Chapter 2

Mordechai

“One day, I swear that I’ll stand over the graves of every single Locke left on this planet,” Jonathan sighed, tapping a pen on his desk. “I’m tired of this. I’m really, really tired.”

I had nothing to say in response. Truthfully, he didn’t want me to respond. He wanted to get out all of his anger in a long, frustrated rant. I stood there, listening to every word and looking him in the eye so he knew I listened. Even if I didn’t listen, it would have been enough to be present as he ranted.

Jonathan didn’t let up, breaking several things against the wall in the office in his home. So far, glass littered the carpet. Eventually a maid would come clean it up.

The police had only just left the house after two hours of questioning about half a dozen people, including me. I knew nothing. I made it very clear that I hadn’t seen a thing, I hadn’t been at the docks, and asking me more questions wouldn’t get them anywhere. Thankfully, Jonathan knew how to get the police off his back. One text to the DA and everyone went home.

“Should I make a call?” his personal guard, Shawn asked. “Do we have tracks to cover?”

Jonathan ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Not in the way you’re thinking. We should be in the clear. Any footage of the docks is gone, and we don’t have any witnesses. What we do have are people who tipped off the Lockes, who tipped off the police.”

“Are we positive Locke is behind this?” another one of Jonathan’s guys, Harry, asked. “Could have been someone else. I hear the Copole family is rising.”

Jonathan scoffed at that. “They’ve moved up an inch in ten years. I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about the man with his hand in every single cookie jar in the city. Worse than that, he’s got his hand in cookie jars all over the country. He’s expanding faster than his old man did. Now, he’s cost me three million. Something needs to be done.”

“We have people on the way,” Harry said. “Should be here any minute. I combed the staff to see who might have squealed. The results were disappointing.”

“How many?”

“Two, at least. I’m going to keep looking to see if there’s anyone else on the Locke payroll here. If there is, they won’t be for long.”

Normally, I attempted to remain without an opinion about any of Jonathan’s family business. Sometimes… it just broke through.

“Two options,” I said. “Do these two people disappear, or would you rather have a quicker, more obvious statement? I think that because they went for the wallet, you need something a little more in your face.”

Jonathan looked my way, patient as always. “You think we should go hard on this?”

“This is the fourth time they’ve caused trouble this year alone. They’re looking to frighten you. Don’t let them.”

I only got away with that bold statement because Jonathan and I had known each other for almost twenty years. He’d been kind enough to take in an orphaned toddler, letting him grow up in his home, with his own room, and anything else a growing boy could have needed.

The other men in the room tensed as they waited for his reply. They assumed this next part would be violent, forgetting my position. My voice carried.

“You might have a point,” Jonathan told me. “I’ll think on that. For now, I’ll settle for cleaning the house.”

The door to the office opened and five people came in. Three of our guys had two informants by the collar, already bleeding as they dragged them in. I’d seen them around for the last three and four months respectively. I hadn’t spoken to them directly, but I’d been there when they’d taken orders from Jonathan.

Greg threw one of the men onto the floor, kicking him in the ribs on the way down. The man screamed and a shower of blood shot out of his mouth and onto Greg’s pants. For that, he got another kick to the gut.

“All right, all right,” Jonathan said, removing his jacket as he walked around his desk. “Let me talk to them.”

Everyone stepped back, giving him as much room as he might have wanted. He rolled his sleeves up, kneeling down to the men struggling to sit up. He held a hand out to them and said not to bother.

“I invited you into my home,” Jonathan said. “It takes a lot for me to trust someone, and scum like you is why. Here I thought you were a couple of boys from good stalk. Guess I’m stupid, huh?”

Neither of the men said anything. Though he hit them both because of that, it had been the smarter choice on their part. Any attempt to defend themselves would have likely resulted in a much slower death.

Jonathan stood, shaking out his swelling fist. “Now I have to figure out what to do. I could have even more liars in my staff and now I have no way of knowing. I can’t even trust myself to recognize it. Hell, these two were recommended to me by Jim. Jim of all people. I’ve known him since before you were even born, Morty. How do you bounce back from that?”

I read his face, attempting to understand if he wanted me to actually answer. “I’ve never been good with finding rats.”

“Nah,” he laughed. “You’re more like the cat the owner releases after they find the mousehole in the kitchen.” He walked over to pat my shoulder. “And that’s fine. Not everyone has brains. Honestly, sometimes I would prefer to be you than me.” Turning his head to Greg, he said, “You get it, right? What I wouldn’t give to have looked like this kiddo when I was young. Then again, I’ve been married since I was a teenager anyway. Puts more of a damper on a love life than skinny arms.”

Jonathan straightened out the wrinkles he put in my suit.

“Dumb and hot is my kids favorite,” Greg said. “Worries the hell out of me.”

“Hey, dumb isn’t all that bad. Typically, they’re loyal, eh, Mort?” Jonathan chuckled, patting my arm again. I made myself smile, nodding. I’d heard that all my life. A cute kid, who grew up into a cute teenager. I put no effort into how I looked other than my clothes. I didn’t comb my dark hair, leaving it to curl into a mess around my ears, and my sky blue eyes looked empty whenever I caught sight of them in mirrors. They used my height and physical strength as something to admire, as opposed to what I saw it as. A means to do my job. A result of doing my job. If I wanted to stay alive, I had to be able to fight back when people’s natural instincts kicked in and they didn’t want to die. They didn’t look at me like I was beautiful. They looked at me and saw the truth.

“How could I not be loyal?” I asked. “Without you, god knows where I would have ended up.”

He smiled, patting my cheek. “Nah, I loved your pops too much to let you have anything but the best. That man was the best of the best. Not one fuck up in more than thirty years of working for my family. That’s something special. But hey, look at you. You’re on your way to being the next Mordechai Zoil.”

“Technically I already am,” I reminded him.

He laughed, then all of his men laughed along with him. Didn’t seem too funny to me. Every first born on my dad’s side got the same name.

Jonathan walked away from me, going back to the two bleeding men on the ground. He sighed at them, once again asking what he would do with them. I already knew what he would do with them. Their fates had been sealed the moment they fucked up. I just didn’t know what we would do with the bodies, along with how exactly they would become only bodies.

“Okay, I think I should listen to Morty,” Jonathan said. “Greg, I want you to take the one on the left. What’s your name?” he asked the man.

He looked up with his working eye. “Harrison.”

“Harrison,” Jonathan repeated. “According to my eyes, you work directly with Simon Locke. My man over here is going to give you right back to him.”

He nodded, then the man screamed as Greg ended the man. He did it without a mess too, just injecting something into his arm that made him go to sleep. The other one didn’t scream at all. He just watched me. He watched me like he knew.

“Mort,” Jonathan said to me. “Take care of the other one.”

“You want him found?” I asked.

“No.”

I didn’t look the man in his eyes as I moved toward him. He didn’t fight me. He sat there, aware that fighting would be pointless. He didn’t even beg me. They always begged.

I did it fast, more for my sake than his. I didn’t want this to go in late into the night. I’d come home at sunrise so many times that the days and nights seemed to twist into this mass of blackness that spread across both. When it started to not matter to me anymore, I made the effort to force it to matter. I made rules, I stuck with them, and it helped me survive. What else could I do when at the end of the day I always had blood to clean from my hands?