“You know what he finds acceptable,” I reminded her. “And those two products in our menu are not that.”

“It isn’t the eighties anymore, Liv,” she told me exasperatedly, like it was me making the rules when it was not, never was and it never would be. “He has to swing with the times. We can’t get our hands on coke or H because Valenzuela has it tied up. I had to get creative. Furthermore, it’s ridiculous Dad thinks cocaine and heroin are elite drugs and Shade only deals in elite. There are no elite drugs. Drugs are drugs. Drugs are money. And we need money.”

I glanced again side to side before I retorted, “I know it isn’t the eighties, Georgie, but this is Dad and he thinks he’s king. You don’t move forward on something like this without discussing it with him. On that alone he’s going to lose his mind.”

She dropped her fork and leaned toward me. “We don’t do something, we lose hold. All hold. Soldiers. What little territory we have left, and you know there isn’t much. We gotta rebuild. We had to do that five years ago, seven, ten, before you or I even took our offices at the warehouse. So it’s safe to say that right now, the time is so ripe to do it, it’s rotting off the goddamned vine and I’m not gonna rot with it.”

At her vehemence, and frankly, the veracity of her statements, I shut my mouth.

“I know he’s not going to take it well, that’s why I didn’t talk to him about it in the first place,” she carried on. “But he has no choice. It took me years to sort out all the shit I needed to sort out under the nose of Valenzuela and Seth Townsend’s boys still sniffing around, keeping tabs. Not to mention that fucking motorcycle club, the Nightingale men, Delgado’s commandos, those two fucking Sebring brothers and every other player who keeps tabs on the Denver streets.”

“It’s impressive, Georgie,” I told her the truth, but keeping my face perfectly impassive, especially after her mention of Nick and Knight.

Her annoyed, frustrated eyes warmed.

“And the boys will be relieved,” I went on.

She nodded, again picking up her fork. “They will. Dad will too, he gets over it and gets with the program. It’ll help, you sussed out this thing with David, taking care of the family. We get the legitimate side producing again, rebuild our stronghold in the turf we’ve got left, start pushing for more. Valenzuela has a soft spot for me. I’ve been buttering him up for months.” She grinned and finished, “Finally, for the House of Shade, I see good things.”

She shoved pasta in her mouth and started chewing, still grinning.

I was not grinning.

I did not see good things.

I saw labs that were always in danger of being sniffed out by rivals or law enforcement and wondered what steps Georgie had taken to be certain those labs were not tied to anything Shade. Another conversation we would have, just not one at a public restaurant.

I also saw our boys who would soon have product on the street and this would not go unnoticed, not by anyone. Those “anyones” would wonder where we got it and our boys obviously were more vulnerable with product in stock than they were when our cupboards were bare and I didn’t feel we were in any place to keep them protected.

And Georgie could, at times, control our father and guide him. At other times, if he felt like not letting something go, he made things uncomfortable. And there were even other times when those things should be made uncomfortable for Georgie, but since she was his favorite and his heir, he transferred his displeasure to me.

The only thing I had to hold on to was that my sister wasn’t dumb and she knew all of this. Even desperate, I didn’t think she’d move forward stupid and she always did what she could to protect me.

So maybe it would work out.

She was right. Our legitimate dealings were much more successful than we knew, something now we would directly benefit from when we did not before because David was skimming a good deal off the top. And this also made laundering our other money easier.

So perhaps things were looking up.

I wanted to hold that hope. I wanted to believe, at least in that.

But I couldn’t shake the idea that there was no end to the downward spiral of the House of Shade. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the end of our world as we knew it was near. I couldn’t shake the thought that end was not going to be a good one.

For any of us.

* * * * *

9:23 – That Evening

Nick rolled off me, rolling me with him.

I tried to turn the other way to start preparations for making my escape but he held tight.

I put pressure on his hold, saying, “I need to go home, Sebring. I have to work this weekend.”

“You’re distracted.”

I stopped pushing, tipped my head back and saw his eyes on me, doing all this feeling more alarm than I should (which was to say, any at all), that he hadn’t enjoyed what we’d just done because he thought I was distracted.

“No, I’m not,” I denied.

He gave me a small grin but did it with an unusual look in his eyes. “Okay, let me rephrase. That was hot. I dug that. But it took work to get you there and it doesn’t normally take that kind of work or any work because you’re always all in from the start.”

Okay, so it was good. He enjoyed it.

There being nothing to worry about, I started putting pressure on his hold again, murmuring, “I’m just busy.”

His hold went strangely solid even as he let me go with one arm to put his hand at my jaw and force my attention back to him.