chapter 17

ASHTON

“One of our judges got picked up by the Feds.”

Marco was on speaker as I was at Katya, a nightclub Trace and I owned. The same nightclub where Jess’s second job had been as well. I was in our private area, the windows overlooking the club below. We had a box to the side with a patio that extended out with a bench by the back wall. I was standing at one of the walls overlooking the section that Jess Montell used to cover. It was being handled by another bartender, but not one as good as Jess. I never cared much for the employees at Katya, one of the legit businesses that Trace and I both owned. It seemed pointless. They were fine. The business was fine. There was no worry about it. My attention went toward our other endeavors or the family business because I’d always been more active than Trace had been in the earlier days. And by earlier days, I meant in the time before the Worthing family put out a hit against both of our families.

Those days. Back when we still thought we had