“No. Sorry,” Mallory said.
“I’m not hiding in this place. It’s time I get answers.”Or maybe revenge.
29
Denim
Duke had a bottle of bourbon in his hand as he strutted over to a round table positioned in the middle of the room. A spotlight shined down as though we were about to get up on stage and act out our parts. In a way, we were.
Duke’s part was to keep his mouth shut so he wouldn’t incriminate himself. My role was to ask the questions and get Tito talking and spilling what information he had on the Mexican cartel and the shipment of guns. I knew how to jerk Tito’s chain, although it wasn’t very hard to do with him.
We’d agreed to meet at Duke’s club mainly because we wanted Tito to feel welcomed on Duke’s turf and at Duke’s so-called table.
Tito hadn’t blinked an eye when I told him to meet us at The Monarch. Sure, he wasn’t totally ignorant. We knew he would bring men. But Duke had two guards posted at the back door to ensure Tito only entered with one of his men.
Opening and closing my hands, I walked around the first floor of the club, trying to tame my nerves. I didn’t give a shit about guns or power. I wanted a confession out of Tito. But I wasn’t banking on him confessing. He’d kept the secret of Hector’s murder locked tight for six years.
Travers wouldn’t be pleased if I tried to get Tito to talk about murdering his brother rather than the time and place of a gun shipment, but I didn’t give a rat’s ass.
I grabbed a bottle of water from behind the bar, the same bar that had taken a bullet like Jade. Most of the mess had been cleaned up except for the shattered wall-length mirror that hadn’t been replaced yet.
“You think it’s wise to drink?” I asked.
Duke let out an evil laugh. “You think it’s wise to wear a wire?”
I lifted my arms up and out. Then I pointed at my neck. The Feds had inserted a small listening device into the collar of my shirt. Duke was onboard with throwing Tito to the Feds, but he did not like the wire.
“Tito will give them too much information,” Duke had said prior to one of Travers’s men suiting me up.
I met Duke at the table then closed my hand over the listening device. “Why are you all of a sudden worried? You said the Feds had nothing on you.”
He pushed out his shoulders and ran his hands through his thick crop of hair. “Are they listening?” His voice was barely audible.
I closed my hand over the device tighter. “I doubt it.” If they were, it would be muffled.
“McCauley is having a cow.” He kept his voice so low, I could barely hear him. “Tito has something on him that I wasn’t aware of. If he starts flapping his jaws about McCauley, I could get pinched in the crossfire.”
“As in dead or as in jail?”
Duke stretched his neck. “Let’s just say either one. Because if things go south, I’m afraid I’ll be the one murdering the fucker before he walks out of here.”
We were in this mess now, and if we backed out, Tito wouldn’t think twice about following through on killing me and those I loved. I couldn’t worry about Duke and his partner, McCauley. I had to think of myself.
Regardless, I might beat Duke to the punch if my self-control broke. The vengeance was careening through my veins, hot and lightning fast. Night after night, I’d lain in my prison bunk, thinking about what I would do if I ever found the person who’d set me up—killing, strangling, and torturing came to mind. But if I wanted a future in which my living quarters didn’t include bars and cements walls, I had to temper my retribution. I had a beautiful woman on my arm, one who I hoped would be my wife one day. No way was I messing that up.
I wished Dillon had joined us. He had a knack of being the levelheaded one, but he had no business in our fight. His job was to keep an eye on Jade. I didn’t trust Tito. If he didn’t get his way, he would definitely use Jade as his pawn in his lust for power.
The bell to the back door rang.
Duke knocked back the rest of his bourbon. “Here we go.”
Letting go of my collar, I focused on the hall along the bar.
One of Duke’s men called out, “They’re clean, boss.”
Footsteps clobbered down the short hall until Tito and Lou came into view.
“I meant to ask you, bro—what happened between you and Lou?” I whispered.
