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12
River
Ash’s newschanges the mood instantly.
Good. I’m eager to get moving on this, to start pulling Julian’s life apart. The longer it takes, the more antsy I’m going to get. He has to pay for what he did.
I separate from Knox, and Knox pulls his pants back up, doing up his fly and button. We all head back upstairs to join Gage and Priest in the living room.
The dog comes in behind us, and he stops by me to whine for head pets and then goes over to settle down at Priest’s feet.
“Benedict Arnold,” Ash says to the dog, shaking his head. “I gave you some bacon the other day, and this is how you repay me? By choosing Priest over me?”
Apparently that’s the dog’s newest name. He thumps his tail against the floor, either because he doesn’t mind the name at all or because he’s just happy to be there. He does seem to favor Priest over all the other guys, which is funny considering how standoffish Priest was with him when I first got here.
“Really, Ash?” Gage comments from the center of the room where he’s standing. “You’re jealous of a dog?”
“I’m not jealous. I’m just saying if someone gave me some bacon, maybe I’d want to sit at their feet instead of someone else’s. But that’s fine, Benny.” He addresses the last bit to the dog. “I’m not hurt. I don’t care.”
I snort with amusement, and Priest just rolls his eyes and reaches down to scratch behind Benny’s ears. The harshly beautiful blond man looks better than he did earlier today. More rested and less fucked up from me running off. His eyes don’t have that heaviness to them anymore, but it’s clear that petting the dog is as much for Priest’s comfort as it is for the dog’s enjoyment.
Gage clears his throat, trying to get things back on track. “So we’ve got the name of Julian’s biggest buyer in his drug business. It’s a man named Cyrus Porter.”
“What do we know about him?” Knox asks, folding his arms and leaning against the wall.
“He owns a nightclub in Detroit, but his main business is the illegal shit.”
“Like us,” Ash says.
“And Julian,” I add.
“Right,” Gage agrees. “He’s one of the biggest drug dealers in the city, and he gets his supply from Julian.”
“So... we need to make sure he stops buying from Julian, right?” Knox says. “There’s an easy way to do that. He can’t buy any of Julian’s shit if he’s dead.”
It’s a good point. Losing his main buyer would definitely throw a wrench in Julian’s business and send him scrambling. And it’s not like we’d even have to undercut Julian or try to convince this Cyrus guy to go buy from someone else. Killing him takes him out of the supply chain permanently.
“So let’s do it,” I say without hesitation, looking around at all of them. “Let’s go take him out.”
Gage tugs at his lip and then holds up a hand. “No. We have to be smarter about this. We can’t just go kill this guy ourselves. We have to make sure our fingerprints are far away from any of this shit until it’s all done. If Julian realizes it’s us before we’re ready, it’ll blow everything.”
I frown, agitation stirring within me, but then I nod—because he’s right. I hate having to wait, having to draw this out even more. Especially when there’s that itchy energy burning under my skin to get this ball rolling now. To make Julian pay immediately, so he can’t have a single moment more of comfort. If I have to suffer because of what he did, then I want him to be suffering too.
But things have to be done a certain way. I get that. We can’t let Julian know or even suspect that it’s us, and with the FBI nosing around, that’s even more reason to not be reckless.
I drag in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Right. You’re right.”
“So then, what?” I ask Gage. “How do we kill Cyrus?”
Ash grins at me, answering the question instead. “We’ll just need to convince someone else to do it.”
* * *
A couple of days pass,and the guys and I settle into deep planning mode. Taking out Julian’s main buyer is an important step in the plan to fuck up his life from the inside out, so it has to be done right.
We look into Cyrus, learning more about him and his business, and the more we learn, the more eager I get to see him dead.
His club is more of a sex club than a dancing and drinking club, and from what I can tell, it seems like a lot of the women who work there are treated badly.
