Protective

Back to Your Corners

Dmitri

"How was Brazil?"

She smiled, hopping into the passenger seat of my car as the attendants loaded her luggage into the trunk.

"It was beautiful and hot," she laughed, leaning over and kissing my cheek, "Anything bad happen while I was away?"

"Nope, none of the other organizations have made any moves other than Manuel fleeing back to Spain with his little attack dog," I said, starting to drive home.

The last thing I wanted to do was bombard her with information about what was going on in the business. I had made a choice a long time ago to keep her out of all of that. But she was apart of it whether I liked it or not.

It made no sense to keep anything from her. Yeremy had a point.

"Wars always happen so fast but the process is so dreadfully long," she shook her head, "Who's in charge of the Callahan organization? His son, Aiden?"

"Yes," I nodded, "But Aileen thinks he won't retaliate, at least not anytime soon. He still needs to rebuild. We shut off his shipping lines."

"And he was the only thing maintaining the alliance between Hamada and De León so no moves from them for a while," she added.

"That doesn't even matter anymore," I took a deep breath, "Father isn't letting up on either one of them. Now that we have both the Italians and the Koreans, thanks to you, he is killing whoever he can get his hands on. He's acting just like he used to."

"Is it that bad?"

I didn't even know how to answer that. Was it bad?

It was bad then, right after mother had died. He was cold and frigid with us, but he was monstrous to everyone else. I didn't even know how much blood he spilled at the time and he had gone to a similar state now.

Except he wasn't cold and frigid with us. Personal growth, perhaps.

"It's what we need," I said, "We need to remind them who they're messing with."

"And you?" she asked.

"What about me?"

"Are you apart of the reminder?"

Oh. She was asking if I was killing people. Of course I was killing people. Mostly I found people that Petyr knew and killed them in front of him before cutting off another little piece of his body.

Sometimes I found Yakuza members and tortured them for information I knew they didn't have. That was what I had become after all—a man who found comfort in torturing people.

It was one of the few things that calmed me in general.

"I am apart of the reminder," I said.

She made a mmm sound to which I didn't really understand what it meant. I could tell if she was upset or indifferent about that.

Lana was strange about the things I did. She didn't really like to acknowledge them. I think I liked it better that way. When I was with her, I could forget that I was the kind of man that found comfort in hurting people.

When I was with her, I was just her big brother.

"Are you sure you want to go straight to Icon?" I asked, "We can go home, and you can unpack and stuff."

She shook her head, "Nope, I need to be there. Father bought it for me weeks ago, the papers are already signed, I need to face the board and the people I used to work for."

"You think the nepotism allegations will get to you?"

She laughed, "Is it really an allegation if it's true?"