Page 20 of Reckless Woman
“Keep it together, Joseph,” I mutter. “This isn’t the time to go losing your mind.”
The next time I glance back across the aisle, Cash is gone.
* * *
Rick’salready waiting for me in the VIP section of his bar, wearing a midnight blue three-piece and a smirk. There’s a half-drunk bottle of Scotch in front of him, but only one glass.Some things never change.You have to beg for everything from this asshole. Nothing comes for free.
“You look like shit,” he says when I reach the table, appraising me with his sharp gray eyes.
“And you’re a piece of shit,” I respond dryly, picking up the Scotch and taking a swig directly from the bottle. “But don’t go thinking we’re related.”
“Would you like a glass to go with your liquor, or did we park our manners by the door again? I always said you were a fucking savage underneath the Captain America façade, Grayson.”
I ignore the jibe. “Where’s Roman?”
It’s packed in here tonight and the beats are making my head swim. Rick makes as much from his bars and clubs as he does from flooding the Mean Streets with our coke.
“Running late. He’ll be here in ten.”
Glancing back, I find him watching a pretty, dark-haired girl behind his bar. She’s nervous as hell. Her fingers keep fumbling with the bottles, and she’s pouring more on the bar counter than she is in the glasses.
Not so long ago it was Anna who worked there. Maybe not in this bar or this city, but in a place that looked similar. Rick likes a uniformed banality with all of his establishments. He calls it “sin with a side of vanity”, which roughly translates as extra low lighting, black marble, and tacky mirrored ceilings. I imagine his bedroom looks the same. He’s such a fucking narcissist, I’m betting he can’t come without watching himself.
He catches me staring at the girl and his smirk disappears.
Interesting.
“Who’s that?” I ask. “Latest fuck?”
“Not yet,” he says lazily, playing with his cut-glass tumbler. “But I’m working on it.”
“She looks Russian.”
“Try taking off the sunglasses for once, you might see better.”
“Try turning up the lights in this place, you might find your integrity.”
He laughs long and hard at this, like a whore at a client who’s asking for proof of her virginity. “Hold your wig there, grandpa.” He composes himself. “I cater to rich college kids and Wall Streeters with money to burn, not enforcers with chips on their shoulder the size of China. They want darkness and ego to dwell in, not spotlights and reality.” There’s a pause. “How’s Anna?”
“Mine,” I say tersely.
“You sure about it?”
Jealousy wraps her wicked hands around my heart. “Lay one finger on her, Sanders, and you’re a dead man.”
“If I lay two, will I be in heaven?”
A beat later, I’m dragging him to his feet by his fitted black shirt. Another beat passes and a Glock is being shoved into the small of my back.
“Ease up, Danny,” says Rick to the man standing behind me with my life in his hands. “No one’s going to do anything stupid here—Are you,Joseph?” He lifts his brows at me, and I let go of him reluctantly. I’m already in enough trouble with Santiago as it is. If I go shooting up our number one dealer on the East Coast, I’m as good as dead myself. “Good boy,” he says as I shrug Danny off and slide onto the booth bench opposite. “Now stop being such an uptight bastard.” He takes a seat himself, straightening his shirt. “Tell Anna you need an extra blow job to chill you out.”
Jealousy flares again in shades of green and red. “Mention her again in any context and I’ll rip your throat out.”
“You’re very ‘threat happy’ tonight,” he muses, studying me closely. “Is there trouble in paradise?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s gotta burn after you chased her all over Colombia, started a cartel war for her, and got yourself shot up for the privilege.” He leans over the table with his smirk back in place. “And here I was thinking you, ‘made shit right’ for everyone,” he says, quoting my own words back to me with a twist of scorn.