Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 120472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120472 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Gross.
“Move it,” Roman mutters, his hand pressing into my back to push me ahead. “You want to find him before he finds you.”
Fuck. Good point.
I get my ass moving, following the sound of the shitty, screaming heavy metal until I barge through to a small living room and get smacked in the face with a thick fog. I cough past the smoke, waving my hand in front of my face as I find a guy sitting on a couch, staring straight ahead, high as a fucking kite without a clue that we’re even here, but he’s not what’s got my attention.
The guy I’d seen in the club stands over a bag of cash, furiously shoving it deep into an old duffle bag with nothing but horror written across his face. The boys’ pills are spread out over the table in little piles of ten and I watch as the dealer grabs fistfuls of the pills and jams them in with the cash.
Barely a moment passes when the dealer’s head snaps up and he takes us in. Relief crosses his features and his hands pause deep in the duffle bag. “Fuck,” he breathes, sagging against the table in relief as my gaze sweeps over the rest of the room, searching for the decaying body, but I come up empty. “I thought you were the cops doing a raid.”
I raise my brow and stride toward him as the boys hang back by the high dude on the couch. The dealer watches me, curiosity stretched across his face and I don’t miss the way his gaze continuously flicks between me and the three imposing men by his living room door.
My gaze sweeps over the table and I trail my finger through the mess of scattered pills and cash that he didn’t get a chance to bury in the bag. “Why would you think that?”
Seeing that the boys are leaving this little game up to me, he focuses all his attention on me. “Who else would have the balls to bust in here in the middle of the night? I wasn’t expecting you guys to collect for another few days.”
“Plans change,” I mutter, having absolutely no idea what the original plan was in the first place. My gaze sweeps up from the table to meet his eye, and I do what I can to mimic the boys’ cocky confidence and brutal stares. “It looks to me like you were attempting to run.”
His eyes bug out of his head, fear rattling him at my suggestion, and damn, the power that rocks through me at being able to invoke that kind of reaction is like nothing I’ve ever felt. “No,” he rushes out, his gaze snapping back to the three brothers. “I swear, I thought it was a police raid. I wanted to get all your shit out of here so they wouldn’t take it. I haven’t forgotten what you did to Julius when he couldn’t deliver and that won’t be me.”
I walk around the table, getting uncomfortably close to the man and I don’t miss the way Marcus flinches behind me, barely held back by Roman’s hand. “Say that I believe you,” I tell the dealer. “It looks as though you’ve got a lot of product still to move.”
He nods. “True,” he says, panic flourishing in his eyes. “But I have your money. All of it.”
My brows furrow and I spare a glance at the boys, seeing the same confusion mimicked in their dark gazes. “How is that possible?” I question. I’m no math whiz and certainly wasn’t any good in business studies during school, but I know the basics and this simply doesn’t add up.
“Hear me out,” the guy blurts, darting across the room and making me flinch toward the gun jammed in the back of my pants. He slams his hand over the light switch, rushing back to the old duffle bag and turning it upside down. As the contents spill out, half of it falls to the ground, and I feel the boys moving in for a closer look. Something tells me this isn’t how their deals usually happen, but the boys say nothing as they wait for me to take the lead.
“Go on,” I tell him as he desperately tries to separate the cash from the pills.
“I, uhh … I didn’t mean to present this to you in quite a mess. I was planning on heading out tomorrow to get a briefcase like Julius had,” he explains. “Like I said, I wasn’t expecting you for a few days. I thought I’d be better prepared.”
“Money is money,” I tell him. “It doesn’t matter how it is presented, as long as it’s all there.”
He swallows hard and drops his gaze back to the table. “So, uhh … I’m sure you know that I’m not the only dealer in town,” he says, referring to the men that Giovanni would most likely have in place, selling exactly the same product, just with different branding. “I may have stolen his customers out from under him with a few little white lies and charged double, claiming it’s a more potent pill, designed to get faster and longer results.”