I’d known Edric Russell since I was a teenager. His father was a minor member of the mafia, but as we were the same age, he was often in my company. He was the loud one out of the two of us. Always getting up in people’s faces, rarely backing down from a fight, and regularly getting in trouble. That was my chestnut-haired friend. I was constantly shaking my head at his antics, but he was loyal to a fault. Probably why I let him stick around me for so long. Now, I would need his loyalty more than ever. “I’m promoting you to my second-in-command effective immediately,”
