“Yes, jeans will be fine for you both.”
He nodded at Dusan.“Give us ten minutes.”He grabbed hand and pulled her back into the bedroom.
Jasmine called out over her shoulder as the door closed behind them, “Make it fifteen!”
* * * *
Hot coffee in hand, the scent wafting up to her nose, Jasmine stared at the two men who she’d mentioned were undercovers.One was dead, his throat having been slit.From her experience, there wasn’t any doubt he’d suffered hard before they’d finally just killed him.
The one beside him in the grave was alive, barely, and he looked up at all of them.She stared down without a shred of sympathy.This fucker was a pedophile.His proclivity was toward children under five.Didn’t matter the sex of the child, he just wanted them young.
“He swore up until he couldn’t speak anymore that he wasn’t a cop.”
She looked away from him to the angry face of Michel, across the grave.The man’s face a blotchy red.Interesting.Her own face schooled in what many people had referred to as a woman’s resting bitch face.
Supposing it was true, she really didn’t give a damn about the fucker about to die, nor the baby of a crime syndicate lord who looked ready to cry when a favorite toy was taken away.Holding that angry gaze, she put the cup to her lips and sipped.
“Have you nothing to say?”His furious words spat in her direction made her all the more grateful the grave sat between them, protecting her from his saliva.
“I didn’t lay a hand on them, not sure why you’re so mad at me.”
“You were the one who said they were cops.”
Tipping her head to the side, she stretched out her neck, aware that not just Dusan but pretty much everyone gathered there watched her.
“Do you really think your father would takemyword, one of his men’s women—who according to you should have walked in through the back door at your daddy’s house to clean, not through the front—over yours and the word of people who had worked for him for far longer than he’s known me if he couldn’t see the proof himself?Your father’s not a stupid man.which is why he didn’t let the cops in the door.You did.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you.”
“You’re always welcome to try.All I did was tell the truth, and his digging into them pulled their true selves from hiding.I guess it doesn’t matter who they were to you simply because you wanted your dick in them.”
Lance settled a hand along her back—a silent warning not to go too far.She didn’t want to, but she had a thing about being challenged and threatened.Government dick or crime asshole, it didn’t matter, she wasn’t a fan.
“Enough.”Dusan’s voice settled his son.“Kill him.I need to have another talk with Lance and his woman.”
She barely refrained from rolling her eyes.He rarely called her by name.Not that she minded, it was just amusing in a way.Women were nothing more than pieces of pussy for him, not good enough to call by names.How the hell did he deal with his daughters?
Resting her head against Lance’s shoulder, she sipped her coffee as if she were standing along the beach during sunrise, not squirreled away in a forest somewhere over a makeshift hole in the ground—one where two more men were about to become food for the worms.There were looks that passed between Dusan and Michel but the boy never pulled his weapon.She studied each nuance of their expressions, including the disappointed and disgusted one on Dusan’s face when he eventually had one of his men pull out a silenced gun and end the life of the creep in the hole.
“You cover him up.Too much of a pussy to do what I told you to, you will bury them then come home.We have to talk.I’m leaving these two with you and taking your two.They willnothelp you with the shoveling and if that means, Michel, you are out here all fucking day, then so be it.It’s time for you to learn that there are consequences to your actions.”
Dusan snapped his fingers and Michel’s two bodyguards immediately left the son and moved to the father.Dusan’s two remained like stone statues.
Lance didn’t move his arm from around Jasmine, continuing to stroke her arm.
Dusan got about ten feet away before he barked, “Lance, come.”
Brushing his lips over her forehead, he stopped the motion on her arm and took up her other hand, the one without the coffee, twining their fingers.The men who’d come with Dusan, his personal guards, remained back there with his son.Michel’s men were trailing Dusan.
Silence lingered in the woods as they strode back to the dark SUVs waiting along a path she wouldn’t even consider calling a road.Lance held the back door of the second one for her and they climbed in while Dusan got in the front.When the second guy tried to get in on her side, Lance growled low and she patted him on the leg, letting him know not to make an issue of this.She had a feeling they would be scrambling later.Right now having a sleaze sit beside her wasn’t a huge thing on the grand scale.
“Do you like music?”Dusan asked the question as he looked over his shoulder.
“Yes.”Lance bit off his word.
She nodded when Dusan looked at her but didn’t speak, instead continuing to sip her coffee, paying attention to the bodyguard beside her and what he was doing.
His gun was at the small of his back and he wore a backup on his right ankle.Other than that, he wasn’t armed.A plus in her favor.Dusan’s typical men had shoulder holsters for quick draw even in a car.This guy would bumble first.
