Tyler snorted.
Shit. Kai’s favors usually involved me flirting with some guy and getting info out of him. If I ever had to go back to his place, I was fake-drunk enough to pass out before he took off his pants and he wouldn’t get suspicious. Once he crashed, I could search his place and be gone before he woke. The only one I had considered sleeping with was Lionel and that was purely because I had been tired of saving it for Deck.
There was a guy I’d taken to my friend, Kat’s, art gallery showing who I’d actually been interested in … well, interested in having sex with. Hottie turned into a meatloaf with lots of money and no charm past the public eye.
I heard Deck come up behind me then he rested his hands on my shoulders. Vic arrived and nodded to me and there wasn’t the usual glare of what I took as hatred. Now, he actually smiled at me and his sexy, milk-chocolate skin against his white teeth made him look super-hot. Then he looked at Kai and the smile dropped, all business again. Deck obviously told his boys about my extracurricular activities.
“I was just telling Chaos about a … favor I require.”
Shit. Deck’s hands tightened on my shoulders and he moved in closer so his body was leaning into the chair.
“Chaos?” Vic said.
“Nickname,” I clarified.
Vic grunted.
Kai looked rather relaxed, considering he was outnumbered and didn’t even carry a gun.
“Lionel—”
“She isn’t going near that guy again,” Deck shouted. He actually shouted. Deck rarely shouted.
Vic leaned up against the glass window and crossed his ankles. Tyler looked from Kai to Deck and then to Deck’s grip on the gun.
I raised my hand like in school to which Kai laughed. Deck slipped his hand in mine and lowered my arm. “Kai, bad timing,” I said. “You should’ve knocked or called, not showed up here.” I tilted my head and looked up at Deck. “And Lionel’s harmless.”
“No.” Deck was unwavering and I would’ve stomped my foot if I was standing, but since I wasn’t it would’ve looked silly.
“Sugar, it’s not happening.” Tyler winked at me and I sneered. “Give it up.”
Kai sighed while tapping his fingers on the table. “You fucked that scenario up.” His words were to Deck and he was probably right. Lionel nearly pissed his pants when Deck broke into his place. “Have you told her what you’ve been doing overseas for the last few months?”
It was Vic who lost it and came at Kai, but Deck stopped him, blocking him with his hand on his chest. “Not now.”
“What’s overseas?” The men were quiet and Tyler wouldn’t even look at me.
“Get her out of here,” Deck ordered Vic.
“What?” I shouted as Vic hooked my arm. “What the hell? What is it? Kai? Deck?” Vic effortlessly swung me off my feet and carried me inside. I yelled the entire way into the bedroom.
I WAITED UNTIL Georgie was out of earshot before I spoke. “I want her out.”
“You said that already.”
I had on the phone last night after I gave him a detailed report on how I was going to torture him.
Kai wasn’t easily shaken, if at all. I suspected he had no family, nothing to give him a weakness and by the look of the scars under his shirt, the man knew pain and was numb to it. “Who do you work for, Kai?”
There it was. The slight shift in weight, not actually moving, but like an inner jerk that only someone as advanced as my men and me could read. It was all I needed. Kai worked for someone and that meant they were way more powerful than him.
“And I think it’s not up to her or you … is it? It’s up to whoever you work for.” Kai met my eyes and didn’t say anything. That cocky smirk was gone, and all I saw were blank, numb, dead eyes. It was the look we hated to see when trying to extract info from a person because you knew no matter what you did, you’d never get him to talk.
“Why did you really come here, Kai?” I kept my voice steady and calm, watching every shift in Kai’s movements, which were barely any.
“Lionel’s dead.”
“Fuck.” I knew what that meant and so did Tyler. We looked at one another.
“Place was ransacked. Police say it’s a burglary gone wrong.”
I didn’t believe in coincidences. Not a chance in hell it was a burglary gone wrong. More like a murder gone right.
I felt the tension rippling in my muscles and my heart pumping so hard it felt like there was a riot inside me. Lionel was dead. Georgie had been at Lionel’s. They’d been seen at Avalanche together according to Matt.
“You fuckin’ put Georgie right in the middle of this?” I had my gun at his temple in half a second and Kai never moved. Even the rhythmic turning of the empty mug remained steady. I cocked the hammer and still Kai did nothing. I hated men like this. He had no qualms if I pulled the trigger. I even wondered if he wanted me to. Men like him had nothing to live for and everything to die for.