Sunrise Malice

11. Julien

Chapter 11

Julien

W e drop my wife back at her father’s house. I figure she’s safest there for now. Jean speeds back through the city toward the mansion and my mind’s racing as my emotions shift from rage, to sorrow, to confusion, and back again.

Grandpère is a fool. He’s a selfish, egotistic fool, and he has no clue what he’s just done. From his perspective, he’s picking on a weaker, smaller crime family, and starting a fight that can be very beneficial in the long run.

Except this war is going to tear us both to pieces.

My phone rings. I stare at the screen, feeling numb. It’s Dusan’s name and number.

I answer, even though I’m tempted to ignore it. I haven’t had time to come up with how I want to handle this situation. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you now?” Dusan sounds strangely calm, which puts me on edge. “Tell me what I’m going to say, Moreau.”

“You want to escalate. You think that declaring war and hitting me hard in return will somehow bring back your dead soldiers. But we both know that’s a mistake.”

Dusan’s silent for a moment. I want to tell him it was Grandpère, it wasn’t my decision, but that would only look weak, and Dusan is not a stupid man. He’ll sense an opportunity and work to exploit the rift in my organization, and I can’t have that.

Grandpère fucked me, but he was smart about it. He knows I’m not a coward and I’m not an idiot. I can’t back down, even if I never wanted this fight to begin with; only strength will save my people from this disaster.

I learned that the hard way as a young kid surviving on the streets. Only strength wins in the end.

“Two dead men,” Dusan says. His cool demeanor is gone, and now his voice shakes with anger. “One of them was my cousin. My blood relative. He was twenty-three years old.”

I close my eyes and mouth a curse. Fucking Grandpère. What absolutely fucking terrible luck. “Save more lives. Be smart. Don’t push.”

“Fuck you, Moreau. Fuck you and your shit-eating soldiers. You killed my men, you killed my cousin, and now I’m going to tear you to fucking pieces.”

“If you come for me, you’ll lose, and you know it.”

“This is your only warning. I’m going to burn down your entire operation.”

The line goes dead as we pull up to the house and park out front.

Jean turns to look back at me. His face is drawn and serious. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” he asks.

“One of the dead soldiers was Dusan’s cousin.”

“Oh, fuck.” Jean stares grimly ahead as he leans his head against his seat.

What a damn mess. Grandpère ordered an attack on a small drug house run by the Petrovic family. There were three men on the premises when six French soldiers loyal to Grandpère rolled up and opened fire on the building with high-powered rifles. Two of the occupants were dead instantly; the third was wounded and left alone to bleed out on the kitchen floor. Grandpère’s men then entered the building, took as much of the product as they could, and left. From what I hear, the wounded man is still alive, but that could change at any moment.

It’s fucked. It’s beyond fucked. Grandpère went behind my back, and I’m livid.

And I’m also trapped.

I head into the house. Jean comes with me, staying at a distance as I storm past the guards. Nobody’s meeting my gaze, and I’m guessing they all heard about what happened and what it means for the family. I’m not sure if they understand that I had nothing to do with it, and that my Grandpère usurped my authority to go behind my back, but I’ll deal with that fallout later.

For now, I find Grandpère in a spare room that he converted into an office. The space is very simple: table, chairs, a desk, and a couch with a low coffee table. Nothing on the walls, no more decorations, only the bare minimum of what he could possibly need, a mirror of the way he lives back in France.

Grandpère is a powerful man. His villa is enormous and filled with luxuries most people only ever dream about, and yet his own personal living quarters are as Spartan as it gets. He believes in keeping his life simple as a way to force himself not to turn soft, and perhaps it works, except I’m starting to think all that hard living had addled his brain in his old age.

“Hello, Julien,” he says as I close the door behind me. I catch sight of Jean lurking in the hall, probably trying to eavesdrop while also keeping others from spying on this conversation.

Grandpère looks up from his desk. If he knows what he did, his face doesn’t show it. If anything, he seems utterly relaxed and at home, lounging back in his chair with a sigh and stretching his back.

“You should have consulted me first.”

Grandpère spreads his hands. “I tried that. You weren’t interested.”

“Which meant you should have known not to interfere.”

“Interfere?” Grandpère’s eyebrows raise. He folds his hands over his belly and tilts his head as if staring down an unruly child. “I think you’ve been out in America for far too long. I can’t interfere with anything. This is my family.”

“And the American branch is my organization. I built this from the ground up. I secured our alliances and established our business. I made America profitable for you, Grandpère, and I know how to handle things here. You made a strategic error today.”

His eyes narrow. I can tell I’m skirting dangerously close to pissing him off, but I don’t really give a damn what the old man thinks right now.

“You think so?” he asks, his voice raspy and quiet. “Go ahead and explain.”

“Dusan Petrovic might be the head of a smaller family, but he’s ruthless and stubborn as hell, and one of the men killed in your attack was his cousin. He will stop at nothing to get his revenge, which means blood in the streets, and once there’s killing by the underworld families, the Biancos will get involved.”

“Ah, yes, your dreaded Biancos.”

I grind my teeth and bite back a snarl. “Yes, Grandpère, like it or not, the damn Biancos are the real strength in this city, and they really don’t like it when we are killing each other.”

He waves a dismissive hand. “You don’t have to worry about them. I reached out to their leader already. I’m sure the two of us will come to an agreement.”

Simon Bianco, that conniving fuck. Grandpère doesn’t understand, but he will. The Biancos don’t care about us, not beyond their own bottom line, and they won’t condone an all-out war in their city, no matter what Grandpère thinks. Simon Bianco is going to turn him away, and when that happens, I’ll have to clean up the damn mess.

“You made a mistake,” I say again, staring him down with every ounce of my will. Grandpère doesn’t seem to notice or care. “But I’m caught in the middle and you know it. I can’t go against your decision or else I’ll risk looking weak, but if I back this war fully, I risk fracturing the prosperity I’ve painstakingly built here.”

“Sounds like you don’t have much of a choice.” The vicious glee in his voice makes my blood boil. “We both know there’s only one option for you now.”

Put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.

I take a step closer to his desk. He doesn’t even flinch. “I’ll finish Petrovic off as quickly as I can, and when that’s over, I want you to go back to France.”

“I don’t know. I’m starting to like it here. These Americans are all so friendly. Though their women—” He makes a face and shakes his head. “They don’t know how to dress.”

“Gone, Grandpère. Go back to Marseille.”

“If I don’t?” His smile pulls back over his gums, showing his gray teeth.

I leave the room without responding. A petty threat will get me nowhere, and a serious one will only make Grandpère even more stubborn. Better to let him fill in the blanks and wonder what will happen if he forces my hand.

“How’d that go?” Jean asks, tailing me as I storm back down the hall.

“About as well as you think.”

I reach my car, but Jean doesn’t move to get in with me. I think he knows what kind of mood I’m in. “I’ll stick around here and ask around and see what the men are thinking.”

“You do that. Find out if they understand the tension between Grandpère and me.”

“Our local guys don’t know and don’t care, but the men he brought—” Jean leaves that hanging, but I already knew none of those bastards would listen to anything I had to say over Grandpère.

If it comes down to a civil war, I have Grandpère outmanned and outgunned.

But that’s an outcome I want to avoid. Despite everything, Grandpère’s organization back in France is the main source of our heroin imports, and his operations remain impeccable.

“I’ll be back soon,” I say, turning on the engine. “I’m going to clear my head.”