Page 13 of One for the Money

On occasion, Bear had been known to break a hand or two during a handshake if he thought the person the hand was attached to was making a move on me. Thankfully, Bear understood what was at stake and only made the man wince a little.

“Wow, strong grip,” Deker muttered, trying to shake it out behind the counter. “Were you looking for Trent?”

“Oh, we just have a mutual friend, and I promised I’d say hi,” I explained.

“Sure thing. He’s just finishing cooking up an order if you don’t mind waiting,” Deker said, peering past us to one of the other tables. “I’ll let him know you’re looking for him so he steps out. In the meantime, let me know if you need anything else.” With that reassurance, Deker left to tend to the other guests.

Two beers later, we finally got the chance to meet Trent. It had taken ordering food to get the man out of the kitchen. I had no idea how old Aurora was, but I had not been expecting a buff man in his fifties to come strolling out of the back with our food. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut short, his face was clean-shaven, and his intelligent-looking dark green eyes were framed by dark wooden, square glasses.

Trent set the plates before us with a little more force than was necessary. “Whatever you two want, I’m not selling. Whoever told you to come here was wasting your time.”

“Huh, seems odd Norbert lied to us about you being his cousin,” I mused aloud. “At least we get some good food out of the deal.” Picking up a fork, I went in for the juicy-looking meatball, but the plate was yanked away.

“What did you just say?” Trent demanded in a low voice.

“About Norbert or the good food?” I questioned, testing the waters on just how prickly this man was going to be.

Grumpy assholes I could manage just fine. Hell, I had zero problems facing down unhinged, trigger-happy assholes. What I couldn’t handle without losing my shit was men who hated women. It just made me want to give them a legitimate reason to hate us, and me beating his male chauvinist face in would be a solid reason to hate women.

“You got sent here by Norbert?” Trent asked, brows furrowed. “What kind of trouble did he land himself in to offer up that information?”

Stabbing the meatball with my fork, I took a bite out of the massive sauce-covered perfection and moaned. “Let’s say he bit off more than he could chew and trusted the wrong people. Poor guy was set up to make a bad deal with me, and to save his life, he used your name as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Although I should warn you to prepare for some bad news. He might have left our meeting alive, but the crew he was trying to get in good with isn’t known for accepting failure.”

Letting that information linger between us, I took another bite of the meatball. It was so fucking good my eyes rolled into the back of my head. “What the fuck did you make this out of? Holy shit, it might be better than sex.”

Trent raised a brow at my comparison. “Woman, you need to pick better men if that’s how you feel.”

“Trust me, that’s not my problem. I’ve had some epic sex. I’m talking blacked out from coming so hard, and I might turn that down for one of these damn things,” I argued.

The man gave a grunt of approval, crossing his arms, making the T-shirt he was wearing cry at the pressure it was being put under. “So why are you here? There’s no way Norbert would send you my way without believing it would save his ass.”

Pouting, I set what was left of my meatball down and leveled my gaze with Trent’s. “We are looking for someone, and it might have been suggested you’re the one to go to if you need to disappear.”

“I might be, but I’m also paid to forget who they were before I put that new name on their paperwork. What makes you think I’ll tell you?” Trent countered.

We stared at each other for a moment, and I grabbed my beer, chugging the last few gulps. Wiping my mouth on my arm, I slammed the glass to the bar then shoved it at him, forcing him to catch it. “Because they own your fucking bar. If you tell me where to find the last remaining heirs, you might just be able to buy it back without it costing you your soul.”

Trent’s brows rose just the barest fraction in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting me to know that tidbit of information. “Does that mean you’re gonna take care of that psycho bitch calling the shots as well?”

“Serena?” I questioned, and he nodded. “As a matter of fact, she is on my to-die list.”

It took everything in me not to look over at Bear, ruining our ruse that he was deaf. Had he said Serena was running the show now? I thought for sure whatever was left of the Accardi Family would look for the boys. This was the whole reason they were even born, but if Serena decided to take over, that changed everything.

“Then you better hurry to hunt down those two because I gave her that information a month ago,” Trent shared. “The bitch had the balls to walk in here, shove the name on the deed in my face, and tell me she’d burn it all down if I didn’t talk. Bootleggers is all I have… never married, never had kids. This place is my life, and like fuck I was gonna let her take it from me.”

“Are you saying she didn’t know where they were?” I pressed, ignoring his sob story that I didn’t give a shit about.

Trent held up a hand and walked back into the kitchen.

I whipped around to face Bear. “What the fuck is going on? How could she not know where they are? Scratch that. How the hell did we not realize Serena was taking over all Gian’s assets?”

“It would be easy to hide if she used all the corporations to hide her movements. You saw how long it took me to uncover who owned this place. Think how much more twisted and convoluted they would make things they really wanted to hide,” Bear countered.

Our conversation was put on hold as Trent walked back out and offered me a piece of paper. There was an address written on it. “That’s all I know. Five years back, one of the twins came in to get new identities. Didn’t think anything of it since they did that from time to time.” He paused, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “I didn’t say this to that bitch, but I knew something was up when he changed his mind and only asked for one set to be made. As far as I know, the twins stuck together, but if you ask me, this twin was breaking out on his own.”

“Twins…” I echoed, mind fixated on that one word. “Identical?”

“Nah, fraternal,” Trent said. “There’s no denying their family, but they definitely aren’t identical.”