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“I was told you weren’t one to bullshit,” he muttered.
“Understatement of the fucking year.”
A careful smile tugged the corners of his mouth.
“It’s not what you think.” Benjamin took a step forward. “Alvarez here wants to do business.”
“Diamond business,” the hitman added with the hint of a smile. “The expensive kind.”
I stiffened. “The Lawlors are some of my oldest friends. What makes you think I’ll even allow you in the same goddamn room as them?”
The brute just turned his head, those unflinching eyes fixed on Ryth and her brothers. “I can think of four already.”
Goddamn bastard.
My fingers twitched, fighting the need to pull my gun right now and put a bullet through his thick fucking skull. If there was just him, I might’ve done it. I might’ve blown a neat hole right through his forehead, then hunted down whoever had paid him to attack a pregnant woman and exacted revenge from them. But there wasn’t just one of him, was there? There were three. Three fucking hitmen to hunt down and take out. As if we didn’t have enough to fucking contend with right now.
“I want us to go into business together,” Cross smiled.
I glanced at Ben. “You’ve got to be fucking joking,” I snapped, glancing at Ryth, hidden behind her glowering, protective males. But the Mafia bastard was no help. His jaw clenched with seething anger. “He doesn’t want my money. He wants connections, I kind I can’t help with.”
I sucked in a hard breath, my mind racing. The Lawlors were dangerous in their own right. There was no way they’d let some two-bit fucking thug muscle in on them. Not a hope in hell.
“Fine, you want an introduction? I’ll get you an introduction. But that’s all.” I turned to the walking steroid. “But I want assurances you are who you say you are before I’ll even make a call.” I took a step toward the bastard, narrowing in on that gleam of hunger in his stare. “I want details of your fucking brothers, your wives, your family all the way back to your fucking great-great-grandparents, for that matter. If I suspect you’ve lied to me, the deal’s dead. If I suspect you’ve threatened the lives of Ryth, the Bankses, my family, or anyone else in this room, the deal’s dead. The Rossis included.” I met Benjamin’s widening stare. “Because if there’s a deal to be done, they’re in this as well.”
The head of the Rossi family just gave a shrug, then jerked his head toward his son. “This is all Laz now. I’m retiring.”
Retiring my ass.
The Stidda prince never flinched as I fixed my gaze on him. “Well, Lazarus, looks like we’re in bed together.”
“Fucking perfect,” he muttered.
“You want the information?” the towering hitman muttered. “Then it’s yours.”
I met that calculating stare. “Just be aware that the information will be kept by me and if at any time I feel you have contributed—” I glanced toward Ryth, “in an attack on those who I consider blood, then not only will the deal be dead.” I turned back to him. “You and your entire family will be, as well.”
There was a twitch in the corner of his eye. I was sure the Cerberus brothers weren’t used to such a direct threat. But then that twitch settled, and he gave a slow nod. “Understood.”
I followed with a dip of my own head. “Then we’re on the same page.”
But it was Ryth who drew my focus as she pushed Nick aside and stepped around them. Tobias moved at the same time she did, driving himself forward to not only match her stride, but push ahead until he was between her and Alvarez Cross.
Hate raged in his stare, which never moved from the big bastard in front of him. One glance at the two of these men and you knew blood was going to be spilled. But Ryth never once looked at the hitman.
Instead, her focus was directed at me. “Now that your business is done,” she started, her voice husky as she directed those big blue-green eyes on me. “I want you to do something for me.”
Surprise filled me. I glanced at Tobias and the fucking tic in his jaw that felt too much like the countdown of a timebomb and turned back to her. “Whatever you need.”
“Good,” she whispered. “Then I’d like you to arrange something for me. I’d like to finally see my sister.”
* * *
Panicked thoughts filled my head as I drove back home. They were about Ryth mostly. Ryth and her tiny fucking body and swollen belly. Ryth and her haunted fucking eyes that stared right through you.
Ryth and her desire to meet the woman I loved.
That fear boomed like thunder in my head. The two women Haelstrom Hale wanted more than anything in the same damn place?
