I shrugged. “You should know me better by now. We’ve interacted enough for you to understand that I don’t listen to anyone I don’t trust.”
“You don’t trust me?”
I cracked open my beer. “Nope.”
“Wonderful,” he murmured.
We ate and drank in silence for a while, but I could tell he was thinking about a lot. We had to talk, of course, but I didn’t want to force the man to talk. Now that I had confirmation from those assholes themselves that Bender and his club were being watched, I was officially connected to them.
Which meant that I’d be in their crossfire whether Bender wanted me to be or not.
“You know,” he said after chugging back his beer, “choosing you over my club tonight isn’t something I take lightly.”
I twirled some noodles around on my fork. “I can only imagine.”
“Off the record?”
I scoffed. “I don’t have a job right now, so everything is off the record.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
I sighed. “Fine, off the record. What is it you want to say to me?”
He cocked his body toward mine. “Do you really mean that?”
I took a bite of my food and looked over at him. I chewed while studying him, and I saw the desperation behind his eyes. The fear that swelled over his face. And as I nodded my head, I swallowed down the alfredo before I set it off to the side.
“Yes,” I said softly as I reached for his hand. “I mean it. What’s on your mind?”
He took my hand and stroked his thumb against my skin. “The other night, there was a murder at Heist. One of our high-end clients was poisoned, and we have proof that the Devil’s Rage poisoned them.”
I nodded softly but I didn’t say anything. I simply let him speak.
“They’ve been after us for a while. They hate the fact that the community sees us in a better light than them. They absolutely loathe the fact that our clubs do better than their strip joints. That’s why Bullet wanted our club so badly during that trade-off. He thinks that by simply owning the club, he can do better than us, when what he doesn’t realize is that it’s his entire club polluting their strip clubs with coke and meth that give them such a bad rap.”
He went on and on about the turf wars they’d had before all of this. How things had been silent for almost three years, and now someone turns up dead. I listened as intently as I could while the man spilled his fucking guts, and the tighter he gripped my hand, the closer I scooted toward him.
It was clear that he felt alone in all of it, even though he had his club backing him up. And I tried my best to be sympathetic.
“Bender?” I asked after he went silent.
He closed his eyes. “You’re scared, aren’t you? Of me. Now.”
I gripped his chin and pulled his closed eyes toward mine. “Open them up, please.”
He did as I asked. “Yeah?”
I smiled softly. “Do I look scared?”
“You looked scared when you were sitting next to him.”
I shrugged. “Anyone would’ve been scared, but that doesn’t mean that fear has to control me. That is has to control my life. Do I look scared now?”
He studied me for a while. “No.”
“That’s because I’m not. Not with you around, anyway.”
His brow ticked with confusion. “But you just said—”
