Before anyone could even open their mouth, Joey spoke up.
“Amy Small involved her own son in a crew of bad guys, which ended with his ass in prison. Then she found Duane, set him up, played with his emotions and put him in a spot where some big player might disappear him. Dex was in on that. Dex picked Duane because he knows there’s a chance Duane isn’t going to make it out, and he wants Duane to go down, not one of his guys. So he knows there’s a chance Duane might pay the ultimate price simply for caring about somebody. Also, Dex knows he might lose that money. And he’s going to lose that money. So my vote is, he learns his lesson the hard way, if he has a job to do, he has to have the balls to do it himself.”
Joey, new to our crew, after this speech, got a full visual assessment from the veterans (and Titus).
It was all-around positive (obviously, that was a kickass speech!).
“That’s my vote too,” Gemma chimed in.
“Me too,” Harlow (who had decided to come to get her mind off Javi’s meeting tomorrow) agreed.
“Don’t look at me,” Jessie said when we all looked at her for her vote. “This Dex guy can go fuck himself.”
“For sure,” I said.
“I think we’re in,” Luna said.
“Right,” Titus said. “Time to introduce you to Dimitri.”
Dimitri?
Oh boy.
The restaurant we went to was one I’d never been to.
It was also one I’d never again go to.
Not because it was gross or anything. I didn’t see it. We went in the back off a shadowy alley.
It was just that it was obviously a front for the Russian mob. I’d never tried borsht, even though I wanted to give it a go, but I was going to steer clear.
We went through the kitchen, and the writing was on the wall when not anyone in that busy kitchen even glanced at a row of eight women and Titus being led through by a henchman.
The henchman knocked once on a door, nothing was heard inside, but he opened it anyway and jerked up his chin to Titus.
I took a deep breath as Titus led us in.
I thought it would be an office. Or a storeroom with easy-clean cement floors where mobsters could get up to all sorts of shenanigans and not have to worry about stain removal afterward.
It wasn’t either.
It was nearly as cool as Titus’s man cave, what with its red-topped, eight player poker table in the center, the plethora of couches and armchairs arranged around tables for maximum lounging-while-chatting-or-plotting-your-next-felony potential, a full wet bar and a wall packed with books that gave it a library air.
There was no dais nor killer portraits of the man in charge, certainly no fabulous, restored, gold, vintage Camaro (the showpiece of the man cave), and there was a little too much red, gold and ostentation for my preferences.
But the hot blond guy sitting at the poker table sure made up for the fall down on décor.
His hair was short at the sides, messy up top. His eyes were brown. His brows were thick and darker than his hair. His jaw was strong. His cheekbones were high, so that made the hollows underneath them mouthwatering.
Ivan Drago was so hot, he stood the test of time to retain his hotness even when he was the villain, and his movie came out decades ago.
This dude was hotter.
By, like…a lot.
And when he stood, we found he was tall, broad shouldered, narrow hipped, and lean. Not skinny in the slightest, but he was no physical powerhouse.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t lethal.
