“A friend of my dad’s.” Sejal squared her shoulders. “You really meant what you said?”
“About sticking around until Alexei’s neutralized? Yes.”
Inexplicable, this man. Inexplicable that she believed him.
It’s temporary. You heard him. Until Alexei’s neutralized.
Hell, she was used to temporary. “Then let’s go to a strip club.”
Chapter Fifteen
Krish peered through the windshield. “I assumedstrip clubwas code for something else.”
“Indeed it is not.” Sejal opened her door, grateful to have reached their destination. One step closer to getting Alexei off their backs. Maybe.
She closed her door and craned her neck to look up at the building. She’d never actually been to the strip club her honorary uncle owned. At least one point in favor of her dad’s parenting skills.
It was a big building, like everything else in Vegas, and the neon lights above it flashed, even in the morning. The parking lot, though, was pretty empty.
Krish fell into step beside her as she marched up to the door, his long legs easily keeping pace with her. “One of your dad’s accomplices is a stripper? Pretty inclusive of the place, I guess, to have an older cast.”
She shot him a glance, trying to suppress her amusement over Krish’s barely concealed scandalized tone. “He’s not a stripper. He owns the place.”
“Oh. That makes more sense.”
“I guess your mom’s friends growing up didn’t own strip clubs.”
“My mom didn’t have any friends when I was growing up,” he said matter-of-factly. “She didn’t trust anyone to be around me or my brother. She opened up a bit more when Patrick came into the picture, but she still doesn’t have many close friends. There’s people like Suzy, who she charms, but that’s more of a security measure than actual friendship.”
Sejal’s footsteps slowed. “You didn’t have any honorary aunts or uncles growing up?”
“Nope.”
Sejal thought back to when they’d first met. “You said that there was always an auntie.”
“What?”
“In the car, that first night. I said I had an aunt I was close to, and you said, ‘There’s always an auntie.’ And I thought at the time that you must come from one of those Desi families that I couldn’t relate to, with tons of extended relatives and aunts and uncles, and big dinners.”
“I know people like that, and I could never relate to them, either.”
It was funny, the things they had in common, given the vastly different worlds they came from.
They neared the front door of the building. A meaty bouncer leaned against the wood, but he snapped to attention. “Hello, folks. Can I see your—”
Sejal cut him off. They didn’t have time for pleasantries. “I need to see Sunil. Right now.”
The bouncer’s smile didn’t slip. “Sorry, miss. Nobody by that name is here.”
Sejal looked up at the camera right above the door. “Sunil! It’s Sejal. Vassar’s oldest. I need to talk to you, damn it.”
“Miss—” The bouncer paused and pressed his finger against his earpiece. “Okay. Okay. Can you give me your phone number?”
It took Sejal a second to realize the man had directed the question to them, but Krish had already stepped forward, their new untraceable phone in hand. “Yeah.” He checked the screen and rattled off the number. The bouncer didn’t repeat it, because obviously someone was listening. The guy nodded again and focused on her. “Someone might give you a ring shortly.”
“Might? Or will?” Sejal asked.
“Might.” He pressed his finger against his earpiece again. “You’re welcome to wait inside. We’ll comp you a drink if no one gets back to you.”
