My great-grandfather owned a small supermarket in the meat district of Philadelphia. It was always his dream to pass the store down to his son and so on and so on. I’ve heard the story a million times. My grandfather was seventeen years old and working part time in the market when they came knocking. It’s not an urban myth or fiction that organized crime exists. It does. And it certainly did back in those days.

If you wanted to do business back in those days you had to pay. You had to pay the government, you had to pay the city, you had to pay your landlord and you had to pay the mob. My great-grandfather had a difficult time accepting that cold hard truth and eventually paid the price. He tried organizing several of the businesses in the area to stand up against the mob. It only took three days for retaliation.

Benjamin King’s throat was slit right behind the cold cuts counter in front of his son, my grandfather, as a warning to all the other store owners in the area. Not being paid and organizing some sort of rebellion wouldn’t be tolerated. They allowed my grandfather to live to spread the word, and to serve as a living example of their ruthlessness and their mercy.

My grandfather was traumatized by this event needless to say. Back in those days there was no PTSD diagnosis. There wasn’t treatment for it. People just called you batshit crazy. And God bless him, but he was definitely batshit crazy.

I’m not really sure how he talked my grandmother into marriage, but I think it had something to do with her desperately wanting to get out of her parents home. Marriage was the only way back in those days for most women. My grandfather wasn’t much of a provider. He lost the market, and only seemed to be able to hold onto menial jobs, but my grandmother worked as an elementary school teacher for well over thirty years and was a good provider. She was good to my grandfather, tolerated his lunacy, and gave him two children. One of them being my father.

My father, Benjamin King The Third, was a dickhead. Having a good mother didn’t make up for the fact that he was named after and was raised by a father with tons of issues. He resented his own father and lived with a mission to never be like him, which he succeeded in some ways, but failed in others.

At first things were pretty average as far as family dynamics went. Financially he did much better than his own father. He built a small printing business, which afforded us a nice life in a middle class neighborhood with pretty decent schools. But things were changing rapidly in the city where we lived and our father was not prepared for change.

Lots of companies who faithfully used his business were closing. The Internet and growing use of email and digital documents was growing. Due to a decrease in jobs in the city, many families were flocking to the suburbs, and virtually overnight we watched our neighborhood change. Watching his business slowly unravel and become irrelevant grew to be too much for him. He started drinking heavily and running with a group of men who were small time hustlers to make ends meet.

Cutter and I were eleven and twelve years old when he started taking us out on runs. He always wanted us to have the car running and waiting in case he had to leave somewhere quickly. Sometimes he would stop at massage parlors for a payoff pick up and would bring us inside. He’d pay a new girl to give us both hand jobs while he got the full service package in another room.

There was an abandoned field near our neighborhood that was starting to be used as a makeshift firing range. It was fucking dangerous but he took us there anyway and taught us both how to shoot. It’s why we’re both good shots to this day. Our training was inappropriate and much of it was self-serving, but our father did leave us with a couple of life lessons before he was a victim of a deal gone bad.

It was a run like so many others but karma had come to bite him in the ass. Someone had held a gun to his head and stuck him up months back, and he never went back to deal with him. Probably because he was too drunk to remember who the thief was. That same guy came back to rob him a second time and killed our father. A shot right to the head.

We were both waiting in the car.

Our father’s death served as the foundation upon which me and my brother’s ultra tight relationship was formed. At only a year apart, I was never really his older brother. We were always a team. Working together to take our father’s place as the head of the house. Helping our mother in any way we could. We had to step up and become the men of the house and make money the best way we knew how. With our smarts and our fists. We had each other’s back and we always will. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Cutter, and I know the sentiment is mutual.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I walk into the carriage house that my brother and I share and catch him using one of my laptops. I usually carry my main one everywhere with me in my leather backpack, but I have a couple others that I store at home. I use them almost like burner phones. Work on them a few times then toss them. I make sure to assign a VPN proxy server to all of my machines, so that I can use various anonymous IP addresses. This enables me to track and hack without leaving a trail for the average techie to trace.

“Just checking on something.” He closes all of the browser windows he had open and closes the laptop.

“On one of my burner machines? Why aren’t you on your own computer? This better not be about the glamazon.”

Cutter and I are as close as two brothers can be. We share everything. But sometimes we both can hold back on information when we’re not ready to share it with the other. I’ve known for a while that he’s been sabotaging Elizabeth’s friend Sloan aka the glamazon. She’s the daughter of a famous NBA player and she’s a party girl. From my observation, she’s got lots of beauty but not much substance. Cutter’s watched me long enough to know how to do a basic tap on a phone or a hack into an email server. So he knows how to snoop. At first I thought it was funny. Harmless play. But now I’m wondering.

“And what if it is?”

“You’re using company resources to sabotage a woman’s life.”

“Sabotage is a strong word, brother, and I am a partner in this company too.”

“Toy with then. Is that a better word?”

“I just want to see who she’s talking to.”

“Why? I’m honestly confused as to why you would want anything to do with that spoiled brat?”

“Watch your mouth.”

“What did you fucking say?” I ask in disbelief that he’s defending her.

“I haven’t made any judgment calls about whatever the fuck you’re doing with the little lima bean now have I?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I confess.

“I know you don’t, but you’re doing something, and I’ve been backing you a hundred percent of the way. Didn’t I call you when she got pissy drunk with Marco? Weren’t you the first one I told that Patrick came sniffing around for her? Wasn’t my intel on that Dallas prick correct?”

“Cut—”

“You worry too much, big brother. I’m on a simple fishing expedition. Nothing more.”

He was right. I was projecting my own shit onto him. It wasn’t fair. I was the one toying with someone’s life. Keeping her stuck inside of the club. Knowing that she’d probably hate me for it.

“How many times have you used this laptop?”

“Just today.”

“You can use it about two more times. Then toss it.”

“Understood.”

“So tell me. You haven’t said a word about it yet.”

“Tell you what?”

“What do you think about Jade?”

“What I’ve always thought.”

“Little sister?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d be lying if I said I never gave her a second glance.”

My brow furrows. “Meaning?”

“Meaning she is a beautiful woman. That’s all I’m saying. A man would have to be dead not to notice her.”

“And the fact that she’s like family?”

“Complicated but not insurmountable.”

I feel better now that we’ve actually cleared the air. I would never admit to it, but I feel much better that I have his approval. Although I think I need to make something clear from the get go.

“She’s not like the others, Cutter.”

“Obviously.” He grins.

“I mean I don’t think she would be up for sharing.”

Cutter and I have often shared women. Not all the time, but a majority of the time. It started in high school almost as a necessity. After our father’s death, our mom turned the smaller third bedroom in our house into a workroom. She was a wedding dress seamstress on the side.

So Cutter and I resorted to sneaking girls into the bedroom that we shared, and it wasn’t like one of us was going to pretend we were asleep. That’s just not in our natures. So sometimes we would watch. Sometimes when the girl was willing we would participate. A lot of the times that meant one of us was keeping their mouths busy with our tongues or our dicks, so that the sounds of orgasms wouldn’t wake our mother. It grew to be something that we were skilled at and that we enjoyed. I never thought about us not sharing a woman until Jade.

“That’s what we’ve mistakenly thought about a lot of women over the years. She might surprise you.”

“Not this time.”

“Are you saying that you don’t want to share her?”

Is that what I’m saying?

“I’m saying that I barely got her into bed once. The thought of you jumping in is sure to send her running for the hills.”

“How about we just play it by ear, Cam. Remember that Jade belonged to all of us way before she just belonged to you.”