“Is no one trying?” Eduardo bellowed when the last person had gone. His gaze slithered from face to face, cold and disappointed. “Perhaps you’re all getting comfortable in your positions and I need to start searching for newer, hungrier people.”
I knew I was safe.
I knew Nero was safe as well.
We didn’t have an operation to oversee. We weren’t in charge of filtering, processing, and organizing thousands of Eduardo’s hustles. I just collected money from people who had Eduardo’s protection. Nero did what he was told, when he was told. We didn’t have to think of anything, except what we were already doing.
“Fine.” Smooth palms slapped onto the surface of the table and Eduardo shoved to his feet. “You have left me no choice.” He straightened. “Each of you has one week to think of something new, something mind blowing, or it will be the last time you sit at my table.”
Without waiting for a single protest, Eduardo swept from the room with Alejandro a step behind him. The arrogant prick never glanced our way. He marched out with his master, a loyal dog with a vicious bite. I waited until he and Eduardo were out of earshot before turning to Nero.
“How is she?”
It was in the single side glance he shot me. It was in the tight pinch of his lips, the hard knot in his jaw. He looked away, but the lingering burn of his rage sizzled between us.
“That bastard!”
He grabbed my arm when I shoved to my feet. His fingers were cold bars of steel over heated skin. Blunt nails bit into flesh. The pain brought me back to myself.
“Don’t be stupid,” he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for my ears. Releasing me, he got to his own feet as if nothing were amiss. He pushed in his chair and started for the door.
I followed, leaving my chair out. It was petty and ridiculous; it wasn’t as if Alejandro would be coming around to push in chairs. But it made me feel better.
Outside in the blanket of murky dusk, I stopped between my car and Nero’s bike and faced the other man squarely.
“Did he hurt her?”
I had to know. I had to know so I could march back into the manor, hunt down the fucker and rip off his dick.
“Not the way you’re thinking,” he mumbled. “He knew about me taking her to Ernie’s.”
I blinked, not having expected that. “How?”
Nero shrugged, gaze squinting at something over my shoulder. “Dunno. But he asked her about it.”
Normally, Alejandro knowing something he shouldn’t wouldn’t have surprised me. The guy was a spook. But given that only me, Mia and Nero knew of the fuck up, he couldn’t possibly have heard it on the street. Unless he really had sold his soul to the devil.
“Darnell,” I blurted, his pimply, oily face popping into my head like a bad memory. “The rat was there when I was talking to you. He must have overheard me.”
Nero sighed, tongue working his back molars. “Someone really should deal with him.”
“He’s protected,” I reminded him before he could do something stupid, like make Darnell disappear.
He hummed quietly. “I didn’t say it would be me. Accidents happen all the time.” He turned away before I could say anything more. “We shouldn’t be talking about this here. Meet me back at the apartment.”
I knew he was right. It only took one person to overhear us for our heads to end up on the chopping block — the situation with Darnell being a perfect example. But I didn’t want to leave. My feet had formed roots into the concrete. My pride and idiocy warred with my commonsense in a battle of wills. It was only the sharp jab from Nero that propelled me into motion. He kept tight to my side all the way to the driver’s side door and waited until I was behind the wheel and the engine was roaring before ambling over to his own bike.
The ride back to the apartment with Nero a black blur behind me was quiet, too quiet. The kind of quiet that gave my brain too much room to plot and overthink. I hadn’t even seen Mia or what Alejandro had done to her, yet it was all playing behind my eyes, a gritty movie conjured by my relentless imagination. The wheel took the majority of my fury, squeaking beneath the punishing squeeze of my fingers.
I should have hit him, I kept thinking. I should have never have let Mia leave with him. I should have put my foot down and told the guy to fuck off. By protecting her, we’d ultimately thrown her straight into his clutches. That was on us. That was our fault. I had been so sure he wouldn’t think twice about her if he didn’t think she was important.
“I got a text from Alejandro.” Nero approached my driver’s side door when I’d parked and turned the engine off. His head was bent over the lit screen of his phone, a deep groove edged between his furrowed brows. “He wants to see me.”
“Didn’t we just see him?” I muttered, climbing out of the car and joining him in the parking lot.
One shoulder bunched up in a shrug. “Apparently he needs to go over something.”
Had it been any other time, any other normal day, the summons to return could have been shrugged off as nothing, but followed after Alejandro’s display with Mia, there was no ignoring the oily sensation in my gut.
“I don’t like this,” I confessed, casting a furtive glance up and down the block. “The timing is too weird.”
Nero’s wide chest lifted with his deep inhale and dropped when he let the air out in a rush. The phone was stuffed into his back pocket with a muttered, “I know.”
Brittle tension swarmed around us, a barbed cocoon of understanding that made the spot between my shoulder blades itch.
“I’m coming with you,” I decided, already reaching for my door handle.
“You know that’s stupid.” Nero shook his head, already taking a step towards his bike. “Maybe make yourself scarce for a bit.”
The very idea of crawling into some hole while my best friend marched off to his death made my stomach clench. I shot him a disgusted glower.
“Like that’s going to happen,” I said, annoyed by the very suggestion.
“Think of Mia.” His quiet reminder froze me.
“What?”
It was his turn to survey our surroundings, dark eyes narrowed; taking people out in broad daylight, on a semi busy street wouldn’t have been a stretch for Eduardo’s men. Nero had done it himself a few times.
“One of us needs to take care of her,” he murmured so quietly, I barely heard him through the two-foot distance. “She’s reckless and trusting. You’re going to take her and leave.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I snapped, giving him a hard shove. “You asshole. And neither would Mia, nor would she leave her parents.”
His frown was the only indication that I’d struck a nerve. “To save their lives she will.”
“And have her hate me for the rest of her life? No. Sorry, pal, but if we go, you’re coming with us.”
“Don’t make this difficult. I’m the one who started this. I took Mia that night. It’s my punishment. I’m not dragging you and her into it. I’m not letting Eduardo or Alejandro near either of you.”
“Then we do what we always do, we fight together.”
Nero shook his head. “He marked Mia. He marked her. He terrified her and threatened her family. One of us needs to stay to make sure she doesn’t do anything that’s going to get her killed.”