“Get up,” I interrupted. She wasn’t my Old Lady and she wasn’t ready to take on the role of First Lady.
Katarina smiled as he stood. She looked at his name patch then said, “Apology accepted, Squatch. But I’d love to see how you’d fare against me.”
Squatch’s brows shot up and I shook my head and said, “This is my wife. None of you are to touch her, sparring or otherwise.”
“What if I wanted to touch her?” Daisy asked as she draped her arm over her shoulder. “What then?” Falcon gave Daisy a stern look but she rolled her eyes. “You hungry? We got food over here.”
Rod, the member that she laid out, approached slowly. “Sorry to you both.”
I waved him off then turned to her. “Grab a bite. I need to see Keys.”
“Aren’t you going to have something?” Katarina asked.
“Later.”
Her eyes dulled a little but she gave a curt nod and Daisy pulled her over to the ladies table.
Heading outside, I lit a cigarette and took a second to cool off. Fighting with her over my suspicions wouldn’t reveal anything. If she was a plant, she had a lot longer to prepare for this than I did.
She seemed genuine, and I wanted to believe I could read her, but I found it hard to trust anyone or anything these days, even folks I knew, much less a stranger.
After walking to the SUV, I popped the back open and held my smoke between my lips. Her bags were designer ones,and I opened each one and shoved things around. Nothing of interest, just lady shit and clothes. Although, I wondered what her little panties looked like on her.
Shaking off my wandering thoughts of her in her underwear, I closed those bags and checked the backseat. She hadn’t been carrying a purse inside. There was another designer bag, much smaller, sitting on the floorboard in the back.Bingo.
Leaning in, I swiped it and unzipped it. Pulling out her phone I tapped the screen and nothing. No wonder she left it outside. Although the women here didn’t tend to cradle their phone at all times. Pocketing that, I shoved a few things around, finding nothing else besides some lip gloss, lip balm, lip oil… fuck. I primped but how much shit do you need for your lips?
There was a small vial of liquid unmarked, so I pulled it out. Carefully pulling the top off, I held it away from my face and slowly brought it closer. The floral scent that clung to her wafted to my nostrils and I couldn’t help but grin. Plugging the vial, I put it back. Then, I took one last look and found nothing interesting, so I zipped it and headed toward the back door.
A few guys were hanging outside and offered their congrats, but I was in a hurry. I needed to get to Keys without her noticing anything. The ladies would keep her busy and she’d eat, so I had a little bit of time to get this done.
After flicking my cigarette to the dirt, I walked into the clubhouse through the back door and made a beeline for Keys’ lair. Shoving the door open, I hustled over to him, his brows shooting up high.
“I need you to pull everything off this phone for me to review, including anything deleted in the last two weeks. No,thirty days,” I instructed.
“Salutations and congratulations, Prez,” Keys said as he turned to take the phone from my hand. “She’s prettier in person.”
“What?” barked.
He held his hands up. “Whoa, just making a statement. Don’t worry, I don’t have a death wish. Give me a few minutes.”
“No, I need it done now.”
He stared up at me, his face neutral as his blond waves nearly fell in his eyes. “I meant a literal few minutes, Prez, but I gotta get it powered on first.”
He rolled his chair across the room, and pulled a drawer open. Once he found the cord he needed, he rolled back and plugged one side to the phone, the other into a box on the desk. I didn’t know what any of this shit was, only that he did.
“I also need you to find out whatever you can on the Martinellis. I think they’re in the tri-state area up there, but not sure if they’re in Jersey.” Petrov ran most of New Jersey, so the other family who wanted to merge wouldn’t already be there but would need to be close. And that was not one of the families looking to do business with us.
“Do you also need that in the next few minutes?” Keys asked, typing away.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I looked down and waited for him to turn.
He never did, but said, “Hey man, just asking.”
Still standing behind him, I asked, “Any updates on theHeathens?” We kept stamping them out as we found them. Still, we knew to expect them to keep popping up so we had eyes and ears out all over.
“Nope. Not a peep. Okay,” Keys said as he pulled the phone from the cord. “I pulled it all and should have it all organized for you tomorrow. I’ll start looking at the Martinellis and will update you with what I can tomorrow as well.”
