Page 6 of Broken Promises
“So? Can I let everyone know we’re opening on Friday?” Jackson wanders around the room like Delta’s a museum jam-packed with exhibits. “Are the V brothers coming? Julij?”
“I’ll see Julij tomorrow. Let the V brothers know, update the website, and send an invitation to the usual VIP crowd.”
He signals that he understood, glaring at bare walls, pulling the faces of an art connoisseur. “Here.” He points high above the ground. “It’s fucking crooked.”
Madhouse. One walks around the club with a dildo; the other looks for imperfections ten feet above the ground.
I leave him to deal with the workers while I drive home to offer Grace a job as my maid. She’s scrubbing the kitchen sink, her dull-red hair in a bun, hands dressed in a pair of rubber gloves.
“Oh, hey. I didn’t expect you back so early.” She bares her teeth in a full-blown smile.
She’s refreshing. Smiles for no reason and acts like cleaning my house is a godsend. As if life can’t get any better.
I shrug out of my jacket and pop the two top buttons on my shirt. “We need to talk. Make yourself a cup of coffee and join me in the living room.”
“Is...” she bites the inside of her cheek, no longer smiling. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”
“Um... okay. Give me two minutes.” She tucks the cleaning products back into the cupboard under the sink.
I leave her be and round the bar to fetch a drink. There’s no vodka left in this house, so whiskey on the rocks it is. My wristwatch shows four p.m., but with zero plans for the rest of the day, I’ll start obsessing about Layla again. I need to get drunk and numb enough not to fucking care. Grace joins me at the bar a moment later, an uncertain, somewhat anxious look on her face. She cups the mug with both hands, eyes on the glass standing before me.
“Can you cook?”
“Not really. I can make simple dishes, but nothing special.”
“My housekeeper left a week ago. I like you, Grace. You’re eager and thorough. I want you to work for me. You’ll need to learn how to cook proper meals, but an evening class should take care of that. I’ll rent you an apartment, you’ll get a car, and we’ll find a nursery for your brother somewhere nearby.”
I say I’ll cover the cost of her apartment and the nursery and tell her how much she’ll take home every month.
She lunges forward and wraps her arms around me tightly, weeping into my shoulder. “Thank you. You’ve no idea what this means to me. Thank you.”
I pat her on the back, stiff all over, before I push her away. “I’m off to New York tomorrow. One of my people will sort everything out for you over the weekend.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Dante
My good friend, Chief Jeremy Smith had a sudden onset of a migraine when I asked him to take care of the travel ban so I could attend Nikolaj’s funeral. Truth be told, I don’t care much about the deceased King of New York. Unfortunately, Julij is now my business partner, so it’s in my best interest to pay my respects. Especially since I hope to befriend a few of the most influential bosses from all over the country who announced their attendance.
Julij is a newbie in this world. No one will take him seriously if he starts talking business after years of observing our world from behind his late father’s back. My name, on the other hand, comes with a reputation. People know me or have at least heard of me. Thanks to the V brothers and their brilliant chemist, many also respect me. Nikolaj was their go-to guy whenever drugs were concerned. If I can take his place in the supply chain, my network will double in size. With the whole of Chicago under my command and Frank’s meddling no longer an issue, I can finally stretch my wings.
“I’m driving,” Spades chirps, crossing the airport parking lot. Before taking the wheel, he locks our luggage in the trunk of a sky-blue rental Challenger. “I want to get one of these next month. Let’s see how it handles.”
“We’re supposed to meet Julij at his house before heading to the chapel.”
I pull out my phone to call my mother. We haven’t talked since the face-time chat on Christmas day. She called a few times when the media reported Frank’s death, but I was in no state to talk at the time. I’m not in the right frame of mind now either, but I can’t put it off any longer. A face-to-face chat should go down easier than a phone call, and I am in New York, so... yeah. She should know that Layla is no longer a part of my life. That she’s not getting the daughter-in-law, she wants so badly. I grit my teeth and close my eyes briefly, straining to pull my shit together. Twelve days have gone by since Layla’s disappearance.Twelvedays. I thought it’d get easier with time, that the hole she left behind when she took my heart with her would start to heal, but the pain isn’t subsiding.
If anything, it’s growing stronger.
Maddening.
I lay awake for hours at night, uncomfortable without her in my arms. That’s when I try to accept what happened; learn how to hate her, and convince myself that her disappearance is a good thing. It’s not working, though. Sleep comes at dawn. Two, sometimes three hours of vivid dreams. She’s with me in those dreams. Happy, smiling, so beautiful I want to weep. I wake up alone, empty, numb, fucking confused, and back to square one. Back to learning how to live my life without her because any progress I made the day before vanishes after I spend a few hours holding and kissing her inside my head.
“Hey, baby,” Isla says. “I’m so glad you called. I’ve been calling you for days. I know you must’ve been busy with...” She trails off, clearing her throat. “How’s Layla doing?”
This is the first time anyone has spoken her name aloud since she ran away. All my senses fire up at once. I gouge my fingers into the leather seat beneath me, bridling the anger that flares inside me like King Cobra’s hood. I didn’t think my fuse could get any shorter, but here it is, or rather isn’t. “This isn’t a conversation I want to have over the phone. I’m in New York. I’ll stop by the penthouse tonight.”
