Page 13 of Cruel Proposal
Robert stormsinto my office in the morning, flinging the door open, not even sparing it a glance as the knob puts a new hole in my wall.
I just had the last one fucking patched.
Leaning forward, Robert slams his hands on my desk. "You want to tell me what the fuck you're doing, holding another Lynde hostage? You told me that you were going to be leaving Miami, and now I find out that you showed up with her yesterday afternoon?"
"You'll be surprised to know that she wasn't happy and tried to attack me shortly after we got here." Reaching forward, I grab the letter opener from the pen cup on the corner of my desk.
Robert's face turns a bright shade of red. "You don't know what game you're playing."
Slamming the blade into his hand, I drive the sharp point through to the table.
He screams, hissing as he draws the letter opener out of his hand and tosses it to the side.
I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms. "Now maybe next time you'll remember who the fuck you're talking to instead of disrespecting me like I'm another one of your little soldiers."
His face pales, the gears in his head turning. Then he sits down in the chair across from me, wrapping his hand in the end of his shirt. "What's the plan with her?"
"Oh, do you suddenly remember who you work for?"
Robert sighs, wincing when he jostles his hand the wrong way. "Look, the Lynde numbers are growing by the day, and ours keep dwindling. There's talk of one of the men rising against you, but I haven't been able to get a name out of them yet."
"It's not your job to question me, and you know it. As for what I'm doing with her, she's part of the plan." I roll my shoulder back, letting out some of the tension.
He leans back and crosses one leg over the other, glancing around the room like he's not sure someone isn't going to pop out and kill him. Though Robert's been more paranoid than normal, he's always been suspicious of me. It's the way we were raised.
I was the one good at everything. The one Dad wanted to run the family when he was gone. Robert was the product of an affair with a prostitute. Sure, Dad took him in and had him raised with me, but all our lives it's been clear that Robert's the spare. And with good reason.
He's never excelled in the more...gruesome aspects of our family business. Sure, he's okay with numbers, better at charming contractors than I am, but everything else about him is subpar.
And he knows it.
Our uncle never made a point of hiding it. Dad certainly didn't either.
Everything since we've been children has been a rivalry.
I eye him for a moment, torn about how much I can tell him. After my half-sisters turned against me, as well as their cousin, family isn't as loyal as I thought it once was.
Robert's stuck by my side for this long, though.
He scrubs his good hand down his face, the dark circles beneath his eyes only seeming to get darker as he sits there. "I think we should cut our losses with New York. Pick up and move to Chicago. Takeyourpeople with us and get the hell out of here before the Lyndes go nuclear."
"Scared of them?"
He scoffs and shakes his head, a hard look entering his eyes. "You know I'm not."
"Well, then, stop acting like a little bitch. We have business to handle, and if you're going to be my second, I can't have you running scared of the fucking Lyndes. They're nothing. They might have the numbers, but we're smarter than them, and we have better connections."
"We don't." Robert gives me a flat look. "We're working on getting better connections, but none of the other groups in the area want to touch us."
"You think the Lyndes are behind that?"
Robert gets up and pulls his shirt away from his hand, looking at the wound. As if to prove his point, he holds his hand up. "I think you're starting to look unstable."
That's not my being unstable, though. I've never felt more in control than I do right now. If he learned to watch his fucking mouth and stopped testing me all the time, he wouldn't have gotten the letter opener through his hand.
He's never going to open his eyes and see that, though.
Robert goes to the cabinet on the other side of the room and pulls out the first-aid kit. He starts disinfecting his hand, looking at the stab wound like he still can't believe it happened. "Chicago. I really think you should consider it, if nothing else than to humor the idea of expanding territory after you win New York."
