by Sara V. Zook
Six Guns
Volume Two
By
Sara V. Zook
Six Guns
Copyright © 2016 by Sara V. Zook
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the authors, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters and events in this work are figments of the author’s imagination.
Table of Contents
Title Page/Copyright
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Twenty Four
Twenty Five
Epilogue
About the Author
Power.
It courses through my veins mixing with my blood. I’m empowered, lifted up from everyone else around me as if chosen, looking down at the dwindling city below, its inhabitants. I throw my head back and laugh, the air filling my lungs and swirling around me. I’m caught in this whirlwind that I never want to come down from. It feels so damn good.
Yesterday I was nobody, a boy raised in the slums of Laverne. I watched others who had things and never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d have that kind of life. Today I woke up a prince, and life was better than I could’ve ever imagined. People worship the goddamn ground I walk on.
I was chosen.
I’m Carmine’s son.
The more I look into all that my father’s done for the city of Haven, for himself, for his men—the more I learn that he was, in fact, an icon. He gave local businesses protection, and they in turn, gave him respect along with a lot of fucking money. He got into drugs, the H, to add to his own profit, though I’m pretty sure he turned his head the other way and saw it as only a business transaction. The man himself would’ve never lowered himself to touch that shit. Then Carmine got greedy. The man had everything—everything he could’ve ever wanted and more, but he had to go bigger, so he brought in the diamond deal with the Africans. He claimed it was to give his men the ability to go and do whatever they wanted, but that’s just not true. Carmine had his claws sunk into his men. They couldn’t just go on vacation whenever they wanted, run off on a jet ride, not when he needed them here to do his dirty laundry.
I’m sure there were lots of people jealous of who Carmine had become. I mean, who wouldn’t want all that he had? Not everyone has the brains to maintain it. Carmine did, but somehow he became careless along the way. He let someone too close to him, someone who shot him and left him for dead. Carmine had a lot of things going for him—respect, intelligence, a demeanor that could make even the biggest guys tremble, but the one thing he didn’t have was invincibility. That’s going to be the difference between father and son. I will become invincible. No one is going to be able to touch me. I’ll make sure of it. I have plans…so many going through my mind right now I can barely sleep at night.
I stand here at the window and look out over Haven in my father’s mansion and picture how he stood here in this very same spot, the world at his fingertips the same as it’s at mine. I place my palm against the cool bulletproof glass. That’s what I want for my group. I want us to be bulletproof. No one is going to be able to stop me and my crew. We’ll finish what Carmine started and do even more. Respect I already have. Having people fear me—that I’ll have to work on.
Someone wasn’t afraid to shoot Carmine. I’ll figure that out in due time and make the bastard pay. I have suspicions. I just needed proof. I’ll outsmart every last one of them until I know who the traitor is. Then the way I’ll make them suffer from what they did to my father—the rest of the guys will be so terrified, the thought of even double-crossing me won’t ever enter their minds.
A prince of Haven. What a joke. No, I want more than that. I want to rise up above and surpass the man Carmine was. I won’t just be a prince of some lousy city. I want the whole fucking world under my thumb. It’s time to step up and claim what’s rightfully mine.
-Nicky Cain
ONE
CAIN
“Cain, we have a problem.”
This was beginning to be the story of my fucking life. Licking my dry lips, I slowly turned around in the revolving chair to face a huffy Hagan. “What is it?” It had been a few weeks since Carmine’s murderous passing. A lot of stuff was going on inside my head, and right when I thought I’d be able to finally sit down and process it all, another shit storm arose.
“The Due Amiche is being taken down as we speak,” Hagan spit out at me.
“What the fuck does that mean, Hagan?” I stood now, raking my hands through my hair as my palms came to rest on the back of my neck. The tension in my shoulders was killing me.
“It’s one of our downtown restaurants. Seton just got the call. A couple of men are in there stirring shit up saying it’s theirs. That’s all I know. Seton told them we’d be down.”
He raised his eyebrows at me, which just added to my irritation. What the hell was he standing there staring at me for? Oh, right. He was waiting for me to give the word. “Is it worth it?”
Hagan shrugged, but he narrowed his eyes at me like he couldn’t believe I’d even asked that. “Carmine had a contract with them.”
The way he emphasized contract pissed me off even more. I wanted to tell him to just leave me here. I needed peace and quiet. They were always interrupting my goddamn peace and quiet. But no, they expected me to go with them for more than one reason. Carmine got to stay behind and let his guys do all the work for him. But me, I needed the experience. It was part of earning respect. Everyone expected me to go along. The tightness in my neck felt as though it instantly increased. I reached for my leather jacket. “Tell Augie to get the car.”
These calls made me nervous as all hell. First and foremost, I still hadn’t figured out who had killed Carmine. The knowledge that that someone was right under my nose, riding with me downtown to this Due Amiche restaurant place, had me more than a little freaked out. What if it was a setup? What if someone made it look like an accident and killed me? To say my paranoia had reached an all-time high was an understatement.
“Nicky?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lilah come to the edge of the banister at the top of the staircase. I looked up at her. She was standing there looking all beautiful with that confused look on her face again. We still hadn’t talked about the giant elephant peering over our shoulders every moment we were together. Lilah still didn’t know about Carmine being my father, nor did she know I had taken his position as head of the group. She saw changes happening the last few weeks. She would’ve had to be completely blind not to, but I didn’t want to talk about it yet, not until I knew what this meant for her—for us. I had decided to keep her mind occupied instead. The first thing I did after the funeral was buy Lilah a place in a prime section of Haven so she could start her specialty shop. I hired the best interior decorator there is—Victoria Dermonte. Lilah was so giddy about the whole thing, she’d dropped what she’d seen at Carmine’s funeral—everyone in the City of Haven throwing money my way out of respec
t for my father. I’d wanted Lilah to dive right into store preparations, and she had taken the bait hook, line, and sinker. She was still thinking of a name to call the place, all the while working with Victoria along with shopping around for designer clothes while beginning to think of designing a line of her own. What she didn’t know was that I planned on making this specialty shop my own specialty spot where there’d be a place where I could take things underground if need be. I’d use that store to my advantage in the future. I knew it was only a matter of time before Lilah’s bubble burst and she was on my ass about wanting to know what was really going on with my group of men. I was just hoping that bubble would stay intact for just a little while longer…
“Hey, babe.” I tried to sound cheerful as Hagan rushed out the front door of my house, his phone already attached to his ear.
“Headed out?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
Lilah sunk her teeth into her bottom lip for a moment.
“Don’t you have some things you can do at the shop until I get back?”
That made her face light up. “Yeah, I have a lot to do actually. I’ll meet up with you later?”
I nodded, motioning for her to hurry up and come down the steps. Lilah pressed her tiny body against mine. I breathed in her scent. She was wearing that expensive perfume I’d bought her.
This was another problem in my head—how much do I let Lilah know? What would she think when she found out I was now at the head of a mob? She’d watched me kill her own husband, something else we had yet to really discuss. A lot of things were just left dangling in the air between us. Yeah, that was my fault. I shoved the guilt-laden thoughts down deep inside of me once again and pressed my lips down to hers. I was manipulating poor Lilah. I’d have to process that later as well, when everyone left me the hell alone for a moment.
“It’s a date,” I whispered in her ear. She looked up at me, and I smiled. I saw her eyes warm and knew I’d sucked her into my web once again. “Bye.” I smacked her on the ass. She yelped. I briefly touched the gun I had stuffed into the back of my pants as I turned to catch up to Hagan.
It was mere seconds but seemed like an eternity before the car rolled up. I took one last hit of my cigarette before flicking it into the damp grass. Suck it up, Nicky. They’ll smell your fear a mile away. I should’ve pursued a career in acting. I was somehow managing to turn my apprehension into arrogance as I puffed out my chest a little more.
Seton pulled up in a black car behind Augie. The Triplets were with him. He rolled down the passenger window.
“What’s the situation?” I asked him.
“Sounds like it’s Herson’s men trying to stir shit up,” Seton answered.
Christopher Herson, a small-town crook, was trying to get bigger and better paying jobs by trying to throw his weight around. We hadn’t met face to face yet, but Remmy had been updating me on who was who around Haven. Herson played dirty. Even his own men didn’t trust him. It seemed as though the guys with him had a high turnover rate in his tiny group. He usually ended up killing them when they pissed him off and then he’d manage to scrape up some other loser who had a dream of the high life like Herson did and convince them to come join his crew.
I turned around and saw the look in Hagan’s eyes. Everyone was thinking the same thing I was. “That prick thinks he can just take Carmine’s contacts,” I huffed out.
“He doesn’t see you as a threat,” Hagan said, then added, “yet.”
“We’ll take care of that tonight,” I told them all, anger taking over the fear now. “Time to introduce him to Six Guns. Everyone ready?”
I got head nods.
“Let’s go.”
I got into the car with Hagan and Augie as we pulled out of my driveway. It was time this Christopher Herson met Nicky Cain. Fucking asshole thinking he could use my father’s death as a weakness to try to take over. No. That wasn’t gonna happen. Not tonight. Not ever.
“How many men does Herson have?” I asked Hagan as Augie drove toward downtown.
“I can’t keep track,” Hagan answered. “It changes all the time. All of them are inexperienced little shits with their chests puffed out.”
Then again, my experience wasn’t exactly up to par by any means either. I figured Hagan was probably thinking that same thing, but he wouldn’t dare voice that opinion right now to my face. He had voiced his opinions more than once in the past, but his outbursts now that it was known I was Carmine’s son had become less and less.
We pulled into a back parking lot behind the Italian restaurant. Hagan informed me this was a high profile place that celebrities often frequented. But right now, the place was empty. Someone had scared all the guests away.
I swallowed as I got out of the car. I pulled my gun out and held it at my side. The heaviness of my weapon in my hand was becoming more and more familiar as the weeks went on. It actually felt as if I was missing something whenever I wasn’t carrying.
Augie stayed behind with the cars as Hagan motioned toward the back entrance. He opened the heavy door as we all filed inside quickly. My finger was now on the trigger of the gun, ready to raise it at any given second. It was a poorly lit area, a stock room of some sort. It opened up into the kitchen area where angry voices bellowed out from inside.
“What the fuck is this?” a guy screamed out at the sight of us. He had dark skin and dark, weasel-like eyes. His balding black hair was stringy and greasy. Herson. He had the face of a man who didn’t make rational decisions, a man who craved power and probably didn’t get a lot of attention from Mommy and Daddy as a youngster. “Who the hell are you?” His dark eyes were full of rage—an uncertain rage that could lead to uncertain actions—as he glared at the man dressed in a cook uniform in front of him. “Which one of you called these assholes?” He looked around the room at the restaurant staff who had the misfortune of being here. “Somebody answer me!” He continued to throw his tantrum. Two other men stood back almost in the shadows of the room. I assumed they belonged with him. When no one answered still, the scrawny greasebag looked as if he were about to blow his top. He took hold of the back of the cook’s head, grabbed a fist full of hair, and yanked him backward. The cook cried out in pain.
“Let him go and maybe we won’t kill you,” I warned him, my voice eerily steady.
A bizarre grin spread out over Herson’s face. “Kill me?” He threw the cook down to the floor and stood up straight. He smoothed his hand down over the front of his black coat that seemed too short for his gangly, long body. “Why would I be afraid of you?” His eyes shifted to my other men, finally landing on the Triplets who stood with their arms crossed in front of their huge chests.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of Carmine,” I said, my demeanor never changing.
Herson chuckled. “Carmine’s dead.”
“But his son’s not.”
His mouth drooped open a little bit before he attempted to recover from his surprise. “So you’re this Nicky Cain I’ve been hearing about.” His eyes looked me up and down. “Don’t look like much to me.”
I smirked.
“What are you trying to do here, Herson?” Seton stepped out in front of me. “Gather up your meatheads and go.”
“Seton,” Herson spit out as if now recognizing him. “This doesn’t concern you…any of you.”
“Ah, but you see it does,” Seton continued. “The Due Amiche was under the protection of Carmine and is now under the protection of Nicky Cain. It’s not up for negotiation. They’re under contract. You can’t take over. Doesn’t work that way.”
Spittle gathered in the corners of Herson’s mouth as he gritted his teeth together in fury. “They owe me money. This doesn’t concern you,” he repeated.
“Fucking liar,” I hissed out. I took a step forward. “First impressions say a lot. My first impression of you is that you’re nothing more than a piece of shit trying to take claim on something that was never yours to begin with.”
The tip of my finger outlined the smooth surface of the trigger as I continued to hold it snug to the outside of my thigh. I began to pace back and forth slowly, my eyes cautiously watching Herson’s hands, making sure he wasn’t going to make the first move. I was also putting my trust in my men, knowing—and hoping—they were also doing the same thing by covering my ass. “You’ve interrupted my night, Herson. That pisses me off. I was all about taking it easy tonight. But no, I had to come down here to paddle your ass after your little tantrum.”
Herson’s eyes ignited in fury.
Adrenaline was coursing through me now. I’d just made a little speech about first impressions. Well, this was a first impression for me. What happened here tonight would show exactly who I was, not only to these idiots around me, including the staff of the Due Amiche, but also to my men. They had seen me scared before. They had seen me hesitate to kill. I was sure they were having reservations about me being the head of the group. This was my time to take a stand and fucking shine.
“Boss?” one of Herson’s men spoke from the shadows. “You want me to take this asshole out?”
Seton bellowed out laughter at the nonsense threat.
A small grin spread out over Herson’s face too as he held up his hands motioning for his man to stand down. “You know, I never did meet Carmine, but from what I knew of him, he was a lot of action and very little talk.” He scraped his cheap black dress shoe against the floor. “I’m just shocked, especially at you, Seton, that you’d let a little boy dictate you like this. I mean, this is hysterical, really. He has a loud roar, but I’d be willing to bet when faced with death, he’d go crawl in that corner with his tail between his legs.”
Herson wiped the grin from his face and took a threatening step toward me. I could see the beads of sweat glistening on his disgusting forehead.
“The Due Amiche now belongs to me. Go back home and tuck yourself into bed where it’s safe. Leave the business aspects up to the men.”