Marcus grinds against my ass. “You’re always down.”
I roll my eyes and once the boys have finished their business, we make our way back out of the impressive tech room, leaving Mick to get busy calling in all his workers.
Marcus drops his heavy arm over my shoulder and leads me back out the way we came, keeping us concealed from all of the night shift workers. Levi stops to haul a big bag of pills over his shoulder and grabs a few stacks of dirty cash.
We reach the first exit, and as Marcus stops to hash in the code that Roman had only used twenty minutes ago, I hear the telltale sound of a big roller door opening and can’t resist turning back.
A black Mercedes pulls to a stop outside the roller door and the boys slow, turning back to see who’s coming. Roman’s shoulders tighten and for a brief second, I wonder if it’s Giovanni. Hope surges through me, and as much as I never want to see that man again, if it is him, it gives us a way to locate Roman’s son.
The four of us pause and Marcus discreetly pulls me behind a big stack of dirty cash that’s wrapped in plastic, keeping us hidden and out of sight. Though if someone were really looking, they’d be able to find us.
Roman and Levi move in front of the stack while keeping themselves discreetly tucked away. I can only see the top of Levi’s head but there’s a morphed reflection of Roman in the plastic wrap and I’m able to make out the way he slowly pulls a gun from the back of his pants.
All eyes remain locked on the black Mercedes, and as the door opens, I hold my breath. If it’s Giovanni, there might even be a chance that the baby is tucked away in the back seat.
My heart races. I’ve never wanted to see that asshole more in my life.
A pair of expensive black shoes hit the ground and I lean out from behind the stack of cash, needing a clearer look. Marcus’ hand curls around my elbow, ready and waiting to yank me back if need be, but when the man steps out of the car and his familiar head appears over the top of the open door, my chest sinks.
It’s not Giovanni, but hell, I wasn’t expecting this guy.
My brows shoot up and I gape up at Marcus. “Is that our dealer?” I question, my voice hitching a little too high for someone who’s supposed to be hiding.
Marcus scoffs, equally as stunned. We were expecting to see a lot of things here tonight, but not him, and certainly not in an expensive suit worth more than he could possibly afford and a car that looks as though it gets valet parked every night. “It sure fucking is,” Marcus says as Levi and Roman discreetly return to us.
“The fuck is going on here?” Levi questions, keeping his gaze locked on our dealer, the guy who is supposed to be shit broke, living in the worst part of town in a home that’s falling apart.
“I smell a fucking rat,” Roman says, anger sweeping over his sharp features.
The last time we paid a visit to our dealer, his home looked ransacked. Broken glass and drugs littered the floors, and it looked like someone had made a run for it with as much cash as they could carry. And while it’s definitely possible to get robbed in that neighborhood, it didn’t feel right. Roman thought it was a setup, especially considering the dealer never called to beg for his life.
We watch him a moment, watch how familiar he is with the workers loading up his car with product, and how seamless the transaction is. A lowly local drug dealer wouldn’t be pulling up like this, and the boys sure as fuck wouldn’t risk someone so disposable and unreliable to know the location of the heart and soul of their business. No, this guy is a fucking rat. He’s far too comfortable here.
“He’s been working for our father this whole fucking time,” Levi comments, seeing exactly what I see. “He was planted into our lives. I knew that asshole was too quick to offer his services after we shot his boss. Father’s got the little bitch spying on us.”
“He knew,” Roman murmurs, shaking his head as he lets out a heavy sigh and moves back to the electronic keypad. “All this fucking time. Our father knew the competitor was us. That old bastard. He’s always five steps ahead of us.”
We push out through the door and Levi quickly gets to work on the next one. “So, what do we do about it?” I question, not having dealt with a rat quite like this before.
Roman draws his phone out of his pocket and catches the door behind us before it can close all the way. “The only thing we can do,” he says, hitting a button on his phone and listening to the shrill ring of the dealer’s phone across the warehouse. “We invite him for dinner.”
26
Leaning over the top of the bar, I fill myself a glass of something smooth, needing the little hit to help me relax. It’s been a long as fuck day, and with the dealer due to arrive in the next hour, I need to be prepared.
It’s well after nine and I’m not going to lie, when Roman suggested that we were going to have him over for dinner, I kinda figured he meant a normal dinner time like seven or eight, but noooooo, not these assholes. Apparently when you invite someone over for dinner, what they really mean is ‘why don’t you come over for a midnight snack?’ I was even stupid enough not to snack so that I didn’t spoil my meal, but now my stomach is fucking pissed.
I knew I should have snuck into the dining room and stolen a juicy piece of steak a few hours ago. My hunger has turned me into a raging bitch, and when I’m like this, not even serial killers would want to stand in my way.
White rum fills my glass, and just to be fancy, I drop a few perfectly round ice cubes into my glass. I take a sip and my eyes flutter in delight, but the way the cool liquid drops right to the bottom of my empty stomach only serves to remind me that I’M FUCKING STARVING!
Straightening up from the bar, I place the cool glass down on the polished wood and go to drop my ass down on the stool, only the intense feeling of someone watching me brings me up short. I suck in a breath as my heart leaps into my throat.
I flip around, my sharp gaze sailing straight to the shadows of the darkened room, just as the boys had trained me. My gaze sweeps from left to right and back again. Coming up blank, I try to convince myself that it was all in my head, until three, looming figures step out from each of the remaining corners of the room.
Black ski masks cover their faces and my hand curls around my glass, ready to launch it at one of the fuckers’ heads, only as they move a little closer into the dull light of the bar, my grip loosens.
The three tall men slowly move toward me, each of them shirtless with nothing but a pair of black pants, their faces completely covered by the masks, showing nothing but their dark, obsidian eyes.
They don’t make a sound, and if it weren’t for their familiar tattoos, I’d have absolutely no idea who was who. Marcus stands front and center, the tattoo of Felicity staring back at me, but it’s the hunger in his eyes that has me slowly pulling myself up from the stool.
Levi is at my right, the intricate, dark lines of his tattoo peeking out from under the base of his ski mask and trailing right over his chest and down his right arm. Roman silently comes at me from the left, and I have to slightly turn my head to see him fully. His body is so tight and it’s clear that he holds a shitload of tension in his muscles. He’s never fully able to relax, but hell, for some reason, he decided to participate in whatever the hell this is, and I’m so down with that.