My new debacle sent me to Wes, to his little dinky apartment that was a few blocks away from mine.
I cursed myself when I got there and saw he wasn’t alone. Didn’t know he would have a woman in there with him. He was the kind of guy who would answer the door to me though, no matter who he had with him, or how busy he was.
He knew it had to be some kind of emergency since we’d just seen each other a few hours ago.
We waited for the dark-haired woman who was half dressed when I got there, to get ready and leave.
She gave Wes a kiss before she went through the door and he told her he’d see her later.
“I’m sorry. I feel like a prick for interrupting you,” I apologized.
“It’s cool man. What happened now?”
I held his gaze for a few seconds, wondering how I should proceed. Pulling in a deep breath I launched into the recount of what had happened.
The minute I told him Jia followed me and heard us talking, Wes’ face turned pale the same way it had when I told him about The Ra’s involvement in the situation.
Hearing about The Ra was one thing. We knew what to expect from them. They were terrorist extremists who’d formed a criminal syndicate. We know anything they did would be next level bad.
Jia on the other hand was Jia.
The Vegas Mafia king’s daughter. I didn’t know what to expect.
What I did know was her knowledge that we were after her father was bad, even if she didn’t know the specifics.
“Jesus, Xander,” he grimaced, putting a hand to his head. “Fuck man. What the hell?”
“I know.”
“Xander, what the fuck are we going to do. We should bring her in.”
“No,” I said quickly. Too quickly.
Bringing her in was out of the question. I didn’t want to do that, and I wouldn’t be doing anything like that.
Wes gave me an exasperated stare of defeat. “Xander, this has gone too far man. This has gone way too far. I’m in this for you bro, but fuck, you aren’t thinking straight.”
“I know. I know Wes, but I can’t bring her in. I know what that makes me look like, a damn pussy … but I can’t bring her in. She said she wouldn’t say anything. She promised me.”
“And you believe her? Jesus, Xander. This is her father we’re dealing with. She heard us talking and Ethan said enough for her to report back that her father’s in some kind of trouble.”
“I know, and bro… I would have gone to Ethan first if I believed she would tell Giovanni. But I’m here telling you.” I didn’t know if that was me talking more shit to push through the shit I was already in, but it made sense to me. It made sense to me because a big part of me trusted her. It was the part of me that thought I should tell her it was real for me.
I just had to seriously hope with everything inside me that I could wholeheartedly trust her and she wouldn’t say anything.
Wes sighed and shook his head. “This is a big ask, Xander. Trusting a woman you barely know. You haven’t even known her for a month and we are dealing with some serious players here.”
“I know Wes. I know it’s shit, but I can’t bring her in. Just imagine what would happen. We take her in against her will and then what?”
I couldn’t see Giovanni taking that too lightly.
It would be the worse of two evils. Her knowing what was going on, or us taking her in and Giovanni finding out she was missing.
Plus I just couldn’t do it.
“Oh…God,” Wes sighed and rolled his eyes. “Okay, let’s run through this. What exactly does she know? You didn’t mention anything about the blueprints did you? She doesn’t know about that does she?”
“I didn’t tell her anything Wes.” I released a ragged sigh. “What I told you is what happened. She doesn’t know any of the other stuff. The more important parts of the mission if you will. I kept my silence on that and told her what she needed to know and that was to keep quiet.”
