I opened my eyes and stared at him, unsure how to respond. Part of me still wanted to believe she’d been set up, but I didn’t have anything to support it.
“I wasn’t in on it,” I said, my voice quiet and controlled.
He leaned back in his office chair. “Not like you’d admit it if you were. Got any idea where the money is? Heard the cops tore your place apart, but didn’t find nothin’.”
I shook my head. “Ines didn’t have any money. I had to constantly remind her to pay her half of the rent every month.”
“Did her boyfriend take the money?”
My eyes widened as I reared back my head. “I have no idea. After the accident, I spent the night at my parents’ house. So for all I know, he could have.”
I left out the part about finding him at my place because I didn’t want to mention Rafferty or the Riot MC - though I suspected K.C. knew about my ties to them.
“You ain’t much use to me,” K.C. said.
“I can use her,” a man to my left muttered.
Other men must have filed in behind us since I heard two others make ‘mm-hmm’ sounds of agreement.
My unease turned to fear.
“Could kill her and set up those white boys,” the man on my left added.
Outrage filled K.C.’s expression. “Do you know how much work it takes to move a body? Or anything, Jamal?”
“Those idiots would rat out their mommas. We’d face more heat,” Nate said.
K.C. scrutinized Nate. “You think an awful lot like a cop. But the cops aren’t that smart.”
The tone of Nate’s voice shifted to a deadpan. “Neither are the two men who took your coke.”
“Yeah,” K.C. said after a long moment. He focused on me again. “You been with Toby?”
My brows furrowed while my mind whirled for a moment before realization hit me. “You mean Tobias? No.”
“Hmph,” K.C. muttered with disappointment. “Asshole said he’d been with you.”
“He wishes,” I muttered, then I clamped my mouth shut.
K.C. laughed and the others joined in.
I thought about pressing my luck to ask if I could go home.
K.C. said, “Put her in LaTrease’s room.”
Nate grabbed my hand.
“Not you, Eightball. Let Digit do it.”
Nate let me go, and a man came around from behind me.
He waggled his long, thick fingers at me. “Time for some fun.”
Before he could turn me around, a woman’s voice hollered, “Kevin Calvin, there’s two white boys here!”
As much as I wanted to hope Beast and Tundra were here, every instinct told me that wasn’t the case. Otherwise, she’d have said two bikers because neither Beast nor Tundra qualified as boys. For that matter, neither did Rafferty. No, the more I thought about it, the more my stomach felt like a dead weight had taken root inside me.
I expected Tobias and Brantley to come through the doorway.
