Anders tosses a listening device onto the coffee table between us. “Try again.”
Triple fuck with a cherry on top. I knew I was playing with fire, going after a bad hunch like that. Also, I thought the listening device had died.Shit.
“You’re Anders Bash, and, uh…” I look up and gulp again. “You’re Omar Bash.”
Anders sits back, his handsomely lined face disgruntled. “Why the fuck are you more afraid of my husband than me?”
People are lining up right beside us to order coffee, and if I had to guess, we look like some bros hanging out. I could call for help, I suppose, but I don’t really want to know what Anders Fucking Bash does in a public confrontation.
I hold up my hands. “I, uh, I’m afraid of both of you.”
“But you’re more afraid of him, and I want to know why.”
My answer might get me killed, but there’s a good chance I’m not surviving this encounter anyway, so I go with the truth.
“He’s a Noorani. And they are no joke.” I clear my throat. “I mean. Obviously, the Bash family is no joke either. But you weren’t raised the same.”
Omar gently places his hand on the back of my neck. Not like a lover, but like someone who knows exactly how much pressure is needed to shear off one of my vertebrae.
“And how do you know that name?”
I eyeball the listening device.
“Asadi. He’s your brother. Or was. He was married to Rafi. Who later adopted your nephew Najim.”
Shit. Stop. Talking.
“How do you know that?”
I hesitate, and Omar tightens his grip on my spine.
“The tattoo shop.”
“And why did you bug Everett’s shop?”
“I had a hunch about something.”
“What was your hunch?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I answer carefully. “My hunch was wrong.”
“Still. I’d like to know.”
I’m going to end up in some dank underground dungeon, making friends with the rats while I develop scurvy from a stalebread-and-water diet until I finally succumb to death’s sweet embrace.
“Shit. Uh, well, I thought Everett was a human trafficker, and that he’d bought Rafi and Najim. But that’s just because I saw the three of them out and about, and Rafi looks so much younger than his actual age.”
“You thought Everett looked like a suspicious older white guy with two very young, possibly foreign companions,” Omar guesses.
Trying to lighten the mood, I hold up my hands, a nonverbal “whoops.” “After a little more digging, I found out that Rafi and Everett have been married forever, and they rescued Najim.”
Nobody laughs.
“No, they didn’t,” Omar says.
I blanch at his sharp tone.They’re gonna pull my spleen out through my nose, I just know it.
“Yeah,we’rethe ones who rescued Naji,” Anders clarifies, still disgruntled.
