To her credit, she doesn’t out my fellow brothers as being unable to do the same. “If the blonde continues to get your motor revving like that, we might get a second chance. Or maybe this will be the last time.”
I snort and reach for my jeans. “Yeah, right.”
I don’t have to look at her to know she’s smirking. No, there will be nothing like that between Phoebe and me. Or, if there is, it’ll be short lived. Queenie will be the one I come to. Always.
“Is Trevor okay?” I ask once we’re clothed.
She nods. “Yeah, but the medication he’s on takes away his libido. They’re trying to find the right combination, but he can’t get it up to save his life. No matter what I do. And I’ve tried everything.”
“I’m sorry, Queenie.”
“It’s part of being a partner, right?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say.
Smirking, she tilts her head, finally making eye contact. “Yeah, you do.”
Yeah, I do. It’s just been a long fucking time since I was with someone I wanted to consider as my partner.
“See you around.”
She gives me a knowing look, but she’s wrong. No matter how badly I want to fuck Phoebe, I can’t give her what she needs. And she’ll only be willing to give me what I do for so long.
It’s just best to keep the arrangement as is. And when the threat against her is gone, I never have to see her again.
Chapter Six
Pacino
“This can’t be everything.”
I glance up at Zep from across the table and shake my head. There is nothing that will ever be enough for him to accept this. “It is, man.”
“No, there has to be more.”
“That’s everything on the GPD server.”
Flipping through the pages, he doesn’t do much to hide his displeasure. I know he was hoping for a smoking gun. Something that says the Venom killed Johnny, and the GPD helped cover it up. But there’s nothing.
Honestly, I don’t believe it was just a simple hit-and-run accident, either, but I can’t prove it. And it’s going to cost Zep his sanity if he keeps trying to find something that isn’t there.
“They didn’t document everything. We know they’re on the Venom’s payroll. It’s the only reason they’re not all serving time in prison for dealing Venom Dust.”
It’s true. The fucking club makes Venom Dust—a mix of meth and fentanyl—in the desert. In what they call “snake pits,” and they distribute through snake bite kits and tattoo ink bottles. They really like to stick with the snake venom symbolism. And the goal is to get someone to ride the snake bite, and they’ve got a client for life. Their life. Because it inevitably kills them.
I shrug and sigh. “Maybe.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
His anger turns to me quickly, and I have to talk myself down. Zep’s big, and he’s tough, but I’m bigger and tougher. If he picks a fight, he won’t win. I don’t care how much passion he has behind the fist, the only way he could beat me would be to blow my brains out.
And he’d never get his gun out fast enough to pull the trigger.
“You don’t think they killed Johnny, do you?” Zep spits at me.
“I don’t know,” I say.
