Of course, that also meant he was going to see the cop in the unmarked. Or the cop was going to see him.
Right. Time to make a move.
Assuming the slayers stayed gone, Xhex could deal with the CPD.
She was not going to lose this opportunity. No fucking way.
Turning her phone off, she got ready to go to work.
FORTY-SEVEN
Goddamn it, we have to go,” Rehv said from behind his desk. As he ended yet another call to Xhex’s cell, he tossed his new phone like it was nothing but a piece of junk, something which was clearly getting to be a bad habit. “I don’t know where the hell she is, but we have to go.”
“She’ll come back.” Trez pulled on a black leather trench coat and headed for the door. “And better to have her out than in, given her mood. I’ll get with the shift supervisor and tell him to run any shit through me, then I’ll go get the B.”
As he left, iAm double-checked the two H amp;Ks under his arms with lethal efficiency, his black eyes calm, his hands steady. Satisfied, the male picked up a steel gray leather trench and put it on.
The fact that the brothers’ coats were similar made sense. iAm and Trez liked the same things. Always. Though they weren’t twins by virtue of birth, they dressed similarly and were always armed with identical weapons and consistently shared the same thoughts, values, and principles.
There was one way they were different, however. While iAm stood by the door, he was silent and still as a Doberman on duty. But his lack of chat didn’t mean he wasn’t as deadly as his brother, because the guy’s eyes spoke volumes even as his mouth was screwed down tight: iAm never missed a thing.
Including, evidently, the antibiotics that Rehv took out of his pocket and swallowed. As well as the fact that a sterilized needle made an appearance next and was put to use.
“Good,” the male said, as Rehv rolled his sleeve back down and put on his suit coat.
“Good what.” iAm just stared across the office, all don’t-be-an-ass-you-know-exactly-what-I’m-talking-about.
He did that a lot. In one glance he spoke volumes.
“Whatever,” Rehv muttered. “Don’t get a hard-on like I’ve turned over a new leaf.”
He might be dealing with the infection in his arm, but there was still shit hanging like rotten fringe off all the sides of his life.
“You sure about that?”
Rehv rolled his eyes and got to his feet, slipping a bag of M amp;M’s into the pocket of his sable. “Trust me.”
iAm was all about the oh-really as his eyes dipped to the coat. “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.”
“Oh, shut it. Look, the pills have to be taken with food. You got a ham ’n’ cheese on rye on you? I don’t.”
“I’da made you some linguine with Sal sauce and brought it over for you. Give me more notice next time.”
Rehv headed out of the office. “You mind not being thoughtful. Makes me feel like shit.”
“Your prob, not mine.”
iAm spoke into his watch as they left the office, and Rehv didn’t waste any time between the club’s side door and the car. When he was in the B, iAm disappeared, traveling as a rolling shadow over the ground, disturbing the pages of a magazine, rattling a tin can that had been abandoned, ruffling loose snow.
He would get to the meeting location first and open the place while Trez drove over.
Rehv had set the meeting where it was for two reasons. One, he was the leahdyre, so the council had to go where he said and he knew they would squirm from viewing the location as beneath them. Always a pleasure. And two, it was an investment property he’d acquired, so it was on his turf.
Always a necessity.
Salvatore’s Restaurant, home of the famous Sal sauce, was an Italian institution in Caldie, having been in business for over fifty years. When the original owner’s grandson, Sal III, as he had been known, had developed a horrendous gambling habit and run up $120,000 in debt through Rehv’s bookies, it had been a case of tit for tat: Grandson deeded the establishment over to Rehv, and Rehv didn’t crack the third generation’s compass.
Which, in laymen’s terms, meant that the guy didn’t have all his elbows and his knees shattered until they required joint replacements.
Oh, and the secret recipe for Sal’s sauce had come with the restaurant-a requirement added by iAm: During the negotiations that had lasted all of a minute and a half, the Shadow had spoken up and said no sauce, no deal. And he’d demanded a taste test to make sure the intel was right.
Since that happy transaction, the Moor had been running the place, and what do you know, it was turning a profit. Then again, that was what happened when you didn’t cleave off every spare dime and funnel it into piss-poor football picks. Traffic in the restaurant was up, food quality was back where it had been, and the place was getting a serious-ass face-lift in the form of new tables, chairs, linens, rugs, chandeliers.