“We were just doing surveillance,” Wes defends. “She came back from the funeral and caught us looking. No big deal.”
The image of Alina in funeral clothes confronting my men sends a dark surge through me. I’m fucking impressed. And intrigued.
“Did you touch her?” I ask, my voice dropping dangerously low.
There’s a pause that lasts a beat too long.
“Did. You. Put. Your. Fucking. Hands. On. Her?” I grind out, my patience no longer existing.
Derek exhales slowly. “Just a little push,” he admits. “Nothing serious. She fell in some snow, that’s all.”
The cigar snaps between my fingers before I realize I’ve clenched my fist. Burning tobacco falls to the ground, and I stamp it out with more force than necessary.
“You’re on thin ice,” I tell them, my voice deadly calm. “That woman is collateral for a substantial debt. She is not to be touched.”
“She’s fine,” Wes insists, though his voice has lost its earlier confidence. “Just a bit wet from the snow.”
Images flash through my mind; Alina falling, her body hitting the cold ground, snow seeping through her clothes. My jaw tightens as I picture her curves, the softness Derek so crudely described as ‘fat’.
I saw her today at the funeral. Her body is fucking spectacular. All natural curves, generous breasts, round hips, and an ass that could bring even a holy man to his knees. She has exactly thekind of body that would fill a man’s hands perfectly. The kind of softness a man could sink into after violence, after shedding blood.
Not to mention the contrasting edge. While her posture made her look like she was trying to make herself smaller, her pale blue eyes and red hair did the opposite. Those things screamed, ‘notice me’.
“Okay,” I say, forcing my voice to sound agreeable. “I have another assignment for you two. So meet me at the butcher house in an hour.”
Ian ends the call and slips his phone back into his pocket.
I glance at him and Colin. “Let’s go.”
Neither of them wastes time asking questions. They head for their car while I get into the Maserati and start the engine.
A moment later their headlights fall in behind me as we pull out onto the street.
Cleveland is quiet at this hour; the frozen pavement reflecting the dull glow of streetlights as we cut through the city toward the industrial district.
Within half an hour, the familiar brick building comes into view between an abandoned warehouse and a shuttered meat-processing plant. Driving around the back, I park and walk inside. Colin and Ian join me only seconds later, both of them already flicking the red lights mounted beside the door.
The overhead fluorescents sputter to life one by one as we move deeper inside, casting a dull glow over cracked tiles and stainless-steel tables that haven’t seen legitimate use in years. The place still carries the faint scent of bleach and old meat, the kind that clings stubbornly to the walls no matter how many times the place has been scrubbed down.
Rust stains the floor drains that run along the center of the room. A row of heavy hooks hangs from a rail bolted into theceiling, their shadows stretching long and crooked across the walls whenever the lights flicker.
Nothing about the building looks impressive, but that was never the point.
Toward the back, the walk-in freezer hums steadily to itself, the thick metal door beaded with frost along the seams. The compressor kicks on with a low mechanical growl that echoes faintly through the empty space.
I step over and pull the handle.
The seal releases with a dull crack before the heavy door swings open, a breath of colder air rolling out to meet me. The inside light flickers on automatically, revealing the narrow room beyond.
Rows of steel rails run along the ceiling, lined with thick butcher hooks that hang at different heights. Most of them are empty now, swaying slightly as the cold air shifts, but a few still hold plastic-wrapped sides of beef, their shapes pale beneath the frost.
The tiled floor slopes gently toward a grated drain, dark with age. A long stainless-steel table sits against one wall, its surface scarred with deep knife marks from another life this place once had.
The temperature bites immediately, sharp and clean in a way that burns the lungs if you breathe too deeply. Fucking perfect. Before leaving, I check that the temperature is still at 10 degrees Fahrenheit, which it is.
“Which one of you corrected the temperature?” I ask as I walk back out.
The door swings shut behind me. The heavy latch catches with a solid metallic thud as the compressor rumbles back into its steady rhythm.
