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“My point exactly.” Eoghan teased. “But if you ever want your blood to run green again, I’ve got a place for you.”
Ah! There it was. His purpose for sitting across from me. He had ‘gone around his ass to get to his elbow’, as the Americans would say. He was reminding me of the place held for me at Green Fields Enterprises, the corporate front of the Irish mob.
“It’s only a matter of time, anyway,” Eoghan said in that Irish lilt that made him sound wise. “Before you make your way back to where you belong.”
“In the meantime,” I said, finishing off my martini, “I will continue to enjoy what freedom I have while I’m young.”
“You’re thirty-four.” He laughed. “You’re not that young.”
Chapter 9
Rose - California
“Riseandshine,kiddo.”That familiar male voice penetrated my sleep. “You’ve had a full night’s sleep. Time to get up.”
The mattress beneath me gave way, tilting on its axis. I let out a yelp as I rolled, landing with a thud on the hard ground. As I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, I groaned a weak, “I hate you.”
I felt like it had been hit by a truck. My eye was bruised from that asshole, Morosov. My ribs were tender from the bratva goons, and my head was foggy. I felt like I was at sea without a rudder because LeBlanc wasn’t with me.
This Jericho guy was an alternative, but it wasn’t the same. Where LeBlanc was sagacious and kind, Jericho was just a douchebag.
His boot nudged my sore rib, making me wince.
“Up, kiddo. Get the fuck up.”
I sat up and searched for a clock. Reaching for my phone, I saw that it was 7 AM.
“Why are you waking me at this ungodly hour?”
“We’re in California. Your clock is 3 hours ahead.” He squatted down in front of me, smiling, and winked. “It’s actually 4 AM!”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I glowered.
“Nope.” He slapped my thigh. “Get up and meet me in the kitchen,Jubilee.”
This man was on drugs. He had to be. No one in the world woke up this happy outside of a kid’s cartoon. I got up and put on one of my many basketball shorts. I often went into the octagon half naked–It’s good for marketing–but I liked to train in men’s shorts. They were longer, and I didn’t have to worry about my ass hanging out. I pulled on an oversized free t-shirt I had gotten from one fight or another, and trotted out to the kitchen.
Last night, Jericho took us to our new “home away from home.” It was a renovated old firehouse, the downstairs, where the large fire trucks would have been, was an enormous garage and gym. The upstairs was a two-bedroom apartment. Thankfully, we both had our own bathrooms.
The living space was an open concept. Which was really just a nice way to say that it was all one room. There was a kitchen with a butcher block island and a living room. There was no room for a dining table. He was standing by the counter with a cup of coffee in his hand.
He pushed a cup toward me and nodded to it encouragingly.
“What’s in this?” I grumbled. “If I drink this, will I end up as annoying as you in the mornings?”
“You’re a ray of sunshine,” he chuckled. “But we have no time to lose, kiddo.”
He pushed a small black laptop towards me.
“Do you have creatine?” I asked, staring down at my coffee.
“Yes,” he said, walking away to a cupboard before pulling out a white container. He slid that to me as well. I opened it, took out a scoop of white, powdered creatine and put it in my coffee.
“You take your coffee with creatine. That’s good.” He looked at my cup with an approving smile. “We need to keep up your physical training. I suspect we’ll need to plus up some of your tradecraft. Tell me, do you know how to change your appearance?”
“Like Hollywood makeup and stuff?” I shook my head. “No, I’ve never worn the stuff.”
“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “Yeah, your father was great but he wasn’t a real master of disguise.”
