Page 95 of Sweet Ruin

“So then you did take the building?”

“… No.”

He buries his face in his hands. “If you don’t start explaining things soon, I’m going to scream, and I won’t stop until you do.”

“Christ, you’re a fucking theatrical one,” I snap.

But even as I say it, I hear Lilah’s voice in my ear.

That’s very theatrical of you. Has anyone ever told you that you have a flair for the dramatic?

I picture her saying it. Lips pursed, smiling softly. The curves of her hips, her breasts. Her eyes, warm and teasing. Snowflakes in her hair.

“I made her a different offer.” I drop my feet off the table and sit forward. “A plan to erase the shit her husband and sister did to her. Every holiday between New Year’s Eve and Easter Sunday, she spends with me. All of them. New Year’s, Valentine’s, the whole lot. If she keeps her end of the deal, then on Easter, I’ll release her from the lien. She’ll keep her building for good.”

Niko is so stunned that he can’t speak for a minute. In many ways, it’s the best minute of my life. I can’t get him to shut the fuck up most of the time.

“Let me make sure I’ve got this,” he says at last. “You, Kane Makov, have spent twenty years buying up every single parcel along that corridor. You’ve coerced and threatened, extorted and blackmailed. You have set up shell corporations and delivered duffel bags full of cash. And now, after the most convoluted scheme yet—a scheme that I put a shit ton of work into, in case you forgot!—you’ve got a clear path to owning the final piece of the puzzle outright in just two short weeks. But instead of simply, I dunno, chilling the fuck out… you just traded it all away for four months of holiday parties with your new gal pal?”

“Three.”

“What?!”

“It’s three months,” I insist. “Not four.”

“Oh, well, that makes it all better then!” he cries out, throwing up his hands. “Whoopee for you! Whoopee for me! All our problems are solved!”

I grab the stapler that’s weighing down another corner of the map and hurl it at him. It’s a good thing for the structural integrity of his skull that my brother has sharp reflexes. He ducks just in time to avoid getting his face shattered.

“You’re missing the fucking point,” I snarl. “She won’t sell and she won’t fold. Now, she’s got a reason to spend time with me, and I’ve got three months to find the pressure point that will make it an easy transition. Plus, this way, we avoid a court battle that would drag things out, make shit public, and give our enemies time to get their greedy little paws on my territory.”

“You know,” remarks Niko, “when you say it like that, it almost sounds reasonable.”

“That’s because it is reasonable, mudak.”

“Hey, hey. No need to start slinging around rude names.” He turns back to his food and starts picking at it again. “So she said yes?”

I turn away. “She asked for a day.”

Niko immediately chokes on his food and starts laughing. “All that,” he splutters between hacking breaths, “all that big talk about savvy moves and outsmarting her and keeping things hush so you can make moves in silence like a true gangster, blah blah blah… and she didn’t even agree? You are a funny man, Kane Makov. You are a funny, funny man.”

“Keep talking and you’ll be a dead man,” I growl at him. I raise the vodka bottle over my head and Niko flinches.

“Relax, you homicidal maniac. It was a joke. I’m kidding. I’m sure it’s all gonna work out fine. Things always seem to end up that way for you anyway.”

A silence follows that seems to signal the end of the conversation. But I know better. My brother has a twinkle in his eye that says he isn’t finished quite yet.

He picks up a piece of pork, eyes it, then sets it back down. When he speaks again, it’s in his serious voice.

“Can I ask you something and not get cracked over the head?”

I sigh. “No promises.”

“Which one are you buying?”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean, are you buying the block?” he asks. “Or are you buying the baker?”