Then she snorted.
Hell, I need to learn how to do that in the first place.
ChapterFourteen
Ray Dorland
He wasat work late that afternoon in the office when his door opened.He started to protest at the interruption after leaving specific orders not to be disturbed, but the words died on his lips when he saw who his visitor was.
The man’s ice-blue eyes cut laser-perfect holes into Ray’s calm, shattering it.“Makari!”He belatedly stood and rounded the desk to shake the man’s hand while hoping his voice didn’t tremble.“How yah doin’, mate.Didn’t expect yah here.”
Makari’s expression didn’t change, and the way he hesitated before shaking Ray’s hand made Ray’s balls want to crawl up inside him and hide.
“Did not expect to be here,” the man said in clipped English heavily accented with Russian.Without waiting, he walked over to the desk and sat down.“We need to talk, Ray.”
Oooohhh shit.
Ray’s mouth went dry from fear as he hurried back to his desk.“Can I get yah anything to?—”
“Sit, Ray,” Makari Sokolov quietly said.“My time is valuable.”
“Uh, oh, sure.Yeah.Sorry.”Ray planted himself behind his desk.“What’s goin’ on?Is this about my request for assistance for the trip?”
The man’s default expression always bordered on resting bitch face, but today he looked even less pleased than usual.“Why is there a Mexican asking for information about a Jake Peterson and a Carl Peterson?”
Ray felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.“What, now?”
“More specifically, why was Jake Peterson pretending to be Russian to meet with the Mexican’s daughter?”
“I—what?”
“Did you not hear me or not understand me?”
“I-I don’t have any idea, mate!I swear!I don’t know any bloody Mexicans.”His mind reeled to hear two names from his past.
Especially one who was supposed to be dead, or at least locked up and being experimented on.
“Hmm.”He stared at Ray.“Tell me more about this trip you have requested manpower for.”
Ray stammered his way through it, trying to remember not to say anything about shifters.This guy didn’t know about the lab stuff.
At least, he’d never told him anything about it.And as far as he knew, this bloke wasn’t tied up with any of those people.
“Is your business with these people in Idaho related to the Mexican?”
Ray scowled.“Naw, mate.I swear I don’t know anything about no Mexicans.Old family business with ties to ours and a few others.Mostly legal, lot of tax dodges.”
“Nothing about narcotics?”
“Nah!Far’s I know, the Bleackes don’t do nothin’ like that.”
“Then why is this meeting so important?Why do you need my help?Why not use men of your own?”
He’d already thought about how to phrase this.“Because some of my men, not that I don’t trust ’em to help, but I want to make sure we have plenty of heavy weights to make these buggers realize they need to turn over control to us.I don’t want ’em to see any familiar faces.Shock and awe, right?See, they have a lot of connections.And where their territory is, nowthatcould be valuable.Middle of nowhere, close to the Canadian border.If I can do a hostile takeover of their operation, we can use that territory to our advantage, know what I mean?”
Sokolov scowled.“You just said they aren’t involved in narcotics.”
“Nah, but they’ve got shell companies all over the world.Andthat’svaluable.”
