. Conveniently, they fell in love. Their parents were amused when they beat each other up on the playground then amused at their denial of any romantic connection as teenagers. Their relationship has always been wild and full of fighting, but above all their love has always been for each other. Things had been going so well when his dad died. He wishes he could destroy hindsight with an irreparable force.

  “You ought to know well enough the answer to that,” she says quietly, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone uncomfortably shifting her weight. She wants to look him over. his unexpectedly, gloriously tanned body, too thin, missed. But that would be inappropriate. He is so close after so long, and still they are separated. She thought she was so strong for leaving it all. Her resolve is crumbling like a dirt wall under its first summer storm. Her strength has abandoned her.

  “I just wanted to see you. I couldn't wait anymore,” he admits, not really comprehending the windows and bricks and sunlight that make up his vision. His thoughts are fuzzy. Must be the drugs. He's never cared for morphine. “Last night, I mean,” he adds with a pained look. “I'm sorry.”

  Tears well inside her so that she must divert all her effort to squashing them, and she experiences the girlish desire to curl into some soft bed sheets cover her head and hide forever. There is no formal escape from this situation, so she squirms, eyes focusing on the vague reflection of her outline in the glass. She breaks, looks away to the desk. She says, “I'm sorry it came to that.”

  Somehow, they have been reduced to apologizing to each other for things that aren't any fault of theirs. They have mapped each other’s bodies with fingers and lips, yet now they stand rigid before their kingdom. The elevator door dings again. Her eyes grow wide suddenly, having some vague idea of what is to come. Seth's eyes slide closed, hoping for the best. Is there mercy here in heaven?

  “Seth. Good. You're up.” A chill in the warmth. It is Uncle Mikie with a rather cold greeting for being the first in two years. He is accompanied by a shuffling sound, a struggling tension. Seth opens his eyes, hopes against hope, and turns.

  There is Mikie, in a dark brown fedora and a long, thick coat, his bulk of presence like a mountainous warrior. His face is hard, set stern and grim, and familial brown eyes avoid Seth's probe for reason. But there are other bodies, goons, holding a lithe form with his face to the carpet. Seth knows that blond hair, knows every style it has ever been in, knows each time it has been ruddied. It's ruddied now. No, there is no heaven.

  “Caleb,” he whispers, the single word like an agonizing electric current.

  Brother. His brother, covered in blood. He struggles, even now, against the huge hands. His face is broken, foreign, worse than he could ever have done to Seth. He's pissed. Seth's eyes are huge, questioning, as they roam to the king. Why? Why bring him here, like this? Seth's brain is not working properly. Rationality is a word for which he has no meaning. Cruelty is the only thought resounding. His thin body quakes visibly, like a reed shivering in the wind. The morphine makes his stomach turn and his eyes feel flat.

  Uncle Mikie comes to him, folds a large arm around him, just like he used to do. His uncle is warm, coat and shirt and tie and fedora. Familiar. He is the ruling force, the king, a king who pushes a .357 into his nephew's hand. Mikie is an uncle who will not tolerate attempts to topple his kingdom. An uncle who says, “Take your place, Seth.”

  The weight of the gun is like a blow to the gut. It's a familiar weight. It belonged to his father. A searing rage swells from the depths of his broken soul, and he tears away from Mikie's grip on his shoulders. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asks in a venomous hiss.

  Finally, Mikie meets Seth's unsteady gaze. His features have softened, but forcefully so. He manages to seem concerned, which makes Seth's existence into a drug-induced sideshow of the reality he knows. The concern, it doesn't quite shine through in his uncle's eyes. Mikie says, “Seth, I know you received some serious head trauma, but you've got to realize that your brother tried to kill you.”

  “He wouldn't kill me,” Seth answers, the edge to his voice steadily sharpening even as he slurs some of the softer syllables. “You should have let us handle this like men, not like this.”

  Seth expects his anger to be returned, but instead Mikie sighs as if dealing with a small
child; as if Seth is being unreasonable. He says, “He tried to kill you. By the code, you must seek retribution.”

  Seth's brow hardens. The code that he has lived by and believed in. He looks back to Caleb and realizes his brother is glaring daggers at Nicolette. His eyes are so blue, like Mom's, but they are so strange when they are that hard. Seth says, “You wouldn't kill me, would you, Caleb?”

  Caleb's hateful glare locks onto Seth's, and it bears all the malice of two years of misunderstanding, no contact, betrayal. Even in his bloody, ravaged state, Caleb is unrepentant. He spits blood on the carpet, says, “I hate you. You're such a fool.”

  Seth’s anger melts at the lance of hearing those words from his brother's lips. Caleb can't mean it. Seth's head is shaking in defiance. His vision sways and bends. Again, he feels like he will vomit. “I don't hate you,” he whispers.

  He finds Caleb's eyes once more, in some desperate hope to find the glimmer of the brotherhood they've always held so dear. Even when they fought, even at their worst, it was always there.

  Caleb's eyes only narrow, focus the rage and vehemence on its source. When he speaks, his voice scrapes just above a whisper. “You've always been the golden boy, Seth. Don't pretend now that you care about anyone else.” He glances at Mikie then back. “It doesn't matter. They'll use you too, until you're no longer useful. Fuck you, Seth. And fuck you, Mikie.”

  The blast of a gunshot pits the world into a ringing tilt. Caleb Morgan's head snaps back, and a bullet lodges into the wall across the room, ripping a large, messy hole in his forehead on the way. His body slumps onto the carpet without the support of the goons, who have suddenly let go of his arms. For a moment, stillness and silence overcome the space, ringing in the shot's aftermath. Caleb bleeds onto the carpet, dead before he hits the floor. Seth stands devastated, arms useless at his sides, the gun precariously hanging in his fingers. His brother's blood sprayed across his skin, impossibly hot. Huge brown eyes drain of life. His lungs tighten, his breath quickening. He's shaking so badly the gun nearly falls from his hand.

  “No,” he mutters, and he stumbles forward a couple steps. He cannot rip his eyes away from Caleb's wide, vacant baby blues. Even the hatred was better than this . . . this absence. “No, no, no . . . ,” he continues to gibber.

  “Get him out of here,” Mikie says, disgust thick in his tone.

  The soldiers move toward the body, but Seth screams, “Nooooooooo!” until it is an unintelligible wail, like a fiend who haunts the room. They freeze as Seth shrieks, and his body quakes as he turns his father's .357 on his uncle in a fit of red-vision rage. “You mother fucker!” he screams and begins to unload the gun. Not even Mikie can play it deadpan when under fire, and he cusses as he throws himself to the floor, knocking his fedora askew. Books on the shelves above him explode like a literary fireworks display, and the little scraps of paper rain down on the king. Seth manages to empty the revolver before one of the goons tackles him to the floor.

  The goon crushes Seth against the carpet, but his body has gone limp, and he merely sobs into the flooring. The gun slips from his fingers with no help, and his entire body trembles violently as he draws himself into the best fetal position he can manage under the weight. His eyes are pinched closed. He can deny reality if he cannot see it.

  Mikie rights himself with as much dignity as he can manage, holding his head high as if he hadn't almost died. He brushes book guts from his coat with a steadying sigh. The other solider stands with his gun pointed toward Seth, like he might suddenly spring again, like a wild animal. Idiot—as if Seth has any more bullets. Mikie holsters his own pistol. He glances at Nicolette, who is standing from where she had thrown herself behind the desk. She's staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, which are tinted in some dark question. Mikie ignores her, says to the goons, “Stand down, both of you.”

  One warily watches Seth as he uncovers the prince, and number two asks, “What about the code?”

  In a flash, Mikie's pistol comes back to life, and he levels it on poor peon who has acted on his ignorance. Mikie's voice is a strained growl when he says, “What did I say?”

  “Yes, sir!” answers the goon with haste. He holsters his gun and stands at attention with his hands behind his back.

  Mikie has already turned to his nephew. He kicks the .357 away as he approaches, just for good measure, and kneels beside Seth's bruised and shaking form. He lays a big, steady hand on Seth's shoulder. His voice feels like childhood to Seth's psyche when Mikie says, “It never gets easier, son, but it's our way of life. Someday you'll understand.”

  Irving Prep School, New York City. January 22.

  The school is a monument to tradition.

  Generations of wealthy upper east siders have languished within these walls. Alliances that changed industry, political backstabbing that stifled bills and started small wars saw their births in the marble halls. Relationships that culminated in society-page marriages were tested in the classrooms. The wealthy, bored elite's playground.

  Emma Morgan sits on the rail of the top balcony, toying with her red-gold hair as Quinn and Teresa Marie talk idly about a party this weekend.

  She is tired of parties—the Irving parties have nothing on Caleb's clubs and the decadence of his private orgies.

  Wistfully, she glances down at the picture on her phone, her dark-eyed cousin smirking back. The parties that Seth could start, with nothing more than a few smiles and stolen bottle of Rey Sol Anjo, were legendary at Irving, but she craves the quieter moments—when the brat prince set aside his moodiness and guns, set aside the girls and drugs and was nothing more than Seth.

  Her favorite cousin.

  He'd been gone too long. Caleb tries to protect her and educate her, but he isn’t Seth. As much as she adores the golden playboy, no one can replace Seth.

  Heavy footsteps ring on the marble, and Quinn falls quiet, a fearful look on his face. Emma glances down into the hall, only mildly surprised to see Tinney.

  "Emma, is that..." He trails off, staring as the huge hired gun prowls up the stairs toward her. His eyes are gentle—too gentle for such a brutal man. Tinney didn't become the king's bodyguard because he has clean hands.

  "Miss Emma, I need you to come with me," Tinney says, stopping a few stairs down. Still perched on the rail, she is even with him, and she keeps her face deliberately empty.

  Something is wrong. The family doesn't send for her. They don't send hitmen to her school—Mikie keeps her life as untouched as possible.

  Her head swims, and she sways a tiny bit. Quinn's arm comes around her waist, pulling her down, and he hugs her close for a moment. "Are you ok?" he asks.

  The question shakes her momentary fear, and she pulls away, a practiced smile on her face. Never let outsiders see what's happening. "Fine. I'll see you tomorrow." She goes on tiptoes, kissing his cheek, and then steps away.

  Tinney escorts her down the wide stairs. Students clear a path for the guard and his charge. She keeps her face down, the demure tilt to her lips just a touch challenging. She hears whispers bouncing around behind her. Kids of rich parents, always willing to gossip.

  "Miss Morgan!"

  She almost doesn't turn. She doesn't want to deal with them. Dread is already forming in her—whatever has happened, it's bad.

  But she can hear Caleb, murmuring as Seth charmed a police officer. “Do what you can to stay on the authorities’ good side. It makes things easier."

  So she turns, and Tinney sigh a little as she faces the headmaster.

  "Dr Klien."

  "My office," the headmaster growls, and Tinney shifts, enough that the officious little man pales. Two gun barrels peek from under his arms, a silent flouting of the school's weapons policy.

  If Klien really thinks Caleb would send Emma anywhere unarmed, he's more of an idiot than she thought.

  "Family crisis, Klien. What can I do for you?"

  "You can't leave campus without going through the proper channels," he says. Emma stare
s at him, her annoyance expressed in cool disdain, a haughty expression that would make even Seth envious.

  "My family needs me, sir," she says, her voice carefully civil. "Check my paperwork. Tinney is listed."

  The headmaster flushes again and opens his mouth to bluster some more. Her full lips thin irritably, and the rest of Caleb's advice fills her mind. "Sometimes, though, you just have to fuck it and take the heat later."

  That'd been when he stepped out of the limo and gotten rough with a cop, pulling his drunk, underage brother out of the line of fire.

  She turns, catching Tinney's eye as she stalks away. He rumbles something to the headmaster as she strides out of the school with all the grace and confidence of a queen.

  She slides into the waiting Bentley, scooting across the bench seat so that there is a place for Tinney when he folds himself into the car. The driver slips away from the school, into the gridlock of Manhattan traffic, and she stares out the window. It's all ours. That’s what he told her, before he left.

  "Where are we going?" She asks, a lesser question than the one burning on the tip of her tongue. The one she can't bring herself to ask yet.

  "Mikie's penthouse."

  Emma's gaze, startled and frightened, darts to him, and the assassin looks away. She needs better control, or this family will eat her alive. But it is rare for the king to summon her, and this is too reminiscent of the day Isaac died.

  "What happened?" she asks, the words a breathless whisper with no force.

  Tinney stares at her, assessing, and finally sighs. "The brothers."

  There is only one pair of brothers that means anything in the Morgan empire.

  "Seth is back," she whispers to herself, an exultant acknowledgment. Two years of longing and impatience boil under her skin, and she reaches for her phone.