A Captive Situation (Kings of New York)

I’d secured both, tying Crispin to his chair. His feet and hands were bound. Both were gagged. Penn was left on the floor. He could roll around if he wanted, but this room only had barrels of wine in it so there was no danger that I could see. His hands and feet were also bound.

I pulled out Crispin’s phone, opening his eyelid and scanning it with his phone so I could get into it. It was after I did that when he woke up. He began shouting through his gag. His eyes were wide, angry. He was rattling around on the chair. That’s what woke Penn up, who rolled a little, moaning before he blinked enough to clear whatever fog was in his mind.

Both were shouting as loud as they could, but the sound was muffled.

I’d initially been intending on taking pictures of everything down here, then slipping upstairs and pickpocketing Crispin’s phone. He was the smarter one of the two and he would’ve had any information I needed on his phone. Their dad had put them in charge of running the club after the war with Ashton and Trace’s family. He’d left to hide in Maine, not wanting to be around in case either of the two families tried to take him out. Course, he hadn’t known then that they’d taken his two sons and held them in a warehouse until the war was over. They let them both go, but Crispin and Penn were useless. There was no way they were actually running this club. Both lived for booze, drugs, pussy, and lifting weights.

And strutting around as if they were badasses.

Four of our uncles made up the board for the business, but I decided there was only one that I needed to talk to for my information.

I shot off a text after I searched his phone.

Crispin: I just heard some shit about a contract on Jake’s head. Wtf, dad? Do I need to know something?

Uncle Toby wasn’t tech-savvy so I held up my gun and moved back to Crispin, tearing off the tape. I spoke through his howl. “Your dad’s going to call you in a moment, and you’re going to say whatever the fuck you need to say to find out who put a contract on my head. You got me?”

“You fucking—”

I took the safety off and pressed it harder against his temple. They didn’t know the lengths I could go. No, that wasn’t correct. They knew the lengths I went to, to protect my brother, but I was thinking they needed a reminder.

He shut up, but his eyes narrowed. Confusion showed.

“I mean it, Crisp. I went through your messages. I know you got a little girlfriend in Jersey and I’m guessing there’s a reason you’re keeping her a secret. You want to keep her secret, you play ball.”

His eyes continued glaring before looking down to where Penn was lying.

Oh. I’d just outed him.

I shrugged. “We’ll work something out with him.”

He continued seething at me.

I ignored him, saying, “I don’t have to time to be fucking diplomatic here. Someone’s trying to kill me. You help me find out who that is so that I can put a bullet in their head or you don’t. If you choose option two, trust me, I will have no problem taking down every single family member with me. You get me?”

I stared at him, hard. Letting him see just how far I was willing to go, and if that meant putting a bullet in each of my uncles’ heads, in each of my cousins’ like him, I had no problem doing that. When he stilled, and swallowed, I finished, “Are you in or out? Your dad is going to call any second.”

Fury showed before he banked it and slowly nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll ask him.”

The phone began ringing.

“You do what the fuck you need to get the answers. You got me?”

He nodded again, this time quicker, so I accepted the call, putting him on speaker.

He coughed, clearing his throat. “Hey—”

“What are you playing at? Sending that shit over text? Have you lost your damn mind—”

I moved the gun so it was directed at Penn, who froze when he saw the move.

“Dad—Dad! Shut up.”

There was a beat of silence, but Uncle Toby was not one that you told to shut up.

“Listen here, you little piece of shit. You—”

“Who’s trying to take out Jake?”

Silence again. “Why the fuck do you care about that fucker? He’s a traitor. Who the fuck cares—”

Crispin paled, cursing under his breath. “Dad!”

There was another moment of silence.

Uncle Toby was the keeper of all the secrets. He knew everything, and since I didn’t have time for a trip to Maine right now, his sons were the closest way to get those answers.

“Dad, there’s a hit on Jake.” Sweat poured down Crispin’s face. He needed to blink a few times as some of it went over his eyes. His voice was raspy, strained. “Who put it there? I gotta know. I gotta . . . He’s in the city, Dad. Are we in danger? What’s going on?”

My cousin truly sucked at being an actor.

“Why?” His dad’s voice dipped low. Also hoarse. “The fuck are you asking this shit? What are you playing at? You know we don’t give a shit about that kid.”

Kid. I stopped being a kid when he put a gun in my hands when I was twelve. When he told me I needed to learn how to kill a man. My dad found out two years later what Uncle Toby had me doing, shooting men for him, but the damage was done. I had already been turned into an executioner by then.

That was when my dad stepped away from the family business. It was the first rift among the brothers.

Maybe that was the beginning of the end for the Worthing Mafia.

“. . . he’s going to be taken out and you need to just shut your fat fucking mouth until then. You hear me?” He didn’t wait, bellowing, “You hear me? You answer me, boy!”

I pulled the phone away from my cousin. The frustration that had been rising in me began to morph into a calmness. It was somewhat nice. Serene. It was a dead feeling of calm.

I continued listening as my uncle confirmed every single one of my suspicions. He was saying, spewing into the phone, “Calling me and asking me about family business. You don’t fucking do that. You know better.”

I sighed audibly before speaking, in a low voice. “Uncle Toby.”

Crispin was bugging out at me, his eyes bulging. I didn’t want to hear whatever he was going to say so I shoved tape back over his mouth. He tried yelling through it.

I took the phone and walked away, noting how quiet it was now.

“Who put the contract on me, Uncle Toby?” I went over, bending to pick up a knife that I’d stripped from Penn earlier. I twirled it in my hand. “You can answer me in the next five seconds, but I’ll let you know, every minute you waste my time will cost you. I’ll start stripping inches of skin off one of your boys.”

Crispin went pale again. I didn’t think he had any more color in him. As I neared him, he tried jerking the chair away from me. It started to tip back, but I stopped it with my foot and slammed him back down.

“Jacob.”

I had to smile. He sounded so cautious now. “This is karmic. Isn’t it, Uncle?” I flicked the knife in my hand, letting it spin in circles on my palm. “You were the one who turned me into a killer. Now here I am. Using some of those skills on your own boys. That is, unless you stop wasting my time and give me the name I need. What are you going to do, Uncle Toby?”

I leaned forward, pressing the edge of the blade to Crispin’s leg.

He went so still, only barely breathing.

I forgot the power that filled you in these types of interrogations. I forgot the adrenaline. It was addicting.

“You got my son?” he asked, quietly.

“I got both of them. They’re alive.” I kicked at Crispin’s chair, enjoying the wave of fear that rolled from him. “For now.”

“What’s this he’s saying? Someone’s trying to kill you?” He tried to sound casual.

I grunted. “Wrong move, Uncle.” I tore Crispin’s pants, ripping them until there was a good chunk of skin exposed, and I put the knife to it.

My cousin began screaming. It was muffled by the tape, but it was loud.

I moved the phone back to my mouth, speaking as Crispin continued screaming, “You hear that, Uncle? You should be able to guess what comes next, since you’re the one who taught me the five main steps of torture.”

“Jesus Christ! Stop, Jacob. Stop. Please . . .”

I stared at the phone. That was different. I had never heard my uncle beg.

I liked it. I wanted to hear more.

“You know”—I pulled the knife away, straightening up. Maybe we’d go down this one road first—“I got to thinking about the logistics of when the board appointed me head of the family. You said it yourself. You still think of me as a kid, but you’re forgetting what I was before we left. Aren’t you? You’re forgetting the reason I left in the first place. Justin’s gone now.”

He was quiet again.

I smiled into the phone, knowing it connected to the emptiness inside of me. “I’m no longer a cop, Uncle. And here I am. Picking up the old trade. It’s like riding a bike again. I forgot the rush you get from torture—”

“Jacob, stop! Stop. Please . . . Please. Just. Fucking stop. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

I met Crispin’s eyes. He was looking at me like he’d never known me, as if I’d sprouted a second head. Then again, maybe he never knew that his father began molding me into being the family’s own personal assassin because at the end of the day, that’s where I thrived.

“What do you want to know? I’ll—what do you want to know, Nephew?”

“Let’s start with Nicolai. How did he become appointed the head? Because the last I knew of him, he wasn’t on top of the food chain. He was on the bottom, and somehow he shot up to the top spot. Who’s really calling the shots, Uncle? Is that who put the hit out on me?”

His tone went flat, but he sighed. “I think you know better than to have this conversation over the phone—”

I cut him off, impatient. “Stop fucking with me or I will start cutting. You know if I start, I’ll finish. That’s how you trained me. Remember? Stop with the games. Crispin’s phone is encrypted. You have him here to oversee the storage and distribution you use for this nightclub. Saving your boy’s life isn’t enough incentive? Fine. I’m aware of what you have in this basement. It would be easy for me to drop a tip to the right person. Let them know the drugs, the black-market goods you store here. It’s up to you for that one. You want me to call law enforcement? Or Ashton Walden?”

He got quiet, real quiet.

I showed my teeth to his son, who was watching me so warily now. “I’m pissed off, and I have nothing left to lose.”

“Nephew—”

“Time’s up.” I aimed the knife, ready to lodge it into Crispin’s leg.noveldrama

Crispin and Penn were both screaming through their tape. Crispin was trying to break free from his chair. Penn was trying to roll at me, but I kicked him away.

“—wait!”

He cursed on his end.

“Too late,” I clipped out, raising my hand with the knife.

“We don’t know him!” my uncle cried out.

I paused before lowering my hand back to my side. “Explain.”

“Why don’t you come here? We’ll send a plane. It’ll be a quick ride. We’ll have dinner. The family. We can talk over a nice meal. Be civilized.”

I was done. He was still not remembering who I was.

I moved in a flash, lodging the knife in Crispin’s thigh.

His scream went up a notch. Bloodcurdling.

“Oh Christ. Christ. Jacob—stop! Please.”

“Start talking, Uncle, or . . .” I dragged the knife down Crispin’s thigh until I got to his knee, then ripped the blade out.

Crispin got silent, and I looked. He’d passed out. I shook my head, tsking into the phone. “Your boy’s already out. I’ve barely started, Uncle.”

“Fuck!” he yelled into the phone. “We—he’s not one of us.”

I paused, hearing an answer. Finally.

“Creighton Lane,” Uncle Toby said hurriedly. Frantic. “I don’t know if you know of him, but—”

“I know who he is. What does he have to do with the hit on me?”

Creighton Lane ran Cincinnati. He was a self-made mobster who rose from the streets. By the time he was nineteen, he was running everything. I knew people who’d gone after him, and none of them came out alive. As a cop and an organized crime detective, the few times I heard about him, I’d been thankful he never came to my city. We had the West and Walden Mafia families here and they were enough to handle, but Creighton was a loose cannon. He was a whole different sort of animal.

“He’s behind the hit.”

I stepped away. Blood dripped to the floor from the knife in my hand. “Why?” I’d had no dealings with Lane. None.

My uncle hesitated, then sighed. “Because he’s one of us.”

I reared back. “One of us?”

“Our family. He’s a cousin. He’s got Worthing blood in him. I don’t know how he found out, but he’s one of us.”

“He grew up in Cincinnati. He’s from Cincinnati. He grew up in foster care.” No. Fuck that. “He grew up on the streets.”

“None of us were aware he was one of ours. Your aunt Taunti, she ran away when she was young. We never knew where she went, but he’s hers.”

Crispin was starting to wake. He moaned, his head falling backward.

“This is verified?”

“Yeah. All verified.”

“How long, Uncle? How long have you known?”

He was quiet again before surrendering, “He reached out two years ago.”

“Two years?”

Crispin’s groaning hit a high note. His head was rolling from side to side.

Penn grunted from the floor. From the angle he’d ended at after my kick, and from his weight, he couldn’t do much except try to flail around.

Creighton Lane was a one-man tsunami. He ran the entire city from the street to the elected officials. They were all under his control, and how he’d managed it wasn’t quite known, but he had an iron-tight grip on that city.

“What does he want?” I asked.

“What do you think he wants? He wants to take over.”

Understanding was starting to click into place. “He would’ve come in with demands. Our current head had just died—” Nicolai.

“We—we did what we thought we needed to do. When we heard you were resigning, we thought it was perfect.”

“You wanted me to handle this problem for you.”

“I mean, you’re the organized crime pig. If anyone knows how to take someone out like Creighton Lane, it’d be you. Am I right? I’m right. You’re the guy. You’re our guy.”

“I’m your guy?” I echoed, softly. Those were similar words to another time he spoke to me.

You’re going to be our executioner, Jake. Our guy. Our little assassin.

Penn was eyeing me warily.

“Yeah. Our guy.” My uncle laughed, forcing it. “Right? You can handle him.”

A whole storm was stirring inside of me. One where I yearned to reach through the phone to rip my uncle’s head off his neck and bathe in his blood. It was angry, churning, and hungry. I was one person, offered up on a platter by the people who shared my blood, and they’d put me in the path of a monster like Creighton Lane.

I was seething, until a decision came to me. Instant calmness settled over me, soothing everything out. I knew now what I needed to do.

I must’ve been quiet for too long because my uncle said, “Jacob?”

I raised the phone up to my mouth and spoke directly into it. “Start packing, Uncle. After I deal with Lane, I’m going to clean house, and I’ll start with yours. I’m coming for you.”

I put the knife down and picked up the gun, aiming.

“Wait. Wha—”

Crispin began struggling, screaming again, blood draining from his face. Penn was flailing around, shouting. Both of their voices went up a whole octave.

“Run, Uncle Toby. Run.”

Bang!