The Ghost

29. Next time I kill you

3 months after the girls return

Mark has been working extra hard within his family's mafia since his sisters came home and all the members have noticed. Some say that he's trying to steal the mafia from his father, some say that after seeing his sisters' accomplishments he feels inferior, and some think that he just wants the mafia don position. All of them are right in part, he wants to take the mafia from his father for his sister to have the don position because he believes that she deserves the title after all the shit his father put her through.

Jackson, though, is ignoring his son's existence and hasn't realized just how much work his oldest is putting into working for the family business. He hasn't seen the increase in revenue, the efficiency in training, or the weakening in his enemies because his son is making moves on them in the dark.

Mark is attributing all of the techniques he's using to the guidance that Galaxy gave him whenever she could, most often he sent her questions and she sent her own opinions on how it should work. He even picked up on some things from following her work as an assassin. Any little piece of knowledge that he could learn of his little sister, he would.

Right now, he is sitting in his office trying to figure out how to silently attack the rival mafia that is starting to crowd into the territory he recently gained.

"Dude you can stare at this later. Let's go get some drinks and maybe a beautiful lady or two." Ricky says walking in to see him staring at the same page he was an hour ago.

Mark shakes his head without looking up, "I need to figure this out now before they make a move on us."

When Ricky still can't get him to leave, he calls in the big guns. "What's this I hear about you staring at the same thing for several hours now," Galaxy says as she plops in the chair in front of his desk with her legs over the arm so she's almost laying in it.

Mark sighs when he hears her voice, "I should've known Ricky would go get you," he groans out in frustration, running his hand through his hair.

Once he's given her his full attention she gets slightly more serious, "Tell me what the problem is."

Pulling his hand over his face in frustration, Mark replies, "I just can't figure out the best attack. We've been growing our territory, but the gang around here is trying to come onto it. I wanted to discreetly destroy them without letting on that it's us."

Galaxy stares at him, trying to figure out if she should solve it for him, work it out with him, or let him take care of it. "Ok well what do you have so far?"

"Well I know they're moving into one of our clubs tonight, so I was planning on selling our goods cheaper there until they can't afford it anymore, but that's not enough. I also thought about stealing some of their pushers."

Galaxy claps, "wow I'm impressed. You put business models into mafia business." She declares sincerely.

Mark grins sheepishly, "I learned most of this from you and making sure Electra Inc survived for when you returned."

"That is one of the best ways to learn. Now may I suggest one small tweak?" She looks at him waiting for approval, "Considering you want to undersell them, destroy their labs, so they can't restock and they'll be stuck at higher prices."

"I thought about doing that, but couldn't figure out how to without tipping off the cops that a war is about to start." Mark replies glaring at the blueprints he was staring at earlier.

Galaxy looks at the blueprints for a few minutes as well, "Do you have anyone who can tamper with the ingredients to make the scientists cause it?"

He looks up in surprise, "That's brilliant! How did you figure that out so quickly?"

She shrugs, "Did it for a client when I was abroad."

He studies her sadly knowing that every life she failed to save or took, weighs heavily on her heart, but she would never show that to anyone not even her brother or sisters.

Ricky breaks the trance each sibling had fallen into when he barges through the door, "Are you done fixing him yet?"

Mark glares at him, while Galaxy stands up from her seat with a calm that scares both men, "First off that's my brother and the only thing that needs fixing is the fact that he hangs out with you. He does not need fixing, so shut the hell up. Second, if you were smarter than you would have known not to say that in front of me," she says as glares into Ricky's eyes with her hands around his neck choking him. "Third, next time I kill you." She whispers into his ear before releasing him.

He whimpers quietly, backing as far away from her as he can go, rubbing his neck which will have bruises tomorrow. Mark stands up, "I know he pissed you off, but did you really have to do that? Couldn't you have just let him be?"

G raises an eyebrow at him, "So you are ok with your men disrespecting you?"

Mark shakes his head quickly, "No, but he didn't need to be choked out."

"Fine, next time, I'll let you handle it." She says stalking out the door clearly annoyed.

Ricky shakes himself like a wet dog, before glancing at Mark, "Can we go out now?"

Mark agrees with a slight nod of his head while walking out the door with Ricky right behind him.

When they get to the club they run, he notices some dealers he hadn't seen before, realizing that they are the gang's men. He sends for all of his dealers in the club, telling them to undersell the cocky bastards who thought they could take over his territory. Pulling out his phone, he calls his personal fixer to take care of sabotaging the next batch at their lab.

Ricky, who had been dancing on some girl, sees that Mark is working and stalks over pulling the phone away from him and pulling him to a group of girls to dance with. Mark puts on a face of enjoyment, but if you pay close attention there is annoyance and something else in his eyes.

The second he can, Mark walks away to get a drink. He isn't anywhere near close to drunk enough to deal with Ricky for an extended period of time.

They spend the night like this, Ricky taking him to dance and Mark slipping away to either work or drink. When they finally get to their homes, both men are wasted and can barely make it to their beds. Mark had tried to convince Ricky to go home with one of the girls, so he could leave earlier, but Ricky had been extremely stubborn and refused to leave him behind unless he found his own girl.