We both know that’s far from the truth.
My curiosity piques when the unnamed man returns to my side. He’s sweating like he personally sprinted from room to room to room to switch off the lights in the residence the blonde re-entered after scorning him. It’s now shadowed in the darkness of this murky underworld.
Their endeavor to keep my focus away from the residence has me paying it more attention than the massive set of scales the head honcho recommences guiding me toward. The varying heights of the shadows seen before they switched off the lights make sense when my inconspicuous stalk has me stumbling onto hospital supplies of infant diapers, bottles, and formula stacked under a carport at the side of the building. There are more supplies than a standard family would need. Even someone with a dozen kids would have an issue using that number of diapers.
I snap my eyes to the right when the brute guiding our walk asks, “Satisfied?” He’s standing in front of a set of brash scales that expose I’m moving more than my standard $100K of coke today.
Hoping to pull the wool over his eyes, I lower mine to the tablet Rocco supplies each run before twisting my lips. “Seems about right.”
The man eyes me with suspicion for three heart-thrashing seconds before he clicks his fingers together two times. I return his stare when his minions jump to his unvoiced command. He has no resemblance to any Petretti I know, but the fact he orders his men around the same way catapults my suspicions to a record-breaking high.
“Do all the women around here dress like that?” I nudge my head to the women huddled at the side of the compound, unsure if they are coming or going.
The huge gent waits a beat before jerking up his chin. “It’s how the boss likes them.”
“Dirty?” I fire back before I can stop myself.
He gives me a look, one that says he doesn’t appreciate my tone before he spits out, “Pure.” He steps up to me, chest to chest. “None of those girls have been touched, so you should consider yourself lucky you were gifted one.”
I hate admitting this, but his reference about the women being ‘girls’ is an accurate assumption of their age. I doubt a single one is of legal age.
It takes me working my next sentence through my head three times before my mouth finally relinquishes it. “Where would I take them if I wanted to… you know…” I can’t say it. Pretending I want to cheat on Demi already has my skin crawling, so I can’t see me expressing my lie without deceit highlighting my tone. My interrogation would be busted in an instant. “Is that what the residence is for? For the perks?”
Dark, oily brows pull together before the man shakes his head. “You’ll have to take her in your car.” He steps two paces away from me before asking, “Which one do you want? She won’t let you have more than one.”
“She?Your boss is a woman?” Now I know without a doubt that Col has nothing to do with this operation. He doesn’t value the women who share his blood, so there’s no way he’d let a woman head one of his operatives.
Before the man can answer me, he finds an excuse to end my interrogation. One of the men tossing bags of coke down the line misses his catch. Its fumble to the ground doesn’t damage the goods, but the head goon acts as if he snorted the entire brick.
“You fuckin’ idiot.”
When he backhands the smaller, more subdued man, the mule stumbles backward. “Sorry, Maestro. I won’t do it again.”
His endeavor to get away from Maestro kicks up enough dust, a fleck of white pops up next to his feet. It could be nothing, but my intuition acts as if the paper-like material has next week’s lotto numbers scribbled on it.
“It’s fine.” I huff while bending down to gather up the brick of coke, falsely portraying I’m annoyed my time is being wasted with dramatics. “It doesn’t have a single dent.” I thrust the brick into Maestro’s face, effectively blocking my hand from his line of sight before tugging at the speckle of white piercing out of the ground. Since the canister its circling is deeply rooted in the recently laid gravel bed, its brisk removal leaves a divot in the previously flat landscape.
After standing to my feet, I adjust my stance so one of my shoes covers the hole my hunt left in the ground. “But to save face, bring my car around, and we’ll load from here. We don’t want any more incidents, do we?” When distrust flares through Maestro’s eyes, I say, “Fine, I’ll bring it around, then perhaps a handful of the women can occupy me during my two-second drive.”
Maestro fans his hand across my chest, once again stopping me. Mercifully, his inability to share means I didn’t get half a stride away from him. My cover isn’t blown—yet.
“Wait here.”
While nodding, I stuff my hands back into the pocket of my trousers like one side isn’t filled with sand and a hard plastic matter shaped into a cylinder.
16
Maddox
My eyes lift from a pill canister to Rocco when he asks, “Any issues? We’ve not used this manufacturer before, but pickings are slim when you cut your losses by severing more than fingers.”
The nonchalant way he refers to murder would usually have me taking a nibble out of the bait he’s dangling in front of me, but I’m off my game tonight. An empty prescription bottle shouldn’t have my stomach twisted up in knots, but when you add it to the weirdness of tonight’s exchange, a curdling stomach makes sense.
Furthermore, I swear I’ve seen this style of canister before—not just the shape and dimension, but the label printed on the front as well.
“Whatcha got there?” I try to shrug off Rocco’s intuition, but he’s a bigger snoop than me. He peers down at the canister for barely a second before his eyes rocket to mine. They looked pissed enough to kill with just a stare. “What are you doing with misoprostol?” He glares at me with nothing but pure hatred on his face. It matches the scowl Max gives me any time Demi shoos him out of our room so we can play sheet twister. “I thought Demi’s miscarriage was an accident?”
“It was.” I pause to work through my shock. When the delay gives me nothing but more unease, I mumble, “This isn’t my prescription.”
