Chapter 2 - Antonio

Power isn’t loud.

It doesn’t beg for attention or raise its voice to be feared.

It waits—patient, deliberate—while the rest of the world learns what happens when rules are ignored.

From my office, the city stretches beneath the floor-to-ceiling windows like it belongs to me. Because it does. Every casino light flickering below, every deal made in the shadows, every bad decision that starts with just one more hand—it all feeds into my world eventually. People don’t realize that part when they walk through my doors on a Friday night or when they leave at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning. They think they’re gambling with cards, with luck, with numbers on a screen, but I know different.

They are simply drowning in the shallows, and they have no idea.

They’re gambling with me.

I don’t rise or even look up when Xander and Rio walk in. I don’t need to. They take the seats across from my desk without being invited—already annoyed, already aware that if I called them in this early, someone’s day was about to get significantly worse. And by worse… I mean if they can’t pay, they end up in different parts of the city. Dead.

“You know I hate being called in this early,” Xander's say's as he drops his phone on my desk with a huff.

If anyone else had spoken to me like that, they wouldn't be sitting there rolling their sleeves up like he is, no, they would have a bullet between the eyes and I would be callling the cleaning crew to come and get his brain off my wall.

“I needed you to close in on a plan,” I tell them. “Couldn’t ask my brother—he just got back from Italy. Mood’s foul enough to snap a man in half, and the man I need… he needs to be alive. For now.”

Xander raises an eyebrow. “Alright. What’s going on?”

“I’ve got the Obsidian inspections today. I have to be visible.” My eyes lock on him. “But I need you to pick someone up for me.”

He leans back, unbothered, ripping open a Mars bar like I’ve just asked him to complete a small bank transfer instead of picking someone up who could potentially be dead within the next 24 hours. “Go on.”

“The guy’s name is Jerry Harrison,” I say while he chews slowly, watching me for any sign of recognition. There isn’t any because this person is a fucking nobody. 

“And who the hell is he?” he asks. I try to stifle the laugh that wants to escape when part of the caramel spills from his mouth. Fucking idiot.

“An idiot with a problem. If he doesn’t pay today, then he’s a dead idiot and won’t be my problem anymore.”

Jerry Harrison is everything wrong with the world—drugs (not purchased by us, because he wouldn’t be able to afford a fraction of them), booze, and a good dose of gambling. Last night, he decided my casino was the place to test his luck and my patience and not the first time either apparently. Ran up a tab he couldn’t pay. Thought he could walk out of here smiling.

CCTV never lies, and my patience disagrees.

Smug bastard right now—but not for long. Definitely not for long.

“What did he do?” Xander asks, a wicked grin on his face.

“Racked up a good debt and put his grubby hands on three of our waitresses. And he still owes one hundred and twenty-three grand from his time here weeks ago. Guards are already dead for not doing their jobs right."

Xander freezes.

“Which waitresses?” he asks. Not bothered at all by the fact that this bastard owes me money.

“Naomi. Steph. Kat. He went to touch Lucia, but she slapped him before he could grab a handful,” I say, detached and cold, like I’m telling him I lost my pen. I know how this is going to go.

“Motherfucker.”

It isn’t a secret that Xander has a weakness—a weakness named Naomi. The waitress in trousers who hides instead of performing. Men see her and think they can claim her. Use her. 

They’re wrong.

My best friend here won’t allow anyone to touch what’s his.

Two of our better casinos—Seraph and Obsidian—span over thirty-three out of the fifty states. They pull in more money than I can count. I don’t care about losses and wins. But disrespect? That gets my attention. Theft that isn’t from me or my men? Even worse.

And I won’t have some slimy bastard believing he can get away with it.

He either pays tonight, or the motherfucker dies tonight.

There is no in-between.

“Relax,” I say. “I want him found. Alive. And in my office before sundown.” I emphasize the alive part so he knows just how serious I am.

“Yes, boss,” he says as he and Rio walk toward the door. I swear one of these days my blood pressure is going to spike because of idiots roaming my city.

“And Xander—”

He stops at the door.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll let you throw a few punches.”

Apparently, it’s the best thing he’s heard all day with the sinister smile he has on his face.

The twat works alongside me. He’s what they call The Raven—another word for the executioner. He won’t hesitate to rip a man’s arm off if he uses it to hurt someone. He isn’t afraid to pull a man’s tongue out and watch him bleed and scream to death if he says something he doesn’t like, and he isn’t afraid to chop a man’s body to pieces just for being a complete moron and disrespecting me or the family.

He’s a lot to handle for some, but on top of all that, he’s a professional cage fighter. Doesn’t give a shit who he beats to a pulp once he’s inside that cage.

A grin spreads across his face—the kind that promises broken bones and quite possibly surgery.

My phone rings on my desk. My father’s name flashes across the screen.

“Afternoon,” he says in that fatherly voice he normally uses on Izzy, who is the baby of the family and a total daddy’s princess.

“Afternoon, Pops.”

“Inspection at Obsidian gone smoothly?” he asks. Business as usual, and I don’t mind. It’s where I like it.

I let the question hang because nothing is out of place that I know of. Evertyhing coming through is legit enough to make heads turn in the opposite direction so we should be in the all clear. “Not here yet. Staff’s behaving. Nothing’s gone sideways so far.”

“Good.” His voice tightens just enough to make me sit a little straighter. My father has always been a good father—taught us the right things to survive in this world and still found time to be with us as a Dad growing up—but I still sit straighter when he walks into a room. I have the same respect for him even though he’s stepped down as Don of the New York, Italian Mafia and moved to Italy with our mom to over see things there. 

“Remember, appearances matter. Investors, feds, public eyes. You run this shit like a king, not a thug.”

I smirk. “I’ve never been much for public eyes. They’re mostly just window dressing.”

A pause. Then, “Don’t let that arrogance get in the way. You’ve got enemies sniffing around, son, and they don’t give a shit who you are. Jameson’s Casino, the Rossi deal—everything’s got to look clean and in order.”

“I know.” My words bite. “It’s clean. On paper. But if anyone steps out of line, Obsidian and especially Seraph isn’t forgiving—and neither am I. I’ve run this place for years, Pops. I know the ins and outs of this world, and I won’t let anyone fuck with what’s mine.”

He chuckles—low, almost approving. “That’s my boy. Now, how are the Jamesons?”

The Jamesons tried to bury us a while back—hotels, casinos, reputation. In our world, legitimacy isn’t optional. You don’t keep the feds and politicians cooperative without clean businesses masking dirty money. We pay a great deal in this city to keep the feds on our side and looking the other way when shit goes south.

Or north.

Depending on where I need to travel to extract a problem… or three.