I raise the cuff of my suit to my mouth. “He’s gone out the back entrance.”
“Went,” Matvei corrects. “He ain’t going anywhere right now, are you?”
“Where?”
A crackle sounds over the security device in my ear before Matvei’s confirmation. “West parking lot. Got him pinned to a piece of shit Honda.”
His reply fetters my brows. Every man in this room tonight has bank balances in the millions, so how the fuck did a bottom dweller gain an invitation?
Not having the time or the motivation to work through my confusion, I bolt through the double exit doors I thought Zariah fled through minutes ago. During my sprint to the parking lot, I request that Lenin take Zariah to my office. She lied, and she’ll pay the penalty for her error before we leave here tonight.
I recognize the green eyes, thick beard, and scraggly blond hair of the man Matvei has detained against a rusted yellow Honda Civic, but none of that matters.
I’m not thinking. I’m fighting. For revenge. For a sense of normality.For her.
When my fists land in Bear’s spleen, I hear a crack, closely followed by a mangled groan. I just broke his rib with one hit.
“Let him go.”
When Matvei steps back, so do I. I’m not going far; just to the hood of Bear’s car so I can remove my jacket and roll up the sleeves of my dress shirt. I’m primed with adrenaline and ready to make any fucker pay for my annoyance—Zariah’s uncle included.
“Why are you here? You left this game years ago, so why come back now?”
When Bear shrugs like his life isn’t hanging in the balance, my right fist gets friendly with his left rib. I hit him without remorse, my jab delivered with a roar. He stumbles back, his cough gargling droplets of blood onto my dress shirt.
He falls back into his car when my left-swung uppercut connects with his beard-covered jaw. While holding his dangling chin with his hand, he lifts his bloodshot eyes to mine. He’s finally realized I’m not leaving without answers. He might have played me for a fool when I was younger, but I’m not the boy I once was.
“I came for Zariah. I wanted to make sure she was okay. Her father has gone off the grid. That never bodes well.”
His reply pisses me off more than it eases my agitation. One, Zariah doesn’t need additional protection. If she did, it wouldn’t be from a maggot like him. I’ve got all her bases covered. Two, no one but me knew Zariah was coming here tonight, so not only is he lying, he’s lying to me—a man who’ll kill you for less.
When my fist makes his cheekbone sit higher than normal, Bear waves his hands in the air, begging me to stop. I’m just getting started, yet he’s already waving the white flag. A few years ago, I would have taken it easier on him. That’s not happening tonight. He’s the cause of the panic thickening my veins, so he’s going to eradicate it. He may have been looking out for his niece, but the terror I felt when I wondered if one of my enemies had taken her was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. I honestly felt like I was going to puke with how hard my stomach knotted.
“This is the last time I’m going to ask, Nesti. Why are youreallyhere? Did you grow tired of priming teens with drugs, so you thought you’d come play with the big boys? Or are you trying to wiggle your way back into your niece’s life before her surname becomes Yury?”
When my questions are answered with silence, I convince him to talk with two firm jabs. One to his jugular, another to his cheek.
Bloody spit dribbles onto his chin when he murmurs, “I miss the good old days. Thought I might get back in the game.”
I let him take a swing at me before knocking him back three places with a left, right, left combination. “Good old days? There was nothing good about them.”
I thought the sun shone out of Bear’s ass when I was a kid. He was the cool “uncle” every teen wanted. He bought us alcohol without asking any questions and had an endless list of women willing to satisfy his “friends’” every whim. I thought he was a fucking god—until he made me a drug addict.
He’s the scum dealer men in my industry avoid like the plague. He didn’t care what shit he was shifting. If it could make him rich, he sold it. He cut his coke with a range of chemicals, diluting it to the point it was dangerous. I swear some of the shit he was selling was filled with more laundry detergent than coke.
That’s why he got kicked out of the game. He either left of his own accord, or Zariah’s father would permanently oust him—oust meaning killed. His removal from his throne was unheard of back when it happened. The only way a member of the cartel left their throne was via death, but it wasn’t just his buyers’ heads Bear’s drugs fucked with. He’s just as far fucking gone as them. He has more than a few screws loose.
My confession causes my next hit to lose some steam. It’s not nearly as much fun beating a man who can’t fight back. Doesn’t mean I won’t use him to dispel my anger, though. He lose a few teeth, and will most likely end up knocked out, but it’s a better solution than the one I hatched on my way out here.
His punishment will ensure everyone knows who his niece now belongs to—then Zariah’s will seal it.
Chapter 21
Zariah
Iblink back tears when Asher enters the office Lenin has held me captive in the past thirty minutes. His white dress shirt is dotted with blood, and his knuckles are bruised and bloody—although I doubt any of the blood is his. He has an angry, unreadable scowl on his face, and his chest is rising and falling in the same rhythm it did when his head was burrowed between my legs. I want to ask him what happened, but even if I could talk through the lump in my throat, he doesn’t need to speak for me to know his confession. I can see the truth in his eyes, feel the hurt radiating out of him.
My uncle just had a meeting with his adjudicator.
