Chapter V
Las Key now
On Grant they talk like family; separate wills each boss wrote alone; nights Vance must not hear; how Vance would take him.
Wills
If either falls
Territory nights still go badly. Dante and Vance argue ferry lanes, lamp districts, water cuts, casino influence, quay account books—then leave the room angry, like damp powder that still wants a spark. The spit is large enough for both families; what they fight over is business, not who alone owns Las Key. They do not smash glasses. After they leave, they still cannot stop cursing each other under their breath.
On Grant's topics they do not get stupid. Each man knows what the other sent. If Grant got sick—he rarely even catches a cold—both would know before the day was out. When Grant hangs overnight, both know that too. Stranger still: both like that night, and they tell each other with no shame that their cocks got hard over it. Grant has also reminded them not to hassle the students. On Grant they talk like one family. That living care is not the same thing as what each man wrote for after he is gone.
Each boss wrote his own will—alone, not a contract across the table. The other man does not have to know the contents while both still breathe. Dante's will: named assets to Grant; and if Dante dies, the long capture interrogation tapes go to Vance—hour-by-hour, multi-day records of Grant under hang and whip, mouth shut, plates climbing, every detail kept, not short clips—with a firm instruction that Vance must treat Grant with real care and real protection—not as a chip in the commercial fight. Dante's private math is ugly and careful: once Vance sees Grant's body the way those capture days show it—cock, balls, whip, the voice that stayed flat across the long tapes—Vance will obsess and will not walk away, and that obsession is the best insurance Dante can leave Grant.
Vance's will is thinner, and Dante may not know its lines: money and objects earmarked for Grant, plus an overseas house deeded for Dante and Grant together—a refuge roof if Las Key burns. Vance does not know Dante's shelf. Dante does not need to know about Vance's overseas deed while it sits unused in a closed file—paper that only opens if Vance dies. If they ever read each other's paper—the long interrogation tapes left to Vance with a care order, the overseas roof left for Dante and Grant together—maybe the mafia territory fights would not mean as much. Still, Vance would try to steal those tapes if he ever learned the shelf was real—long detailed interrogation film is the kind of prize he would not wait for a will to open. Grant does not read either will.
Closing
What Vance must not hear
Even now Grant and Dante still have good nights—not every week, not the old whole-bed stretch after discharge, but enough. A door. A bed. Sex that still works when both men show up wanting it. Grant finishes. Dante finishes sore and glad. They do not need a speech afterward.
Dante will not let Vance know those nights are real. If Vance learned, the money would come fast—bigger overnight cash, bigger offers, a table Dante would have to sit at. Vance would negotiate it like business with Dante: Grant must also come over to Vance's side often, on a schedule, fair between the two of them. Dante can already hear the pitch.
He can already see what follows if he says no: a mafia fight big enough to tear lamp districts and ferry lanes for months, both families bleeding cash and men over one athlete's nights. Or simpler—Vance skips the table and has men take Grant, bind him, bring him over without asking Dante a second time. That is why Dante keeps the nights quiet. He still pays the leave wage and still will not cut it to test whether Grant comes for feeling. He just will not hand Vance a receipt for the sex.
Sometimes Dante wonders if he could scare Vance off with Grant's cock—the long thick one that still opens Dante hard—tell Vance that Vance's frame could not take it, that Vance would never satisfy Grant. Then Dante remembers who Vance is. Vance can be brutal with himself. If it came to it, Vance would take that cock knowing the next stop was the emergency room, and Vance would like it. So Dante keeps quiet and calls it mercy. Not telling Vance, Dante tells himself, is also for Vance's own good.
Some fantasy
How Vance would take him
Of course Vance might make a good husband. Not only the marriage talk and the half-mafia pitch that scared Dante once. Day to day: his egg omelette is excellent—Dante has eaten one. Vance also had one sent over to Grant once. If Vance and Grant really spent a good night together, Grant would wake to a hot breakfast waiting. Not like mornings with Dante. Not like this. That kind of morning has not happened here in a long time—Grant always leaves fast. Vance would put a roof on the table in public. He would put breakfast on it in private. Dante can admit that much without liking it.
There is another thought he does not say out loud. Vance is ruthless enough that he might give Grant a kind of bondage sex Dante cannot cleanly offer—iron on the sack, another plate added like flirting, the same shape as the long capture interrogation tapes. What would make Vance good at that work is simple: he can put the next plate on with no mercy, and without Dante's guilt. Dante still carries the capture feed. Vance does not carry that bill. He could stack weight as sex and still grin through it. Dante can already hear the lines—flat, gym-deadpan, no apology: no pain, no gain; I have to keep adding plates every minute to make you strong. Said while the iron clicks on. Said while Grant's cock stays hard.
Worse: Vance would make Grant fuck him with that loaded cock—plates hung from the balls only, the most painful kind of hang, every thrust a yank that hurts Grant to the root—while Vance takes the thickness and grins. If Grant does not finish, Vance adds another plate. Keep fucking. Shoot or we stack. Under a load that brutal, Grant might take huge pleasure out of the pain the same way the capture climb never let him go soft—and Vance would keep talking strength while he stacked, egging him on until Grant said yes to the next plate himself.
Or the other way: Grant sitting on Vance's cock, riding it himself, hips up and down while the plates hung from his balls swing with every bounce. Bounce too fast and the iron free-falls a beat late and slams the sack from below—sharper than a steady hang. Vance is not small; Dante felt that in a pocket once. A thick cock opening Grant from below while balls-only weight yanks and sometimes crashes is a load Dante does not have the stomach to order. Vance would. He would make Grant choose the drop himself, bounce faster on the way down on purpose so the plates lag harder—put Grant in front of a mirror, watch both of them in the glass, urge the most painful rhythm: make Daddy proud. When Grant got close to shooting, Vance would add plates without mercy, iron clicking on while Grant tried to finish under the new weight. Dante is a little soft-hearted about that intensity—even in a fantasy he will not speak. He has watched Grant's hard-on under plates and still never dared ask whether the pleasure was real. He cannot be sure Grant would like Vance's version. He cannot be sure Grant would not. What he does believe: if Vance never called it sex—if he framed it as a challenge, a test of whether Grant was as strong as the stories said—Grant might not refuse, and Vance could walk him into it that way. That uncertainty is one more reason the nights stay off Vance's books.