“Or I could kill him now?” he threatened, his voice low and dark.
I stood there, my entire body shaking. I refused to believe Keith agreed to this, but he also should have told me. When I had asked for the truth, I had asked for all of it.
I went to reach for the money again, but his hand grabbed mine, stopping me. “Three weeks, Devi,” he said. “And then I’m coming for you.”
Snatching my hand back, I ran for the door. I had every intention of fighting this, but I wasn’t stupid enough to do it alone in the back of his store. So, racing to Kim’s car, I got the hell out of there and headed straight for The Tenor. I needed to give Cassius his money back because Alvin was right. If he wasn’t going to take the money, there was no sense in having it, owing it.
I only prayed Cassius was willing to lend it to me again when Keith and I figure this shit out.
Chapter 9
Cassius~
The background checks on Devi and Keith Westland came back faster than normal. Of course, there was the fact that I had asked Atticus to put a rush on it, and Atticus wasn’t one to dick around.
It also hadn’t escaped my notice that Xavier had been with him at Pryce’s again. For all of Xavier’s pro-single declarations, he’d been ‘double dating’ with Atty and Pryce a lot lately. Pryce had a friend named Rochelle who ticked off all of Xavier’s boxes.
There was nothing in the reports that had been a shocker, other than their parents dying while they had both still been in high school. They’d gone to live with an uncle, but there was no need to dig into all that right now. If things went my way, Devi and I were going to have plenty of time to learn about one another. No. I was more interested in the more recent stuff, and it was just as she said. Keith Westland had self-discipline problems, and it looks like Devi’s been helping him out of his scrapes a long time.
Like now, for instance.
Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was a little past nine, and while I loved The Tenor’s energy on the weekends, tonight I just wanted to go home and think about Ms. Devi Westland. There was a lot to unpack there, but I wasn’t intimidated in the least. The desire to stare into those different-colored eyes of hers, as she rode my cock, was too strong to deny.
Ready to head on home and rub one out like a twelve-year-old boy with his first hard-on, I stood up to leave. But the ringing of my desk phone had me sitting back down, hoping the call was something simple. The bar extension was lit up, so it was most likely Tenor business.
I grabbed the receiver. “Yeah?”
“Hey, Boss,” Connor said. “That chick with the eyes is back, and she’s asking to see you.”
“Send her back,” I immediately replied. Foreboding tickled the bottom of my spine. There could only be a handful of reasons Devi would be back so soon, and none of them were good. My bet was that her brother owed more than he’d confessed to.
And because my dick wanted her badly, I already had the door open, waiting for her. When I saw Sergio heading down the hall with her again, I met them halfway and escorted Devi the rest of the way to my office. Sergio must have shown up just a few minutes before she had since I had sent him to follow her after she left my office to go pay Fischer. Once we were inside, I shut and locked the door.
Devi didn’t bother with sitting down. She turned towards me, and I watched as she pulled the envelope I’d given her earlier, out of her purse, and tried handing it back to me. “Here you go,” she said. “It’s all there.” When I didn’t reach for the envelope fast enough, she waved it in my face. “Take it,” she cried, her voice full of edginess.
I took the envelope, and tossed it across the room, it landing perfectly on my desk. “What happened, Devi?”
She didn’t say anything for a really long time. So long, that I walked over to the sidebar and poured her a drink. When I brought it to her, she took it and peer inside the glass. “What is it?”
“Courage,” I remarked dryly. “Now drink it.” The look she shot me told me she didn’t appreciate my answer, but she took a drink anyway.
She started sputtering. “Oh…oh, god…wh…what…uh, mmm, what is that?”
“Whiskey.” I took the glass from her hand and set the glass on the desk. “Now, tell me what is going on?"
Her deep, tired sigh filled the room. “He wouldn’t take it.”
“What?” That didn’t make any sense. “Does your brother owe more?”
She shook her head, and when those dazzling eyes of hers landed on mine, I could almost see her surrendering to the weight that was her brother’s troubles. “No. It’s the right amount.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“He…he said he didn’t want the money,” she replied. “He said he talked with Keith and had told Keith he wanted…a different form of repayment.” My spine snapped so sharply, it was a miracle I hadn’t cracked something. “He wants…”
I couldn’t help it. I grabbed her shoulders and almost shook the shit out of her. “He wants what, Devi?”
“Three nights, at ten-thousand dollars each, wipes out the debt,” she said. “Three…he wants three night with me as repayment for the money.”
