He groaned. “You really are a minx, aren’t you?”
“I prefer fox, but yes, I really am,” I agreed with a winning smile.
“Well, no need to worry there. Lily and Talia are just two cogs in the machine of my alternative means of income.”
My pout deepened and I was glad I’d worn red lipstick when his eyes landed on them and stuck. “What does that even mean?”
“It means, pretty girl, that Talia and Lily are a means to an end. They deal product for me.”
I gasped in faux shock, hand flying to my heart only so I could define the shape of my breast beneath the fabric for him. My heart beat fast but it wasn’t with modest surprise, it was with adrenaline. He was staring at the catalyst of his demise and he was literally handing himself over to it.
I could have clapped, I was so happy.
Instead, I kept up the act by saying, “You deal drugs? Warren, I never knew you had such a dark side.”
He preened under my compliment and looked around the way a spy in a movie would to see if anyone was listening.
People were listening but they weren’t dumb enough to do it obviously.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a dealer, but I buy wholesale from a distributor and resell to the kids at EBA and Entrance Public. You’d be surprised by what a cash-cow partying teens can be,” he caught my eye and then laughed, “Or maybe you wouldn’t.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I admitted. “But I don’t understand. You can’t just go to Costco for drugs.”
“No, sweetie,” he agreed with a patronizing smile. “You go to the cartel or the MC.”
“Cartel?” I asked because something was sliding into place, something obvious and dangerous, the barrel of a shotgun clicking into place.
“Javier Ventura’s come up from Mexico to establish a base in Canada and he’s doing it from Entrance.”
Tell me more, you fool. Dig your own grave.
“Oh, that nice man who’s friends with my parents?”
“Looks can be deceiving. He’s really a poor wetback risen in the ranks, but yeah.” Warren spewed his cruel, racist words with the casualness of an arrogant man born white, rich and oblivious.
“So you buy it, use the students to deal it and then you split the proceeds with the cartel?”
There must have been something in my question that alerted him to my eagerness for information more than any eagerness for him. He frowned at me over the rim of his champagne glass.
“Why don’t we get out of here and continue this conversation at my place? We can get to know each other a little more comfortably there.”
I really didn’t want to but I wasn’t sure they had enough information on everyone to make the necessary arrests and there was no way in hell I was going to back off this before I bought vengeance for Mute.
So, I smiled at him. “That sounds wonderful. Just give me a moment to use the washroom?”
He tugged my hand in order to give me a brief kiss on the lips, his tongue touching my lips like a promise. I fought the urge to rub at my mouth when he pulled away and let me go with a smug tilt of his chin.
I rolled my hips side to side as I walked calmly to the bathroom, feeling his eyes on my ass. When I made it to the short hallway with the bathrooms, I unlocked my phone screen to text Zeus.
“Hey, Foxy,” someone said over my shoulder.
I startled as I whipped around then laughed when I saw Blackjack standing there with his hands in his pockets. “Jesus Christ, B.J. you scared the crap out of me. What are you doing skulking down here?”
He shrugged, his eyes wet and dilated as he looked over my shoulder then back at me. “Zeus and Danner sent me to tell ya that they got enough. They’re waitin’ for ya at the police station and I’m supposed to give you a ride.”
“Oh.” I looked down at my phone, at the text conversation with “My Guardian Monster” and pressed the Home screen to close it. “Cool, let’s go.”
He nodded as he led the way down the hall and opened the door for me. It disconcerted me enough to turn to look at him as I past and caught his pale brown eyes. Something jolted free from the back of my mind, something that had lain buried in my traumatized consciousness from the night of the incident at Zeus’s cabin. The night Mute died.
The night I’d looked into a pair of pale brown eyes and saw the evil intention to kill.
I saw the same thing now as I past him when he didn’t think I’d be looking, his eyes hard with purpose and his mouth twisted with malicious pleasure.
Fear catapulted through me as I froze. “I think I’ll just double check—”
“Fuck, what gave me away?” he asked with a nervous laugh then shoved me out the half open door. “I’ve gotten so good at hidin’.”
When I gained my footing, I turned to run only to be caught by Ace Munford who laughed into my hair as he held me against his chest and placed a foul-smelling wad of fabric over my nose and mouth.
“If only you’d come with us in the first place, maybe yer friend wouldn’ta died.”
I tried to pry my mouth away from his hold but blackness edged my vision until that was all I could see.
Zeus.
The door of McClellan’s splintered against the wall as I threw it open and stormed inside with Bat at my back. Warren was still sittin’ in the booth, his smug motherfuckin’ smile frozen on his face as he saw me comin’ for him.
He held up his hands like that would make a fuckin’ difference.
I hauled him over the wooden table and then slammed his back against it, my hand at his throat. “Where the fuck is Lou?”
His throat worked against my hand. “Bathroom.”
“She isn’t in the fuckin’ bathroom you, piece of shit.” I leaned on his neck harder and looked back at Bat and Nova who’d joined us.
Nova shook his head. “Not there, Prez. Fresh tire marks on the street out back. Someone took ’er for fuckin’ sure.”
I could feel Warren’s pulse beat hard under my grip. It called to me like a fuckin’ song. If I put just a little more pressure right there—he choked—for a little longer, he’d be dead.
Fuck but I wanted to kill him.
“Garro,” Danner called from the gapin’ front door. “Put him down.”
I ignored him.
“You want to take one more breath, it better be to tell me where my goddamn woman is,” I growled into Warren’s face.
The fucker started crying.
Pathetic.
“Garro, I mean it. Put the man down,” Danner tried again, from closer this time.
Bat stepped in front of him when he tried to get into my space and held up a hand. “Hold the fuck up.”
“Nova, get this fuck somewhere private,” I ordered and then gave into my impulse to squeeze the breath outta ’im.
Warren was passed out in thirty seconds under my hand. I wanted it to be longer. I wanted the fucker to never wake the fuck up.
But I needed to know what he knew so I could get my fuckin’ wife back.
“Not letting you go with him, Garro. You’ve got to know that,” Danner said.
I waited ’til Nova slung the cunt over his shoulder then led the way out of the bar, aware of the eyes of Entrance at my back. There’d be gossip and news reports. The big bad Fallen had assaulted a teacher at the local watering hole.