Black Collar Beginnings: Cuba (Black Collar Syndicate) (7 page)

“Thank you,” he whispers, sends the words off like a scarlet butterfly. “Thank you for accepting our alliance. And for not killing me.”

His voice rises unsteadily, brushing softly against the boss before flitting over the sand and out to sea.  Eventually, the stars will hear them, too. With those words, come just a few more tears. He can feel the shift in the air, Havana's surprise, a sentiment that he surely doesn't encounter often. Noise from the party barely reaches them. Everyone else has disappeared. The world is on hush, and the air current alive with their energy. How could Seth not feel that surprise.

Seth hears rustling. Havana is moving, but Seth doesn't care. He doesn't move. He amends his earlier wish: he will stay in Cuba forever with no shoes or shirt until he dies on that very spot of starvation. If he is so ineffectual at controlling his own fate, he will never move again. Fuck everybody. 

Havana leans down into Seth's space again, all of his sinister airs hidden away, and he is so gentle when he pulls Seth to a slow sit. Seth wants to protest, to fight it, but that just makes the scorched skin scream louder, so he allows himself to be manipulated, yet again. Havana presses a bottle of chilled mineral water into his hand without a word. The sight makes him realize that his very cells are crying out for hydration. He really has let himself down, let his body waste slowly away in the freedom from feeling anything but capable. He drinks the whole bottle.

Havana smirks, leaves his side, returns with another bottle. Seth frowns as he accepts. The brat prince indeed, being served by the hands of a king. The power in this moment is almost too great for Seth to comprehend. Someday, he will be king. That was his father's word. Not Caleb, but Seth. It still doesn't make sense, and even now, as his pain radiates into the night, it doesn't seem real.

Havana is watching him when he makes eye contact. Always, there's that measuring regard, like maybe the Cuban can see into Seth's soul. Seth holds the gaze, though, no longer afraid of someone finding those buried secrets and fears, for now he has been given a place. Now his fears cannot undo him, can't erase the scorched skin and the mark of another syndicate. Havana says, “You have endured much for your family's sake, but you have taken it all upon your own feet. The caliber of your character has earned my respect, and you have earned your place. When you return, and you take your throne, I believe both of our empires will gain much from this alliance.”

The throne. His rightful place. But when will that be? Uncle Mikie never mentioned when he would step down from interim rule, and raise up Seth to take over the family. Such dark thoughts on this celebration night, dark thoughts that are just like the ravaging pain to Seth's psyche. He shakes them away, levels his gaze on Havana, and says, “I am honored, and always humbled, to be accepted into your family. And I will continue to prove myself to you, that you have made the right decision about me.”

Havana's eyes do a slow crawl down Seth's face, over his lips, and the line of his throat. For an intense moment, they're both frozen there, but Havana's lips curl into a small twist of a smile. He says, “When you came to me from your city, I would not have believed it. But now, it is so easy for me to believe you. Well done, Seth Morgan.”

At that, Havana stands and steals down the path. Without another word, or another glance. Simple, quiet, an exit of grace, and Seth is left staring again at the stars.

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Black Collar Empire
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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.

Part One

Coup de Main

Chapter 1

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 due 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.