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He was quiet for a minute, exhaling loudly. “The guy that works for the Colombian is pretty high up. He likely knows a lot of other dealers. The guy that works for Vito, I don’t know. Like I said, he’s really hotheaded, so I keep my time with that guy short, if you catch my meaning.”
“You’re good with the guy that works for the Colombian?” I asked. If he could get word to Trino’s people, that was a large portion of the dealers in the city.
“Yeah, that dude is cool. Super laid-back as long as you play by his rules. Break one of his rules, he breaks you,” he said.
I laughed. “That’s not him, that’s his boss.” I looked at Adrik, who nodded in agreement.
“I still want to know how you know that, and yet, I don’t want to know how you know that,” Chen said.
“Chen, do you think there are enough dealers that are against selling brawn that would also be willing to help us try to stop this plan?” I asked.
“Hmm. I don’t know. I can put feelers out. The guy that works for Vito is down to kill some people, but I don’t know how helpful that will actually be to your cause. I’m not vouching for his aim, in other words. The other two, I don’t know about. Hell, you seem to know more about the guy that works for the Colombian than I do,” he said, laughing.
I was still looking at Adrik, who quietly said, “Trino’s guys will help us.”
“Yeah, that guy will help. What about Sal’s guy? What were his thoughts on the plan?”
He sighed again. “I couldn’t get a good read on him. It was like he was excited about it, but I think he was more excited for getting paid to do jack shit over one weekend. I don’t know what his thoughts are on selling brawn in general.”
“Chen, I hate to ask more of you, but can you find out how many more dealers would be against this? Any of the dealers that work for the Colombians will be against it and should be helpful to you. Tell them you know Trino, if they give you shit. If it goes any farther than that, drop my name and have them check with Trino. You’ll be fine when it comes to them. If they’re working for Armando, you’ll be fine. If they’re working for any of the other bosses, do not under any circumstances say my name. Got it?”
“My girl. What the fuck are you into now,” Chen said seriously.
“Eh, we don’t have that kind of time. I’ll explain one day. Just remember, Colombians are fine, Armando is fine, anyone else means you don’t know me. Call this number if you get in trouble. Okay?”
“Got it. I’ll call you in a couple days once I have time to talk to more people.”
“Be careful, Chen.”
“Always, my girl.” He ended the call. I got up, handing Viktor his phone. Ivan had come back in during my conversation with Chen. I grabbed the bandage supplies from him and pulled him toward a vacant spot on the kitchen counter. I took his sling off and started to cut his bandage off, thinking about everything that Chen had said.
“I can tell Trino to let his dealers know that Chen is a friendly. I’m more worried about him saying your name around one of the other dealers than any of Trino’s guys,” Adrik said.
“Chen is smart. He knows I wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t important. It also took Chen a solid year before he would even tell me his name. I told him about his cheating girlfriend before he had told me his name. I think that’s why he eventually told me his name. He knows the importance of being anonymous,” I said, inspecting Ivan’s stitches.
I looked at Ivan. “Want to let them air for a bit? That bandage has to be getting old by now.”
“You are not kidding,” he said. He stretched his arm gingerly.
“We should make you an appointment for an x-ray this week to see how healed you are. The stitches look really good. Those might be able to come out at the same time,” I said, watching him to make sure he didn’t accidently use his arm too much.
“We thought you might want to go to the house this week, gazelle. You said you were missing the gardens the other day,” Misha said.
“I did say that,” I said, smiling at him. They surprised me sometimes with how much they could remember about what I said and did. “When were we planning on going to the house?”
“After tomorrow, we can go. Since I pushed everything from today to tomorrow, I have a long day. But we can go Wednesday and stay through the weekend, if you like,” Adrik said.
I walked to him, feeling guilty for keeping him trapped underneath me on the couch for the afternoon, since it meant his day would be even longer tomorrow. “Totally my fault. I wasn’t planning on trapping you on the couch,” I said, as I tucked myself into his side.
He looked down at me, holding me close. “I could think of much worse ways to spend the afternoon, solnishko.” He smiled at me, as I looked up at him.
I looked to Ivan, “We should get you x-rayed tomorrow then. Make it easy while we’re still here. I hate to take advantage of the trauma that poor hospital is likely still experiencing, but I think we can convince them nicely to work you in tomorrow.”
Adrik said, “That hospital gets very large donations from one of my companies. They’ll do whatever you need, solnishko.”
“I love it when a plan comes together,” I said, smiling up at him.
Chapter Seventy-One
