I still, my gaze going down to hers.
She’s forty-five, twenty-three years older than me and Lele, and she could kick my ass but I don’t like what she said. Especially since she knows where he is right now.
“Not cool,” I say under my breath. I imagine breaking her fucking neck.
She smiles at me, and her eyes light up. “There you are. Come back to me. He’s going to be okay. Lele is too stubborn to die.” She searches my face. “Have you talked to Berlin?”
I nod, thinking of him on Riddle Lane last night when I stopped by to speak to him and check on our place. His presence was there to make sure no one else was trying to attack the Flynns.
Berlin’s deep brown eyes, curly brown hair and arms bigger than my head were a comfort.
But I don’t want to marry him.
He’s my age and he’s competitive and he wants a wife at home, not in the empire of the streets which are my entire life. But he’s familiar; my uncle introduced us shortly after I turned eighteen on one of Lynx’s runs down south. He was my first friend in North Carolina. Back then, he really was just a kid. More immature than me, more lighthearted. But he was a kid who could knife your face from your skull.
“Yes,” I tell Eve. “He doesn’t know anything yet.”
“And Fox?”
My bodyguard reluctantly left me here to follow one more lead. I glance at the analog clock on the wall above the bay of windows. He’ll be here at ten, in half an hour.
“We’re going to find out who sold to him.” I say the words and know I sound like a cop when I do. Fuck.
Eve cocks her head, her raven braid slipping down one shoulder as her brows fly up, a small wrinkle in her forehead forming. “You have no idea at all?” she questions. There’s something in her tone like surprise and I don’t like it. Like she’s implying I should know.
She doesn’t want to test her luck. Not when it comes to my brother.
“Why’d you say it like that?” I ask, my voice low.
She looks at me a moment, then turns and grabs a black squeeze bottle—mine—from the ring at her back. She tosses it easily to me and I catch it with one wrapped hand, tilt my chin up, and pour the cold water in my open mouth.
I don’t stop drinking until my head starts to hurt from the cold, thanks to the ice in the bottle. I dip my chin and hit the mouth of the bottle closed with the back of my hand as I meet Eve’s gaze, waiting for her to answer my question.
“You know everything that happens in this town, Lydia. When it comes to product, I mean. Has anyone been grumbling lately? Running off at the mouth? Any complaints?”
“If we had any, I’d have warned Lele.”
“Lele doesn’t listen to warnings.”
“He listens to me.” And I to him. He might be a party animal and a bit of a whore but he’s valuable even if we’re speaking strictly business which when it comes to family, we never are. He’s charming where I’m cold. Friendly where I’m mean. He brings people in. I shut them out.
Eve folds her arms and glances at the floor. It’s like she’s hiding something. I wait her out, aware of the darkness, the time slipping by, and my brother in a fucking coma.
Finally, she looks up at me from beneath her lashes. “You know he can’t be controlled. And if there’s no one you pissed off recently, it’s possible…” She trails off and I clench my fingers tight around the bottle in my hand. If she says some shit about him going too far on his own or being erratic and deserving where he is right now, I’m going to hit her, consequences be damned.
But she doesn’t say that.
She looks right at me and says, “I had a fling with Lynx, did you know? That’s why he recommended me to you in the first place, a year ago.”
When my uncle told me to move here. Expand his territory.
My stomach grows hard and it’s like all the breath has left my lungs. Lynx said she was good. I didn’t think to ask any more questions about their connection. My assumption was he trained with her before on a visit down here.
“I know he’s your uncle, but he’s cold and he’s calculated. If he thinks Lele is a liability, I don’t know what he’d do to solve a problem like that.”
“But there’s no fucking problem. Lele is related to him by blood. He’d never try to kill his own and for you to suggest it is fucked in the head, Eve.” My loyalty is unmatched. This woman seems to have a death wish.
She doesn’t blink. “I watched him drown three puppies. One by one. He’d do far worse than what I’m suggesting.” She says it so casually and it takes me a second for her words to catch up with the reality of what she’s saying.
