Leaving the house proved easy, after all, Arnold wasn’t under arrest, so no one watched him move about, and he had the overrides for all the cars in the garage, he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here, after the reporter incident, but it hadn’t been in his car, since it wasn’t here. He picked the green Corla and drove away.
He hadn’t known what to make of most of what Damian had said, but two things had stood out. Damian didn’t want Arnold in the fight, which meant he couldn’t stay on the sidelines. The other was that Damian had let slip the Denton could stop him.
“Call Denton.”
“Hello, Mister Orr,” Someone who wasn’t Denton answered.
“Who the fuck’s this?”
“Jeroen Lewiston, I am the office manager at Steel Link. Before you ask, Mister Brislow his having his important contacted transfered to me rather than his message center.”
“Where is he?”
“On his way back from Greece.”
“Tell him to call me as soon as you can in touch with him. End call.” It wasn’t like some delay would change things, and really. Would Denton knowing he could stop Damian even alter anything? The cheetah was going to throw at the tiger even if he found out it was hopeless. It was just the kind of idiot Denton was. The kind of idiot this mess needed.
“Call Alex.”
“Where the fuck are you?”
Arnold chuckled. “The babysitters are freaking out?”
“What to you think? What’s the idea just bailing like that?”
“What did they tell you?”
“That you vanished. What—”
“I mean about yesterday.”
“What are you talking about?”
So no one had notices anything? They’d all been put to sleep and not one of them had thought it strange? Or had it been part of the magic Damian used, to ensure no one even questioned what had happened to them?
“Damian paid me a visit yesterday.”
Alex cursed for a full minute. “Why is this the first I’ve heard of it? Are the kids okay? I’m started the process to move them, the other save house.”
“I just got donr fucking my way to some level of calm. And don’t bother relocating the kids.”
“Arnold if Damian got in, it—”
“He isn’t after them. He made it clear the eight of them are the safest people in the world.”
“And you believe him?”
“I do. Which why I’m on my way back. That bastard has plans for our sons, plans that don’t need us around, he was less direct about that. He’d rather not hurt us, even outright said we should side with him.”
“He’s insane.”
“No argument there, but he said things are going to change, and I don’t like how he said that, like the whole world is going to change kind of thing, with him in charge of it. So we need to focus on getting in his way. What’s been happening?”
“The city’s quiet, it’s like we’re off limit or something.”
“And the rest of the world?”
“That’s messier. Turns out Brislow was holding back this ball full secret.”
“He’s been talking to him. I know. Brislow let that little gem slip when he visited.”
“It pretty much shattered the Society front and Damian’s troupes are taking full advantages of it, basically ant family who’s walked away from that loose alliance his getting hammered because they aren’t accepting help.”
“Idiots. I get they’re angry, but they’re at war, pride is a fucking stupid thing to die for.” Arnold realized what he said. “Go on, say it.”
“Sorry, who are you? And what have you don’t with the second most full of himself brother I have?”
“I had a reality check shoved up my ass. It’s pretty humbling to find out your god chose a skinny cheetah over me as his champion.”
“So that’s actually true? Brislow? Man that sucks. I mean is that another lie we’ve fed? I thought we were his chosen family. I mean we’re rulers, Brislow’s well, what’s he ever ruled?”
“I’m going to question His judgment once this mess is cleaned up. So you need to shore up the city defenses because the moment Damian realizes we’re on the offensive he’s going to hit back hard.”
“I’ll put the authority on alert, but security isn’t my job, you know that.”
“I know. I’m heading to Royal right now to coordinate things.”
“Arnold.” Alex trailed off.
“What?”
“Never mind. When you’re done there, get back here. If you’re back I need you here running things.”
“That’ll be my following stop. End call.”
* * * * *
The building where Royal stood only a few weeks ago wasn’t anymore, or it hadn’t been when Arnold had bought the building next door to use as their temporary office. Now, there was the skeleton of a building there, with crews hard at work putting up walls.
The temporary lobby was cramped, with men coming and going so fast they didn’t have the time to acknowledge him, even his own men ran by without looking up. What had them in such an uproar?
“Sir,” Ernest said, “it is a pleasure to see you back.”
“What’s going on? It’s like the building is on fire in here.”
“The fire would be your brother.”
“My— ah fuck. Right. I did hand the company over to him.”
“He has made that quite clear.”
“Let me talk to him, I’ll fix this.”
“His office if the fourth on the left.” The giraffe answered his phone and spoke in a soft, but hurried voice.
Arnold left him to run things. He heard Aaron voice two doors away.
“Are you fucking kidding me? I said I wanted the walls to withstand explosions, did you look next door? I have no intention of having that happen to my company.” The sleek mouse flew threw the open door and hit the wall, blueprints following him. “Come back to something better than paper tissue for walls.”
Arnold chuckled at the fear driven speed with which the mouse gathered the papers. “Look at it this way,” he said, “at least he didn’t express his anger his usual way.”
The blush in the mouse’s ears told me he didn’t have to elaborate.
“Fuck off Arnold!” Aaron said.
Arnold stepped into the office and closed the door. Aaron glared at him, but his phone rang and he answered it. “What now?”
Every surface had papers on them, the desk, cabinets, floor. His brother was definitely leaving his usual messy mark on the office.
“That isn’t what we agreed on. I don’t fucking care that your going to have to do to a competitor for the material. You agreed to do this job and your going to fucking do it for the price you quoted me. If I have to go there and explain things you’re going to walk funny for the rest if the the fucking century, am I making myself clear?” he hung up. “Why don’t we own every fucking construction comp[any in this city? Get the fuck out of my office.”
Arnold leaned against the door. “We need to talk.”
“The answer is no.”
“Aaron,” Arnold warned.
“No. I made it clear, I am not giving it back to you.” The phone rang. “What? Yes, we’re going to be ready for the electrical in a week.” He disconnected “go back to moping. I have work to do.”
“Don’t go there Aaron, you have no—”
“Oh fucking get off your pity cock, okay? You think you’re the only one hurting? Arthur was my brother too. Do you see me hiding under my bed waiting for some random dad to come fuck it better?”
“You’re got no idea—” Arnold began rage building.
“Of course I don’t know. I wasn’t in love with the midget, but don’t you fucking come here and tell me my pain doesn’t matter because I am going to fucking kick you ass. You’re not the only in the family who matter. At least I’m doing something with my pain.” He grabbed a paper and shoved Arnold aside. “Ern!” he yelled as he opened the door.
“Yes sir?” the giraffe reached for the page.
“Those are the delivery for today, the contractor just tried to extort me, if they aren’t here by five I want to know about it. Oh and have that gorilla find out everything about the contractor. Might as well but him to some use since he suck in a fight.”
“He’s an investigator,” Arnold said.
“Already have one. That cat of yours is a wonder. I don’t see why I need more.”
“And that’s why I need to—”
“No,” Arnold said, matter of fact, grabbing papers, rifling through them before filing them in the cabinets. Not shoving them in, taking the time to look for a folder and double checking the paper before putting it in.
Arnold was so surprised he didn’t say anything as Aaron gathered every papers scattered in the office and filed them. When he was don’t he dropped in the massive chain and let out a satisfied sigh.
Arnold had only seen his brother this satisfied in one kind of situation before. Balls empty and cock still deem in some guy’s muzzle. What the fuck was this guy?
“What are you still doing here?”
“Aaron.”
“No,” Aaron replied forcefully.
Arnold raised a hand to stop the argument. Aaron eyed him suspiciously.
“Are you absolutely certain you want to fight me for the right to run Royal? You know I’ll win.”
Aaron was in his face. “No, you think you’ll win. I am fucking fed up with being the second best. I can run this company as well as you did, and you are fucking not taking that chance away from me. You want a fight, I’m going to give you one you’re never going to forget.”
“That won’t be needed.”
Aaron startled. “What are you talking about?”
“You want a chance to show us you can run Royal, you got it.”
The suspicion was back. “What are you playing at?”
“I’m not.”
“Bullshit. You love this company, how many time did you beat me up just for threatening to take it from you?”
“I lost track, but you never fought back did you? You threatened, I smacked you and you went away for a while. Not once did you get back up to hit me back like you just threatened to do.”
“I didn’t ever raised my fist.”
“You don’t have to. I believed you. This is the first time I’ve ever believed you wanted it. It was all posturing before.”
“So because I want it you’re giving it to me? That’s all I had to do? You’re kidding right?”
“No, you’d have to fight me before, but right now we have bigger concerns, and I have to run our family, I could do both, and you screw this up, I will, but if I don’t have to divide my attention so much the better. I do reserve the right to give you advice.”
Aaron snorted. “I don’t—”
“Shut up, Aaron. If you want to do a good job here you’re doing to learn to listen. This isn’t your gangs. Beating the men who work here or fucking them needlessly isn’t going to make them obey you. Each men has a set of skill you don’t, that means they know better then you on that subject. Listen to what they tell you.”
“That almost sound like you want me to do a good job.”
“Swallow the pride we both share, and you will do a good job.” Arnold smiled. “At least you’re not getting this advice from a skinny cheetah.”
“I’d have though it was the siamese who’d put you on that tract.”
“I wish. But no, I had to listen to Brislow tell me to swallow my pride and ask for help.”
“Shouldn’t you have kicked his ass for that?”
“He’d helped rescue Arthur, so he’d gotten enough good will to avoid that.”
Aaron looked away as the pang pierced Arnold’s heart. It took multiple swallows to be able to breathe again.
“I miss the midget,” Aaron said, wiping at his eyes.
Arnold didn’t comment. He was cried out. As deep as the pain was, he couldn’t cry about it anymore.
“I do to, but now we need to make his killer pay.”
Aaron smiled viciously. “Now you’re saying something I can get behind.”
