He could lie all he wanted, but it wasn’t going to sway me. The anger was so thick in my system that I swore the room was bathed in red. Every second I spent listening to his bullshit was time I could have been with Loretta.
“I don’t care to chat with you or anyone you’re associated with. Get out,” I said putting as much steel in my voice as possible.
The big fuck sitting to the right of the old man reached behind him and pulled out a black Glock. The only reason I knew the gun was because one of our associate lawyers made us spend his bachelor weekend at the shooting range rather than the strip club. With the gun on the table, he stuck his finger on the trigger and then spun it around his index finger like he was playing a game of spin the bottle with deadly consequences.
We both knew the asshole would not shoot me.
None of it mattered. The only thing I cared about was getting these people out of the office as fast as possible. I had shit to do.
“Get out,” I said again, slower this time while staring at the man’s eyes as he continued to spin the weapon.
“But, Mr. Peterson, we’re not done talking,” the boss said.
I spun my attention to him. “You don’t scare me. This entire building is wired with cameras.” You didn’t have connections with Ridge Jefferson and not have more security cameras than the entire state of New York. “You’ll never make it out. Only someone stupid would try and I can tell you’re not a stupid man. Are you?”
Was I being completely hazardous with the way I spoke to a crazy person?
Yes.
But I’d use anything in my power to get rid of him, and I had a feeling Mr. Pitero didn’t want anyone calling him stupid. He hadn’t made it this long in the mafia by being openly brazen. It wasn’t their technique. Something else had to be going on, but I didn’t care to sit around and find out.
Rather than order his man to shoot me in the head, their leader turned to his other henchmen and smiled. “He’s got balls.”
Just as I readied to make another insult and hope it’d push him on his way out the building, the conference room door swung open and the most infuriating woman with half blue hair strutted in like she owned the place. With the way Loretta pranced in you’d think she visited every day and we were here for tea and biscuits.
“He does,” she said stopping a few feet inside the room.
Oh my word.
I stood at attention not sure how to get her out of the space as quickly as possible without losing the credibility I’d created. I could kill her later. Privately.
The henchmen grabbed his gun in one smooth move and pointed it right at blue’s head. I sprinted around the conference table as quickly as I could to get in between her and the loaded weapon and then practically dragged her back to my side of the table with my body in front of her.
“That was an impressive entrance,” Katy Kadish, another resident of Pelican Bay and current girlfriend of Pierce Kensington, said as she walked in giving the entire room a slow clap. Fucking A.
My head spun and pounded with the start of a headache. For a moment I thought the lack of oxygen to my brain from my stopped breathing would cause me to pass out. But that would leave Loretta with only protection from Katy, which wasn’t something I’d bank on. You could always count on Katy to make a situation worse.
I stared at the new addition, keeping Loretta behind my back with my hand on her wrist so she couldn’t leave. “Where the hell did she come from?”
Loretta leaned to the side so I could see her when I turned back, but she didn’t make a move to leave. “I was sitting in Pierce’s office arguing how he couldn’t keep me hostage when Katy walked in after using the bathroom. You should ask if he brought his girlfriend to New York with him.”
“Thanks for the pointer. The next time I’m trying to take you someplace for your safety I will make sure and ask the pertinent follow-up questions.” I had enough annoyance in my voice I thought she’d realized it was not the time to joke around, but from her smile and shrug the message did not hit home as intended.
Katy sauntered over to our side, never taking her eyes off the three men who were still sitting quietly as if this was an everyday occurrence in their lives.
“Well, this sucks,” Katy said standing beside me.
“You think?” I bit out.
I never wanted to hit a woman, but Katy Kadish had been a pain in my ass since elementary school. First Pierce was in love with her and then he couldn’t stand her and then Pierce didn’t understand why she hated him. I had half a mind to push her in front of me between the table and the madman and make a mad dash out the door with Loretta.
But I considered Pierce one of my closest friends, and even though I wanted to strangle his girlfriend ninety percent of the time, I knew what the void would do to him so I refrained. After this she and Loretta were not allowed to be in the same state with one another. I couldn’t risk it.
People who hung out with Katy had a history of coming up kidnapped.
Katy scowled at me and then rolled her eyes dramatically at Loretta, like I was overreacting. She’d lived in Pelican Bay long enough to hear the stories regarding Katy. The fact she willingly walked in here with Katy at her side just proved she did not have any form of survival instincts.
“I just meant,” Katy said turning to ignore me and speak to the man across the table, “if I’d known they had guns I’d have brought Drake with me. Now we have to solve the situation ourselves.”
