A policy he could check at the front door, or he’d find out how quickly I could make him “give a shit.”
I reached for the loaded Glock on the table. All eyes were on me as I slid the cold steel into the back waistband of my pants. “We let him in, we get this done, and then I want this pinche cabrón off my property.”
There was a collective nod in agreement.
My hospitality was forced. My anger, barely restrained.
This meeting was already a hairline fracture waiting to splinter.
Fifteen minutes later, we all felt Santiago’s unwelcome presence outside the room. A coldness had steeled under the door, turning the stale Mexican air to ashes and dust. No one said a word as they waited on my command.
The seconds ticked.
Let the fucker wait.
Eventually, a slight nod to Brody was all it took. He opened the door to reveal my head of security’s tall, scowling frame.
“Jefe,” Rafael said, his gaze seeking mine. “I have Señor Santiago here to see you.”
“Gracias,” I murmured, as I took another leisurely swig of my drink. “See him in.”
Let’s keep this shit cordial before the bullets start signing contracts.
Rafael dutifully stepped aside, revealing a huge man who was every bit a devil in name as in nature—a man who’d disguised his insatiable thirst for blood behind a feared name and twisted legend.
His cold expression never shifted as he removed his sunglasses, sending an icy chill throughout the room. It stopped with me, and I felt nothing. Because the minute he stepped inside my Senado, I saw him for what he really was.
Santiago was more than a name cultivated by this underworld swamp in which we all dwelled—a name he backed up with his trigger finger and whispers of his immorality.
Instead, I saw a man and his inner inferno.
I saw the war that he waged with himself every day.
It only took a glance to understand him because I lived it all myself.
“Santiago,” I snapped.
“Carrera.” Our gazes locked and loaded. After a beat, he glanced around the room with an irritating disdain. “So,” he drawled. “Which one is the bridezilla?”
The sound of a palm cracking against wood echoed throughout the tension. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of red as Adriana started to rise from her seat. Without breaking eye contact with Santiago, I held up my hand to halt her movement. “Check your tone, señor… That’s my sister you’re talking about.”
Dante’s lips twisted. “Ah. How touching. I never held such regard for my blood family. I took great pleasure in dispensing with most of them… unpleasantly.” His dark eyes flashed in my direction again. That’s when I knew that this greeting was to goad and test, not to placate and ally.
Well, game on, motherfucker.
At the same time, I sensed the rage swarming like a cloud of angry hornets to my left. I kept my hand lifted, and Adriana slowly sank back into her chair. Once I had her diffused, I matched his smirk with a thinly-stretched bullet of my own. “Rest assured, Santiago, I speak for everyone when I say my sister’s feelings about your presence here is mutual. I suggest you and your entourage take a fucking seat before this merger is over before it’s begun.”
I always wondered what meeting Dante Santiago would be like. So far, I wanted to grind his dead face into the floor next to Ronan’s corpse.
“Rest assured, Carrera,” he responded coldly, his disrespect slashing razor-sharp talons at my anger as he stepped into the room and motioned behind him. “I’m not thrilled to be here, either. As such, I brought a few associates along to help sweeten the atmosphere. I’m sure you understand.”
Sweeten, my ass. I saw the threat, but I grudgingly respected it too. There was no fucking way I’d walk into enemy territory without backup, but I sure as hell didn’t appreciate him whipping his dick out and pissing everywhere like a dog marking his territory.
Three men and a slight woman with a curtain of glossy, raven-black hair filled the space behind him. Two, I recognized right away, but the woman and the third man gave me pause.
It pissed me off.
This man was quickly earning a fucking diploma in pissing me off.
Santiago didn’t acknowledge the dead man lying on the floor. He merely stepped over him to avoid soiling his pants with his blood. As he did, a huge stone-faced man circled in front of him and claimed the seat next to Mateo. It wasn’t a power move. It was a protective one. He was putting a gun in between Mateo and his boss.
Smart man.
Slithering into his chair, Dante gestured to the man beside him. Is this a concession at last? “Joseph Grayson. My second-in-command. And I’m sure this man needs no introduction...” A dark-haired man had taken up the empty place beside him, wearing his smugness like a blood-red corsage.
“Senator Sanders,” I murmured. “To what do we owe the honor?”
“A slice of wedding cake and a bottle of your finest Gran Patrón Burdeos Añejo,” he drawled back, without missing a beat. Interesting. He’d done his homework. “In the past I would’ve fucked a bridesmaid or five as well, but I’m afraid my wife has gone and made a dishonest man out of me.”
I didn’t dignify that with an answer. A man didn’t maintain his empire without knowing the key players inside everyone else’s. I already knew his wife’s name and occupation, his past, and his connections. Most of all, I had the inside track on his inappropriate wisecracks. The edgier he was, the more salacious they became, which meant that Santiago’s crew weren’t as cool and “fuck you” as they made themselves out to be.
The man now sitting on the other side of Sanders was one of the unknowns—an all-American asshole in a cheap blue suit and neat silver tie pin. He was attracting the mother of all glares from Ava.
I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed her reaction.
“Enjoying yourself, Ms. Chernova?” Amused, Santiago raised a dark eyebrow at her.
Without breaking contact with the man across the table, Ava swiped at the glass in front of her and brought it to her mouth. “Not particularly... Saves me from looking at you, though.”
“Who the hell is he?” I demanded.
With a rough bark of laughter, Dante leaned forward and flashed me a sinister smile. “This is my associate, and Ms. Chernova’s close personal FBI special agent friend, Roman Peters.”
“And who the fuck is she?” Adriana exploded, aiming her words at the young woman reclining in the chair beside Roman, looking like a front row spectator at the showdown of the century. Her keen dark eyes missed nothing, and as soon as I caught a glimpse of the tattoo on her left shoulder, I knew she wasn’t to be underestimated.
“She has a name,” the woman said witheringly. “It’s Viviana, and I’m Santiago’s niece, so play nice and I might let you live a life beyond your wedding day.”
Adriana was already halfway out of her chair, her eyes blazing. “Or I could end yours right now.”
Brody clamped a hand firmly on her shoulder. “Sit down.”
She blinked down at him. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“I said, sit down, Adriana. You may be a queen, but this is not your court.”