He had to bring in some paper. Stat.
He’d had a fucking plan for that, too, sending the Society’s last nine thousand, three hundred dollars off with three of his boys at midnight last night. All those bastards had had to do was make the buy, get the dope, and bring it back here, where he’d cut the shit, then parcel it out to the new inductees for sale on the street.
Trouble was, he was still waiting for the fucking delivery.
And he was getting pretty goddamn impatient waiting to find out where either the drugs or his money had gone.
It was possible the cocksuckers had run off with one or the other, but if that was the case, he was going to hunt them down like dogs and show all of the others what happened when you—
As his phone rang, he picked the thing up, saw who it was, and hit send.
“It’s about fucking time. Where the fuck are you and where is my shit.”
There was a pause. And then the voice that came over the connection was not anything like that of the pimple-faced pusher he’d given the cell, the cash, and the last working gun the Society had to.
“I have something you want.”
Mr. C frowned. Very deep voice. Laced with an edge he recognized from the streets, and an accent he couldn’t place.
“It’s not the piece-of-shit phone you’re calling me on,” Mr. C drawled. “I got plenty of those.”
After all, when you didn’t have anything in your hand, your holster or your wallet, bluffing was your only option.
“Well, good for you. Have you plenty of what you sent to me, too? Money? Manpower?”
“Who the fuck is this?”
“I’m your enemy.”
“If you took my fucking cash, you bet your ass you are.”
“Actually, ’tis a simplistic answer to what is a rather complex problem.”
Mr. C burst to his feet, knocking over the bucket. “Where’s my fucking money, and what did you do with my men?”
“I’m afraid they can’t come to the phone anymore. That’s why I’m calling.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Mr. C bit out.
“On the contrary, you are the one at that particular disadvantage—as well as so many others.” When Mr. C was about to snap, the guy cut him off. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to call you at nightfall with a location. You, and you alone, are going to meet me there. If anyone comes with you, I will know, and you will never hear from me again.”
Mr. C was used to feeling disdain for others—came with the job when all you dealt with were two-bit street thugs and strapped drug addicts. But this guy on the other end of the connection? Self-controlled. Calm.
A professional.
Mr. C dialed back his temper. “I don’t need to play games—”
“Yes, you do. Because if you want drugs to sell, you need to come to me.”
Mr. C got quiet. This was either a lunatic with delusions of grandeur, or…somebody with true power. Like, maybe the one who’d been killing off all the middlemen in the Caldwell drug trade over the last year.
“Where and when?” he said gruffly.
There was a dark laugh. “Answer your phone at nightfall, and you’ll find out.”
FORTY-THREE
Layla couldn’t speak as Payne’s words sank in.
“No,” she said to the other female. “No, Havers told me…there is nothing that can be done.”
“Medically, that may well be true. I may have another way, however. I don’t know whether it will work, but if you’ll allow me, I’d like to do what I can.”
For a moment, Layla could only breathe.
“I don’t…” She felt the flat plane of her stomach. “What will you do to me?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest.” Payne shrugged. “In fact, it hadn’t even dawned on me that it might help your situation. But I have been known to heal that which needs healing. Again, I’m not sure whether it applies here. We could try, though—and it won’t hurt you. That I can promise.”
Layla searched the fighter’s face. “Why…would you do this for me?”
Payne frowned and focused elsewhere. “You do not need to know the whys.”
“Yes, I do.”
That profile grew positively cold. “You and I are sisters in my mother’s tyranny—casualties of her grand plan for the way things must be. We were both jailed by her in different ways, you as a Chosen, myself as her blooded daughter. There is nothing I will not do to aid you.”
Layla lay back. She had never before considered herself a casualty of the mother of the race. Except…as she considered her desperation for a family, her sense of rootlessness, her very lack of identity outside of her service as a Chosen…she had to wonder. Free will had led her here to this horrid spot, but at least she had picked the route and the means. As a member of the Scribe Virgin’s special class of females, she had had no such choice, about anything in her life.