Black Collar Empire

by A. N. Latro

  Mikie was never quite as suave as Gabe. He was never as philosophical or intuitive or broad-minded. He was always the quieter, rougher brother. Mikie was the back-up for Gabriel's fast mouth, enforcement who does not carelessly speak, so when he does, it resounds. Many times it hurts, too.

  “I expect a formal presentation to the board within the next three days. Goodnight.”

  He turns quickly, making a smooth stride to the door. Bethania lingers long enough to glare at Emma. Then she turns on her heel and follows Mikie out of the apartment, leaving the door standing open in deliberate impudence.

  Seth stands staring at the door long after Nicolette has closed it. He is aware that Emma is shaking beside him and sniffing back tears. He knows he should move, but he's numb. Mikie never had the quick-fire wit of his older brother, but he is a slow strategist. He did not make a direct counter attack, but Seth knows it will come.

  Bethania’s brownstone, New York City, April 11th.

  He hears glass clink against glass before he ever reaches the door to Bethania's library. The last thing he wants is to deal with is his aunt drunk, but tonight the street sounds feel like silence and he can see the ghosts of his brother's blood on his hands. It has been hardly four months since his brother sought such a destructive end, and Uncle Mikie has all but erased him from the family's memory.

  All has been business and strained smiles since the funeral. He needs some answers from somewhere, even if they are false. And he is willing to put aside his distaste for this particular part of his family and confront her like a man.

  The room is hardly lit, and the warmth pours through the open doorway with it. Acoustic rhythm and blues dance upon the air from some hidden speakers, not Beth's style, Seth realizes, pausing to lean against the doorway and assess the room.

  Hardbound books line the walls, built-in cases of dark wood that match a recessed bar. Crystal decanters line its top. Emma sits in the center of the room on the floor, in front of a leather reading chair. Before her is a coffee table with hand-carved legs and a glass top that supports a large liquor-tinted decanter, a full glass, and his grandmother's eighteen carat hand mirror reflecting the remnants of white powder, and the gleaming razor used to cut it.

  His stomach flips, tightens with his hand on the door frame. Irrational anger floods him so much so that he must turn away from the room to swallow the dry lump in his throat. He takes a shallow breath and calls on a fabricated calm. He shouldn't be surprised that Emma would follow in the footsteps of her decadent cousins, but it still hurts to see it.

  “Drinking is no good alone,” he says as he approaches from behind.

  She jumps, spills some alcohol on her hand as she looks to him, wide-eyed.

  “Seth?”

  The slurred syllable stings like a shot to the stomach. The terror on her face feels like an ice bath. He does not wait for an invitation, does not pretend he has ever needed one. He takes the chair across from her, barely able to still himself on the very edge of it as he leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees and level a slow once-over on her.

  She freezes under his scrutiny, hand shaking a tiny bit as she sets the glass down. She glances at the mirror with a thick swallow.

  She is wearing light jeans, strawberry hair pinned up in a messy pony tail. He eyes her lavender camisole, straps so thin, breasts filling it perfectly and leaning toward him slightly. He notices the way one leg is folded under her and the other propped in front of her, the way her other arm is flung over it casually. When, he wonders, did she grow up so completely? When did she find within her the natural Morgan grace, slinging her sexuality around haphazardly?

  His gaze trails to the table top: the alcohol melting the ice cubes in the gold-rimmed highball, the crisp hundred dollar bill left curling and unheeded on the mirror, the obscenity of it all. He does not make a production of his attention, but he lets it linger on the evidence long enough that she has to know she will not escape the heat of his disdain.

  “You could drink with me,” she suggests.

  His eyebrows raise as he studies the way the dimmed light brings the crystal to life. Her tone is much too comfortable, too forward. All the demons of hell whisper to him as he reaches for the bottle and uncaps it with an enabling thunk. He can smell the age and experience wafting from the container.

  “What wisdom can an eighteen-year-old glean from bourbon older than she is?” he asks, effectively combating the conflict that grows within him.

  “The same as any twenty-four-year-old, I'd imagine,” she answers.

  Now that she has gained back some ground, the alcohol's effect on her speech is much less apparent. Her words are carefully mocking, clear. She has learned much, indeed, he thinks, to hide her weaknesses so quickly. She has taken a lesson from the most audacious and devil-may-care teachers. The reason it always worked so well for him is because he never accepted the other end of the gun. She has given him no choice.

  He wants to admonish her, to give her a lecture, wants to pretend he belongs atop a high and mighty horse, but how can he? At eighteen, he certainly wasn't drinking at home safely. He suddenly wonders if perhaps Bethania has always been right about him. How can he carry the weight of a kingdom under his wing when all he has ever done has been to cover his own head with his beautiful feathers?

  He makes a noise of humorless laughter and meets her eyes. Her expression is all defiance and sharp angles, fascination and something darker, well hidden.

  “Where's Bethania?” he asks, choosing to erect the denial he has built around the way she looks at him.

  Her mouth twists into a pleased smile, an almost cruel sentiment that reminds him of her brother.

  “She went to the ballet,” she says. “To shmooze.”

  She tilts her head to the side and narrows her eyes quizzically as she retrieves her drink. She raises it in cheers, and the ice collapses a little, swirling vividly in the soft luminance. She glances to the decanter suggestively.

  He sighs and shoves the stopper back into its place. The thing about the game she's playing is that it's his. The spins she might choose to put on it don't change its fundamentals, and her technique is not nearly as developed as his.

  “Is that why we do the things we do?” she asks, shrugging at the empty twin to her glass and pausing for a long sip without him.

  She drinks like an old widow already, Seth thinks, with a straight face and steady hand. She knows he is now watching her intently so she considers the chandelier. She is so different alone.

  He must admit to himself that he has never seen a performance such as this from shy, collected Emma. He is morbidly curious to gauge her skill. The practical side of him coolly reasons that in order to train her properly in the old ways, he must know her moves.

  “What things do we do?” he asks.

  The room is too warm. The crystal is heavy. The memories are almost too heavy to resist—another dimly lit bar, brown hands and white lightning, humid air and no need for shoes. He is glad she's not looking at him.

  “Fight. Kill people. Feed the streets their vices. Do we do that so we have the luxury of shmoozing?”

  Then she looks up. The expression is deadpan, a sexy, heavy, look of fully pouting lips and come-hither eyes belying her age. The last remnants of the world in which he grew up shatter against his forcibly steady breath. Any man not blood-related to her would have been toast. As it stands, he takes a heavy hit. He grinds his perfect teeth.

  He holds the eye contact without a hint of mercy and says, “We do these things because people like us don't function in contended lives.”

  Then he pushes himself from the chair and saunters to the bar. He chooses a glass to match Emma's and pours his bourbon, neat.

  She says to his back, “I like you dressed down, Seth. You never look like you enjoy your suits anymore.”

  He freezes with the stopper in one hand and the decanter in the other. For once in his life, he blesses Bethania's discretion in resisting the urge to pu
t mirrors in her bar. He can't quite keep from wincing. He hadn't considered his dark green v-neck sweater or his gray-washed jeans. He didn't realize it at the time, but it felt good to don his Dr. Martins and to look like some guy, certainly a well-dressed guy, but just another somebody. He even took a taxi because he knew the driver wouldn't care to know his name, so he could be left alone for a moment.

  “I prefer linen,” he answers.

  He hears her tiny gasp, so he tucks his pain away and drops an answering look of smoldering mystery as he turns. She's staring at him, hanging on his words, for the tiniest detail of his time away. She has resituated, legs now crossed and back straight, and, again, she's leaning toward him. The diamonds in her ears capture the soft light brilliantly. Perhaps she's wondering what he looks like in linen. Her eyes crawl along his collarbone as he takes his seat again.

  “Do you miss it?” she whispers as he takes a burning sip.

  His expression hardens as he avoids her gaze. Can he admit that some hollow part of him does? He would never trade his life again willingly, but the air there sinks deep down in the bones. He thinks of it as his breath rises in front him in the mornings. He thinks of it when walks by the Cuban restaurant near his building. He aches for it in the well-lit nights.

  He hated it and hates that he misses it so much.

  “No,” he says.

  She seems disappointed, as if maybe she had been on the verge of the same emotional conclusion from following the tide of sadness in his eyes, but he buried it too quickly. She places both hands flat on the table. The booze and coke are making her bold, but for once, she decides to use it.

  “What was it like?”

  He drains his glass and says shortly, “Hot,” through the fire that results in his gut.

  She sighs and sits back, pouting, folding her arms so that her breasts peek out above the top of the camisole. He eyes her sidelong then gets up again to get more audacity with which to face her.

  “You shouldn't use money for blow, Em, it's dirty,” he says as he pours. “If you're going to rebel, don't act like a fucking rookie.”

  Again she gasps, this time quite audibly. His lips hook into a sharp, one-sided smile that lasts until he decides he has enough, somewhere between a double and triple pour. He leaves it uncorked.

  He turns and, again, freezes. An opalescent pile glares from the mirror like crystalline harbingers of the fleeting of emotions.

  “Then why don't you teach me?” she asks, her voice full of challenge.

  His jaw is already clenching. He may sleep a few hours before he has to be up for a board meeting. He can't condone her tampering with this demon, but it is also his demon. It's time for a tactical change of direction, mid-maneuver.

  He relaxes himself back against the edge of the bar, one arm crooking up onto it, the other moving fluidly to bring his drink to his lips. He channels the mystique of his father, clouding his expression so that it's impossible for her to know if he is angry or if he feels anything at all. He must let her believe that she has made a grave error. She must understand fear before confidence can be truly achieved.

  “So you like to party now?” he asks over his rim, presenting an intentionally incredulous tone.

  She turns her nose up defiantly and takes her own drink. He sees the muscles in her arm tensing. Her foot is tapping in time with the high hat in the stylishly punctuated song that drifts to them in the thick connection.

  “Maybe a little,” she answers, shrugging a shoulder as if this is a nonchalant topic, as if he won't notice her fingers trembling on the table top. “You were gone for a long time.”

  He laughs again, an empty sound of cynicism used as an outlet for the bitterness her low blow produces in his chest. He can't trust anyone to whittle at her innocence in a way that won't traumatize her. If he tries to explain to her now that he only wants to protect her, he'll sound a like a jackass, like a liar and a false prophet. He retorts. “I know how tragic high school can be. And trust me, I understand the burden of landing comfortably in a climate-controlled office of the most upscale accoutrements, pushing numbers that represent the horrors of the life below.”

  He watches her demeanor wilt, watches the rage blossom in her cheeks. Her darling prince is being mean.

  “What would you know about living with my mother?” she snaps.

  It's too easy to provoke her, he thinks. Maybe this isn't fair. He takes another drag and fights against the door that's trying so hard to close on his humanity. Conviction is the fuel for his strategy.

  “What would I know about the life of a rich kid? It's cold. The bright lights fade easily and quickly. Most people around you don't know how to act, so they act fake. The other ones see your money. What else is there to do when you can do anything? That's why we do the things we do. But our legacy doesn't go back all that far. Two generations ago we were peddlers, the fiends you look down your nose at.”

  He finishes off the alcohol in an attempt to silence the lines like fingers beckoning him closer. The glass makes a harsh thump when he slaps it back onto the bar. He slides that hand into his jeans pocket in hopes that it will help him contain his beast.

  “Your mom has been manipulating the people closest to her for as long as I can remember. And I remember your birth.”

  She looks back to him, eyes weighted with distress.

  “You left me in a private school with Caleb as my closest ally! You left me with my mother! And an accounting job. What the fuck was I supposed to do?” she cries.

  She slams her glass down and turns her angry eyes on him. She's fighting tears, he can tell. Ally. That word hurts more than any other.

  “You don't even talk to me anymore, about anything. I hardly see my friends from school. I haven't been back to the office since you told me that I'd be working for you, and you haven't given me shit to do. I don't even live here anymore, but where better to spend the night partying alone?”

  Then she clamps her mouth closed and bites her lower lip hard. A few of the tears slip past her defenses and roll down her cheeks. She looks away, nose and cheeks red, and somehow cleanses her expression of the storm raging within her.

  Somehow, he thinks, the bitterness solidifying. Cocaine. That's how.

  He slowly bridges the space between them, without pomp or stagger. He takes the chair across from her once more, throwing himself into her view. He wets his cracking lips. His heart threatens to splinter under the weight of his conscience. He came here for answers, had wanted them so badly that he bolstered his stubbornness with a few lines of coke and jumped into a taxi. If he has learned anything, it is that lessons may come at any time, at any velocity, and to fight it would be disastrous. Each time he takes a path that points to Caleb, he finds it steadily blocked, and every time he tries to cut his heartstrings, he finds them protected by someone who loves him.

  “I just always thought you'd be stronger than us,” he says.

  “Us?” she chokes.

  “You and Caleb were close?”

  The question lingers in the air. Truth becomes much more bitter when applied to the aspects of life that cannot be changed. Coyness fails him. Guilt sits heavily in its place. She seems surprised. Another burning tear drops, though she holds herself amazingly steady.

  “Yes. He took me out with him a couple of times, me and some girls from school. They loved him.”

  “I bet they did,” he scoffs.

  Then she smiles as her gaze drifts to the table.

  She says, “It was fun. And guys weren't allowed to talk to me. He broke a man's hand once.”

  Mechanically, he reaches for the razor. A dam is about to break, and he can't have it. He doesn't have the emotional fortitude to withstand another breakdown just yet. A part of him he believed to be dead sparks. His brother may have been misguided, but at least he protected Emma.

  She watches him with keen interest, captivated by his experienced hands like those of a seasoned chef as they dice the coke.

  “If you ne
ed somewhere to go, just ask me. Knowing Caleb, he took you girls to Bamboo. Stay out of that shit hole side of town, ok?”

  She blinks, opens her mouth, then closes it with another blink. He has called her out, claimed her eyes with the demand for response. Then she nods. He sighs, uncertainty apparent in his frown.

  “Ok,” she says.

  “Ok,” he whispers, looking away to cut two lines.

  He sets the blade down with the tiniest clink and again seeks his pocket. He retrieves a short, glass straw and holds it out to Emma.

  “I still think you're stronger than us, by the way.”

  She wipes the tears away with the back of her hand, staring at him with nonplussed ferocity. She takes it in slow motion, waiting for him to suddenly snatch it back and berate her. He hands it over freely. Then he pushes the mirror her way.

  “You quit this once,” she says then bends over the surface.

  She inhales, feeling the burn for only seconds. Excess slides down the back of her throat. She swallows with pinched features.

  “Things are different now. Never show that it tastes bad.” He chuckles. “That's the best way to draw attention to yourself.” The look of detest remains firmly in place as she reaches the straw back to him. “Besides, you're too pretty to make that face.”

  In mere seconds, her cheeks blush profusely. Her teeth grind, and she swallows audibly. He laughs, a real laugh that sounds and feels like old times. The deviant prince rears his head. It has been a while. Guitar and a gruff bluesy voice ease tension in his shoulders.

  She passes the mirror to him with a forcefully unamused look that makes him laugh again. He takes his line quickly, bending like grace and clearing the evidence of their transgressions completely. Then he sits back and says with a smirk, “Always clean up when you're done.”

  He wipes the razor on his jeans, picks up the mirror and blows on its surface. He gives it to her to put in the drawer of the table. She makes a small “hmph” as she narrows her eyes at him. He smiles as he collapses into the chair, letting his head rest on the back of it, freeing his heightened senses to run rampant. The sigh that escapes his lips is a contented one.