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“Ice? Neat?”
He shakes his head. “Not for me, man. For you.”
“I’m good.”
He just takes the bottle from me, grabs a glass, and pours me a hefty shot.
“Drink it. Trust me. You’re fine right now, but there’s going to be an edge coming, and this’ll dull it. Drink.”
Fuck it.
I knock back the whiskey in one heavy slug and set the glass back down as I swallow.
“Better?”
“Yeah, actually.” I flash him a grateful smile. “Thanks.”
He nods and leans his large frame back against my fridge with his arms folded over his chest.
“So, what happens now?”
“How active is your building? I mean, are residents going in and out all night?”
I shake my head. “Nope.”
“Good. I’m going to chill here with the asshole”…he nods at the rolled-up rug…“for a while. If that’s okay.”
“I get the feeling one of us is the expert here, and it’s not me.”
Kratos chuckles quietly. “I’ll wait until midnight or so, drag his sorry ass out to my car where I parked out back. After that…” He clears his throat. “Let’s be real, Alistair. Probably best if you don’t know.”
“Not your first rodeo?”
He grins and shakes his head. “Nope. Look, you’re clear of this. It’s never coming back on you, or her. One of my guys swiped the tapes from the building security office before I even got here. And this fucker’s car has been…” he shrugs. “Well, again, you don’t need to know the details. His credit card is going to show up making some purchases in New Jersey, then in Kentucky, then southern Florida, and that’s that.”
I exhale, nodding. “I owe you.”
“Yeah, probably,” he chuckles. “How about for starters you don’t mention this to my brothers, yeah?”
I grin, shaking his outstretched hand. “Deal.”
Ares, Kratos’ oldest brother and the head of the Drakos family, does a lot of their business—both criminal and legitimate—through Crown and Black. And of course, Hades, the next oldest Drakos brother, is married to Elsa Guin, one of our top attorneys and an equity partner.
Kratos is helping me today because…well, because he’s a friend. But also, the Drakos family has zero love for the Carvelis. Not when Luca, and then fucking Massimo, tried to force a marriage to Calliope, who is Ares’, Hades’, Deimos’, and Kratos’ little sister.
“You two should get out of here,” Kratos rumbles. “I’ll stick around, clean up anything that needs cleaning up…”
Blood. He means blood.
“And then I’ll take out the trash. Sounds good?”
“Sounds like I seriously owe you.”
He grins as we shake hands again. “Don’t worry about it, man. I’m always up for anything that kicks dirt in that fuck Massimo’s face.”
Eloise is quiet as she stands in the entryway to the hotel suite, drinking it in. She’s been silent the whole way here, and my mind is going to the worst possible scenarios.
She shouldn’t have seen what she did. But there was no way around it. When I barged in and saw that piece of shit putting his hands on her—especially when I realized it was Rocco, the fucker who slapped her around for Massimo—there was only one conclusion.
