We’re quiet for a few minutes, before Hal flips on the radio station and “Highway to Hell” is playing. A shiver rips up my spine, but Bump breaks out his air guitar and starts singing. I try not to take the words as a bad omen, but that only lasts as long as it takes for the ringing to start.
“Is that your phone?” Scarlett looks at me with a questioning expression on her face.
I shake my head. “No. Not mine.”
“Mine’s on silent,” Hal says.
“Mine too,” Scarlett adds.
“It’s coming from your purse, though,” I tell her as I point to her red handbag.
Scarlett shakes her head but digs into her purse anyway. “I don’t have a ring tone that sounds like—” Her words cut off when she pulls out what looks like a cheap prepaid cell phone. “This isn’t mine.”
I snatch it out of her hand and hit the talk button, but I already know who is going to be on the other end before I answer.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Gabe . . . you’re looking real fine. The training is already showing. You been workin’ hard, haven’t ya?” Just like I knew it would be, Moses’s accented drawl comes through the other end of the line.
“What do you want?” I whisper through clenched teeth, even though everyone in the SUV can hear me.
“Nothin’ much. Just wanted to see how you were doing. Can’t I keep tabs on my old friend Gabriel Legend?”
I stay quiet, fighting the urge to yell and tell him how the fuck I really feel about him terrifying the shit out of Bump, again.
“Nothing to say to me?” His tone shifts, turning harder and more serious. “That’s fine, Gabe. I don’t need to say much to you either. Just wanted you to know that I’m watching you. Might even call it watching over you. Making sure nothing happens to my prizefighter so fight night goes off without a hitch. You stay healthy now. Eat your vegetables and keep training hard. And think of your old buddy Moses here and there if you need any motivation to make this shit count.”
“Stay away from my people,” I grind out as sweat collects on my forehead from all the rage I’m bottling up inside.
“You’d like me to promise that, I’m sure. But I don’t take orders from you, Legend. I give them. Now, you and your new little family have a nice afternoon. Tell your lady I like her purse. She’s got style.”
My eyes lock on the red leather bag Scarlett pulled the phone out of. Moses wants me to know he was close enough to touch her.
The old me would lose my goddamned mind and threaten to kill him if he ever came anywhere near her again, but I can’t do that right now, not in front of her and Bump. The kid’s been through enough, and Scarlett doesn’t need to hear it either.
“I hear you, Moses. Everything is coming through loud and clear.”
“Good. That’s real good. Now y’all go get some real food. Because you can’t be training just on french fries. I am glad to see you finally found a woman who ain’t afraid to eat, though. I always like me some meat on them bones.”
Wrath is threatening to burst from every pore of my body as my temperature rises higher and higher.
“Don’t look at her again. I promise you’ll regret it.”
His snicker is dark and twisted. “Then stay the course, boy. You know what you gotta do.”
The call goes dead, and I drop the phone on my lap.
“It was him,” Scarlett whispers.
My entire body feels like it’s been filled with concrete. I don’t want to move a muscle, because I’m afraid I’m going to do something stupid like punch through the window to my left with my fist.
I’m not going to let him dictate how the fuck I feel too, I tell myself, fighting for control over my rioting emotions. Moses Buford Gaspard knows how to push all my fucking buttons, and I won’t allow it to keep happening.
“I need to make a call when we get back to your place,” I tell her.
“Okay, whatever you need.”
I note her pale complexion and wide gray eyes. “Alone.”
She nods slowly. “Okay. I’ll take care of Bump, and you take care of business. We’ve got this, Gabe. Whatever it is, we’ve got it.”
I sit quietly in my seat, staring out the window as we drive back to Curated, wondering what the fuck I’ve gotten myself into, and how the hell I’m going to get us all out.
I replay the call with Moses in my head a half dozen times, grappling with my anger. When we get out at Curated, Hal walks us up to the front door and checks every room in the entire building to make sure it’s secure.
By the time we reach Scarlett’s apartment, something occurs to me.
“He doesn’t know about the mob,” I whisper to myself.
“What?” Scarlett says from beside me.
I glance at Bump to make sure he can’t hear us, but he’s on the floor of the living room, letting Roux cover him with welcoming doggy kisses.
“I’ll go outside with them so the dog can take a walk,” Hal offers, and I nod. As soon as the door closes, I meet Scarlett’s gaze once more.
“Moses didn’t mention the mob.”
After my meeting with Creighton, I filled her in on where everything stood, so my mentioning the mob is not a surprise to her.
“That’s a good sign, right?”
I nod slowly, my confidence rising again. “Moses loves being the smartest guy in the room. He craves it. Even back in the day, he never missed an opportunity to show off how sharp he was. If he knew the mob was on to him, he’d have thrown that in my face and taunted me about being smarter than all of us. But he didn’t. He doesn’t know.”
“Oh, thank God.” Scarlett releases a breath with her palm pressed to her chest. “If he doesn’t know . . . then that means there’s still a good chance they can find him and—”
“Take care of him before the fight. Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m praying for, ladybug. Because I don’t know what the fuck else to do otherwise.”
She comes to me and wraps both of her arms around my waist. “We’ll figure it out. He’s not going to hurt us, no matter what he says. We won’t give him the chance, Gabe. I trust you.”
I press a kiss to the crown of her head. “You’re right. We’ve got this. There’s no other alternative I can live with.”
“I wish he’d just take the money,” she whispers.
Instead of my ego brushing her off, I say the one thing I never thought would come out of my mouth. “If I get a chance to talk him into it, I’ll do it. You have my word.”
Thirty
Legend
While Scarlett’s getting Bump settled, I pull out my phone to call Creighton Karas.
When a billionaire tells you that he’s going to take care of something, and that something pops up in the form of a prepaid cell phone in your woman’s bag, the billionaire has some explaining to do.
Shockingly, he answers. “Hello, Legend. What can I do for you this Sunday evening, when I normally wouldn’t answer calls from anyone?”
“Apologies for interrupting your weekend.”