“You didn’t give me enough time.”
“Bullshit, Matt. You stiffed me, and you know it.”
“All clear,” Angel said, holstering his gun as he rejoined us. “I’ll be right back.”
“How much do you want?” Matt asked as soon as Angel was out of the room.
I ignored him. The asshole had stolen from me, then evaded me. Then he’d approached Ariana and tried to feed her some shit about getting her an audition. There was no amount of money he could pay to get out of this. I needed to make an example of his ass. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d put his head on a pike and put it front and center on the strip.
“Come on, Bones. I don’t have a lot of money on me right now, but I have some good shit stashed away. I can sell it, and—”
“The kind of ‘good shit’ you gave to Ariana when you almost killed her? Where the fuck did you get that ‘good shit’?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
I pistol-whipped him in the back of the head again.
“Ouch! Fuck! Stop doing that.”
“Then I suggest you start talking.”
“If I give you my sources, you’ll hunt them down and they’ll come after me. I’ll never be able to do business in Vegas again.”
The fact that he thought he was going to live through the day was so damn funny I couldn’t help but laugh. Jamming my Glock deeper into his side, I said, “Your distributor is the least of your worries.”
Angel pulled up, so I led Matt to the Hummer and climbed in the back seat beside him. As Angel drove, I continued to grill Matt for information.
“You might as well tell me who your distributor is now. Make it easier on yourself. You know I’m going to get it out of you eventually.”
“Are you gonna torture me? Because I don’t think Ari will like that.”
I leveled a stare at him trying to follow his line of thinking. “And what impact does that have on me?”
“Your boss is dating her sister, and I know how important family is to you guys. Ari loves me. She’d be devastated if anything happened to me.”
Angel and I both got a good laugh out of that. “Ari doesn’t care about you,” I said. “How do you think we found you? She gave me your new number and we traced your phone.”
He paled. “I don’t believe you.”
“Too much of that ‘good shit’ has apparently fried your brain. You fuckin’ left her for dead,” I growled. He needed to stop talking about Ariana, because his words kept reminding me that he’d spent almost a year with her. Did she still have feelings for him? She’d asked what would happen to Matt when I found him, but didn’t press the issue.
“She’d never sell me out. Not after all we’ve been through. She loves me.”
Anger and adrenaline pulsed through my veins, making me want to rip those words from his vocabulary. She didn’t love him. I bet she never looked at him the way she looked at me. “She doesn’t care what happens to you. She knows you’re a liar and a fraud. She told me all about the little audition you promised her, and I made some calls and found out that once again you’re full of shit.”
“No.” Matt shook his head. “This isn’t how this goes down. Ari’s supposed to call me, so I can pick her up for the meeting.”
“What meeting?” Angel asked, adjusting his rearview mirror.
“Cut the shit, Matt. There’s no audition. The Acropolis doesn’t even have additions on Tuesday nights.”
“No.” Matt rubbed his temples. “The meeting with your sister. Why the fuck aren’t you paying attention?”
How could I when the fucking junkie was all over the place? “I don’t have a sister.”
“Yes, you do. Her name is Natalia and she’s paying me to take Ari to her. Then she’ll trade… Ari for you. I’ll get Ari back, and you’ll get what’s coming to you.”
“I don’t know what kind of fairytale land you’re living in, but I swear to Christ if you don’t start making sense, I’m going to start breaking things. Starting with your fingers, then your hands, then your arms. I can make this really painful, Matt.”
