A Shot of Trust

On their way back to the apartment, Brian listened to Luki say more words at one time than he’d ever heard his boss string together.
Luki made it clear he was pissed at the perpetrator of crimes against what he called “his people.” He explained that he wanted to find the “doers” who had “subverted” Espen, a man whom Luki described as a “formerly decent guy.” He wanted to catch the “low-life fuckers” who had threatened an innocent, disabled woman. These “jerkwads,” he proclaimed, had put his nephew Jackie at risk by invading his—and Brian’s—home, had caused a situation in which he himself as well as Brian and Lonny could have been “barbecued” or at least “smoked to death,” and had put Sonny, Jackie, and Margie at risk of “bad shit,” like arrest, at the very least. And the “whole fucking mess” had generally “screwed with” Luki’s company and his life for months.

“If I don’t catch them and make sure they pay, maybe nobody will.” Luki went silent for a moment after that. Then he said, “Sonny would say I’m not being reasonable.”

Brian grunted to show he heard, because he wasn’t about to touch that.

Then Luki said, “I would tell him I don’t give a fuck.”

As chilling as it was to see his boss so pissed that he’d defy the husband he all but prayed and sang hymns to, for Brian, that wasn’t the worst of it. It wasn’t only Luki’s people threatened by the situation, it was his own.

In fact there was a lot of overlap—almost one hundred percent—and Jackie was at the top of both their lists. Beautiful, precious, wounded, strong, remarkable Jackie. Luki would protect him with his life—Brian knew that. But that was not an inch farther than Brian would go. Jackie filled a place in Brian’s heart no person or thing could ever replace. He suspected he wouldn’t survive losing him—he’d come close enough to that awful loss to know it would gut him. So yeah, Brian wanted the bad guys just as hard as Luki did, if not more.

But what he could do about that probably depended on Luki, and now that Luki’s federal resource had dried up, maybe Luki’s hands were tied. So as they pulled into the driveway that evening, he asked, “What are you going to do, boss?”

“You don’t need to know what I’m going to do, Brian. Your attention belongs on what you’re going to do. You—and VSI Los Angeles—are going stay miles away from anything to do with Espen or this mess he wrapped himself up in. If you can’t do that, then I will fucking fire you, and close the office. Am I clear?”

Brian heaved a sigh. “Crystal, boss. Fucking crystal.” In truth, Brian had never heard Luki speak like he did that day, and his carefully controlled tone and cold demeanor rendered it ultra-scary. But Brian knew there were still some criminals out there wearing, in Brian’s mind, a target. He wasn’t likely to forget that.