While wiggling a finger in my ear to lessen its ring, I say, “Keep our girl safe, Max.”
He barks again—less aggressively this time around.
While shaking my head in disbelief about how smart he is, I pat his head. A head scratch won’t show my appreciation of how fiercely he protects Demi, but since I’d most likely lose an arm if I got any closer, it is all I can give.
“Lock up behind me.” With a nod, Demi stands to her feet to shadow my stalk to the door. Max follows suit, except he doesn’t follow behind Demi. He walks in front of her, forever on the alert.
“Bye.” I wave like a soft cock instead of kissing Demi like I really want to. “My damn dog is a cock blocker,” I mumble to myself while galloping down the front stairs of the porch.
Once the deadbolt locks on the front door clang into place, I open the driver’s side door of the Buick, then toss my gym bag inside.
Fifty minutes later, I arrive at the address cited on the tablet Rocco handed me this morning. I take a moment to ensure I have the right place before pulling the Buick down a long weaving driveway. The locations regularly change each run, but it’s rare for the people behind the gates to alter. I guess Dimitri didn’t take kindly to discovering his profits were being shaved by ten percent each shipment. Rocco’s suspicions were right. The bricks I picked up at the start of the week were sneakily underweight.
“I’m here to pick up a delivery,” I say to the skull-tattooed man by the main gate. He has a machine gun strapped to his chest and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.
“Name.”
Fuck, no. I’m not sharing personal information with him. I’ve got enough gangbangers on my plate. I don’t need more.
“All the details are in here.” I thrust the tablet his way. It’s open on the screen that shows the shipment was ordered under the Petretti entity.
It seems as if I am a movie star with a highly recognized face when the business name on the top of the order sees the guard stumbling for the security gate panel. He pushes a button, granting me access to the fortress-like warehouse before announcing over the two-way speaker that the ‘special order’ has arrived.
The scene I drive toward replicates many I’ve witnessed the past couple of months. There are more guns than men, dark, dingy buildings, and a handful of skimpily dressed women loitering around like I may one day accept their many offers.
There’s no fucking chance of that ever happening.
I’m not naïve. I know why they bombard me with sexual offers. They’re hoping I won’t see the men counting every dollar in my gym bag because they’d hate for me to let on to Dimitri that they don’t trust him. Within a week, both the women paid to swarm me and the men bred to hate me, realized I don’t trust Dimitri any more than them. So, for the most part, they stopped hounding me. I still get the occasional offer, but my perfected leave-me- the-fuck-alone face has kept them on the lower end of the scale.
“Stay in your vehicle,” growls a tall man with thick biceps and a bald head.
I pop open my door, push past the throng of women circling me like sharks, then say, “I have orders to check the weight of the shipment before loading.”
He doesn’t look happy about my reply, but he either lets me check, or I leave without the goods. From how bulging my gym bag is, he can’t afford for me to walk away.
“I just need to see the scales. That’s it. Then I’ll be gone.”
I’d rather leave now, but beggars can’t be choosers.
The man, I’d guess to be of Arabic descent, glares at me for two seconds before he jerks his head to the left. “Reload the bricks onto the scales.” He returns his eyes to me. They’re slit and full of anarchy. Let me assure you, the disdain is mutual. The women I generally deal with during runs weren’t doped up like these ones are. They can barely walk, and I’m not going to mention the stained, dowdy nighties they’re wearing. The last time I saw something so unfashionable was when my father went shopping for my mother. They were celebrating their thirty-second wedding anniversary, yet my mother still regifted my father’s present to her mother-in-law.
“Don’t touch anything.”
I hold my empty hands out in front of myself before stuffing them into my pockets, assuring him my hands won’t leave my sides.
Confident in my unvoiced pledge, he pivots on his heels and walks away. “This way.”
I follow after him like the obedient, docile puppy I should have encouraged Demi to get. Then I could have trained him to hate every male on the planetbutme. Alas, Demi fell in love with Max as quickly as she did me. That’s got to mean something.
The further I shadow the man’s walk, the more my brows pull together. A secondary building is behind the industrial-size warehouse. It appears to be more of a residence than a business premise. Thick-backed curtains shelter the first level of the property from prying eyes, but that isn’t the only sign people live here, several shadows are projecting through the curtains—both tall and short.
I act as if I wasn’t waving at a little girl I’d guess to be around seven or eight peering at me through a crack in a curtain when the goon showing me the way stops me in my tracks by splaying his hand across my chest. “Wait here.”
I stray my eyes across the bland and desolate landscape. “Where am I meant to go?”
He doesn’t answer my question. He just grunts before he heads in the direction of the residential building. His gigantic head is barely shadowed by an awning hanging over a steel door with numerous bolts when a lady with blonde hair and designer clothes steps over the threshold. I can’t see her face, but I’m confident in saying she isn’t here to welcome me with a cup of coffee and a freshly baked cake. She’s so worked up, her neck muscles are pulled taut, making her appear scrawny and breakable.
My lips curl upward when her hands move a million miles an hour. If she isn’t giving the man an ear-bashing, I’m not addicted to the taste of Demi’s cum.
