Embrace the Darkness (The Maura Quinn Series Book 1) - Ashley N. Rostek Page 0,93

Something weird was happening on the drug front of the family business. The money the family brought in had dropped drastically in the past couple of years. Samuel was in charge of the drugs and his excuse was the economy: there weren’t enough people who could afford to pay the asking price.

Over the years, revenue had slowly dropped to the point where we were only slightly making a profit. The economy excuse was bullshit because we had no problem selling guns. When Stefan had brought that argument to the table, Samuel had then blamed the government. He'd said cops were cracking down on our clientele and with so many free programs to help people get clean there weren’t enough people with a habit to sell to. Dylan was, sadly, backing up all the shitty excuses his father was spewing.

Just listening to Stefan, I could tell things weren’t adding up. He'd looked into their bank accounts to see if they were lining their own pockets and lying about making the bare minimum, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Just the income Stefan paid them. He suspected they had offshore accounts under different names. Without the names, more investigating would be needed, and that required finesse.

Samuel had his own pillar of power within the family, which included a good number of men and spies who were loyal to him. If anyone loyal to Stefan got caught sniffing around Samuel or Dylan, an internal war could ensue, which was why I was shouldered with this task. I guessed this was my initiation.

If Samuel or Dylan were guilty of stealing from the family…

Deep down, I’d never trusted my uncle. Those doubts stemmed from being treated unfairly and how he interacted with Stefan. I’d never thought he would do something that would hurt the family.

Unless he assumed what he was doing wasn’t hurting the family. We still made money from the drugs. Just not as much anymore. Maybe this was a ploy to undermine Stefan or dethrone him.

Dylan had to be naive to all this. I was sure of it. Even though Dylan was older than me, he could be weak and wasn’t the brightest. He was emotionally driven and easily riled, which could be deadly for a mobster. There was no way he could pull off something like this on his own.

My best theory was that if someone was guilty, it was Samuel. He was the one behind it all and Dylan—if he knew about what was going on at all—was being manipulated by his father. Not that it mattered. He was a dead man walking. They both were.

“This task is going to be more than just reading books and internet hacking or else you would already have the answers you need. I might have to get my hands dirty and with that comes risks. Are you going to allow me to do that to get this job done?” I asked. He refused to let me leave the house without a goon glued to my hip.

With raised eyebrows, he sat back in his chair. “To a certain extent. Last night’s test was more than just about proving your loyalty.” Just mentioning the stupid test irritated me. I wasn’t completely over it just yet. “What we acted out in front of you could really happen. It’s a bloody business we’re in. We have a lot of enemies and I needed you to show me that you could handle it.”

“And did I?” I asked, already knowing the answer, but I’d like to hear him say it anyway. I kicked ass.

“Just be smart and stay safe,” he drawled, disappointing me. He pushed his chair back and walked over to his liquor trolley. He reached for the painting on the wall above the trolley. Sliding his fingers behind it, he pulled, swinging it to the side on hidden hinges.

In the wall was a sleek black safe with a keypad lock. Stefan entered in a code, unlocking the safe door, and took out two tan leather books with a flash drive resting on top of them.

“The leather books are from when your grandfather ran things. I modernized us by switching to the flash drive when I took over,” he explained. As he handed over the books and flash drive, there was a knock on the door. “Come in!”

The door opened and in walked a few of Stefan’s personal goons with a young man apprehensively trailing behind. The first few things I noticed about the young man were