Everyone agrees and when the room begins to break up, Plumeria no longer allows me to hold her against my chest. She untangles her fingers from mine and steps towards the black duffel on the coffee table. “I know that I’m…new here and by some of you, unwelcome, which makes my credibility shit. But if you’re willing to listen, I think I’ve just figured out who the informer is.”
I’m not shocked often, but the weight of the past hour is beginning to settle in. Rather than crumple beneath it, I turn to stone, ready to intervene if any of the brothers don’t like what she has to say. We all turn to Dixon. He steps forward and I’m ready for something terse, or cutting.
Instead he clears his throat and though it seems to pain him, he speaks. “What do you know, Plumeria?”
“I think it might be Ollie.” She begins twisting her hands together and she meets Dixon’s gaze. Not an easy gaze to meet, she holds her ground, even if the ground beneath all of us is shaky.
“Why?” Dixon’s pitch is off and his shoulder blades move down his spine as he takes a step towards her. I don’t mean to flinch, but I do. Dixon notices, glances at me and doesn’t move again. For fuck’s sake, what is happening? He’s understanding my response towards Plumeria’s life being threatened, and he’s listening to her.
“He asked me a few questions the other night at the barn that rattled me a little bit. He asked me about what happened when Spade and I were together. He also kept a second set of books.”
“What?” I say, eyes narrowing.
She looks at me and holds up both hands. “Sorry, I really did think you guys knew. I thought you all were friends. Hell, for a minute I thought he was one of the brothers.”
“Books on what?” I say, anger choking my throat. I’m not angry at her, for certain, but I’m pissed off that I was duped.
She shakes her head. “I never knew. But Mario sometimes would drop off packages and someone else would pick them up. I didn’t ask what was in them. I didn’t want to know. Spade dropped off a package once and I saw him with the bag on my first night in the house, but never again. I didn’t see him hide it and he never took it to Ollie. He wouldn’t leave me alone and he knew he couldn’t travel with me back to the bar. So he just sat on it.” She shrugs and the room falls silent. It’s a pained sort of silence that beats with its own pulse.
“I mean.” Charlie stands from where he was seated and runs both hands back through his thick, black hair. The kind women swoon over – I’ve seen it happen. “Not saying that I don’t trust you, Mer, but maybe you don’t have all the facts. Maybe we should try to investigate more before we leap to any crazy conclusions. I mean, it’s Ollie we’re talking about…”
“She’s right.” Dixon surprises me, not for the first time tonight, as he sticks up for my girl. He closes his eyes and bites down on his fist. Then he pulls out his phone. “It is Ollie. He knows we have the stuff.”
“How?” I say.
“Because I told him.” Dixon dials a number and lifts his phone to his ear.
He mouths the word, shit. Reminds me in a funny way of something Marguerite would do, though I never thought Dixon was a fan of hers. From the moment she’d taken him in at twelve, he’d been nothing but resistant. A natural of women that I don’t know if he’ll ever shake. Maybe a hatred. These small steps he’s taken with Plumeria tonight have been too much for me to think they’ll last.
The phone rings long enough for me to know it’s going to voice mail. Dixon’s lips are tightly pursed and his wide nostrils flare. “Ollie was at the club, asking me questions that weren’t any of his business. When Charlie called to ask me to come down to Mer’s, I told Ollie that you guys had found something and that it was related to the Russians. He may be a moron but even a moron can sometimes put two-and-two together and now he’s not answering his phone.”
He curses again in silence and answers the question we all want to ask. “I was distracted and I had no reason to suspect Ollie of anything. If I had been more open with you all, this might have been avoided. I’m sorry.” Fuck me in the ass on a Sunday. I’ve been living with the kid for over fifteen years and I’ve never heard him say anything in the realm of an apology. And he’s not done. “To one of you in particular.”
He inhales deeply and I don’t breathe at all because for a second I think he’s about to come to me, which would have been shock enough, but when he takes three steps forward, bringing him directly in front of Plumeria, I nearly black out.
“I’m sorry, Mer.” He holds out his hand.
Plumeria takes it. “Shit man, you don’t need to apologize to me.” She rubs the back of her neck and stretches out her fingers the moment Dixon releases her. She’s uncomfortable with the accolade and probably as unsure as I am that Dixon still won’t kill her.
He pulls back and doesn’t give me time to think or react in any way. Instead, he reaches for the bag on the table, gripping the handles fiercely. “For now we stick to the plan. After we break from the bank, Aiden will head to Ollie’s. Our checks will begin tomorrow at nine and will go to midnight. Knox,” he says, sounding more like an authority than ever. “Expect to hear from me.”
I’ve never respected the man more as I agree and follow him out to the car. Kissing Plumeria chastely on the lips, I then slip into Dixon’s Audi. The black bag sits between us like a live explosive, and the city that looms up before us has never looked more like a battleground. I glance at the car behind me, the one in front, the brothers beside me. There’s no one I’d rather go to war with.
Dixon
I didn’t expect the Russians to jump us on our way to the bank, but I’m a little disappointed they didn’t. I don’t like waiting for them to make contact. I don’t like what Aiden said earlier. Any of it. This calling system is a bullshit safeguard. We live separate lives. At any moment, any of us could be at risk.
I’m racing to the club, furious as I glance at the clock, but for all the wrong reasons. I’m anxious about the Russians and I’m curious to know what Aiden will find as he continues his hunt, but I’m fuming because it’s nearly two o’clock in the morning and I haven’t made it to the club yet tonight. I pull into the parking lot and the hideously conspicuous car I’m searching for isn’t there. Cursing under my breath, I wonder if I missed it on the way in. Maybe she parked on Eighth.
I blow through the back door and, though it’s against club policy – policy I set – I flip the back curtain open. Mindy sees me and waves. “Dixon!” She turns away from Dallas who looked like she was mid-sentence. I ignore her and let the drape fall shut, but as I turn, her voice calls out, “Hey Dixon, wait up.”
Groaning as I reach the mouth of the hall, I turn away from the sight of chairs being stacked and tables, wiped down. The bartenders are where they usually are – drinking up my reserves – and Marcel is where he usually is, standing at the front door flirting with one of the dancers. Only Marilyn is running around doing any actual work.
“Yes?” I try to keep my voice even, but it comes off too low. I could tear Mindy’s head off as amped as I am in that moment. I don’t know where this aggression and hostility comes from but I wear it these days like a second skin, one that only fades into the background when I’m able to wrestle it into submission or when she’s near. And that’s why I’m here isn’t it? Risking my life when I should have stayed with my brothers. For a girl. Because I remember what she said to me the last time; those acrid words that will burn for the rest of my lifetime in memory. She feels safer when I’m near, and tonight Aiden was late and I was moving drugs and I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. She needed me and I failed.
Mindy is nearly my height in her six-inch platform heels, and I wonder if it’s that height that gives her such confidence. She drapes her arms around my neck and I shrug her off. “I’m heading to my office,” I say, turning before she can sink her talons into my coat. I hear the muted thud of her heels as she follows. “Marcel.”
He pivots and t
akes my hand when I’m near enough. “How’s it doing, boss?”
I nod and, fully ignoring the girl he’s standing with, murmur, “How was…business tonight?”
“Business is over.” Marcel smiles and cocks his chin towards the brunette he’s standing with. “Bring me a beer, sweetheart,” he coos and she scampers off.
“Any trouble with any of the girls?”
“No more than usual.” His grin widens and I know he’s baiting me. “Which girl do you want to know about in particular?”
My eyes narrow and I imagine I’ve got talons for hands and razor blades for teeth. I’m about to carve into him so deep he’ll be shitting blood for weeks. “Where is she?”
Marcel’s grin falters and his gaze flashes over my shoulder. I turn to see Mindy still standing there and rasp, “What do you want?”
“I just wanted to ask you a quick question.” She holds up both hands and it’s the first time I notice that she’s wearing a thong and skimpy bikini top and nothing else.
“Wait for me by my office then. Right now I’m talking to Marcel.”
She moves abruptly towards my office, though doesn’t have a key so she just watches me from the shadows, her dusky eye-makeup making her look all kinds of animalistic. The woman is hungry and so am I, but she isn’t what I’m looking for.
“Sara.” I say her name as an exhalation, as if I’ve been holding it in all day.
Marcel nods, grinning at me again, only this time his expression is belittling and bordering on pity. He grips my shoulder hard. “She had to run twenty minutes early. Apparently there was an issue with her babysitter. Donnie gave her the okay. We lost a little business – you know how the boys love her – but Donnie figured you probably wouldn’t be too cut up about it.”
The tension in my chest I wished would release doesn’t. “She have any trouble tonight with any of the guys?”
“Less than her first night,” Marcel considers, straightening back up, “More than yesterday.”
I ball my hand into a fist in my pocket to keep from reaching out and hitting anything. The past few nights at the club had been getting better. I’d been leaving my office only to watch her shows, just so she would know I was there, but I haven’t talked to her since that night. I haven’t had the courage to explain the inexplicable. I kissed her for Christ’s sake. Maybe I was just too damn horny, or sleep deprived, or stressed from all the bullshit. Or maybe I just like her and I admired her for putting me in my place.
“What specifically,” I choke.
Marcel tells me how he had to pull a guy off of her in the private booths and that some drunk frat boy hurtled onto the stage during her routine and pulled her top off. The other guys in the audience might have enjoyed it, but not enough to keep them from stepping up and gleefully taking over Marcel’s job. The bar was in chaos and the kid left with broken bones. Apparently I’d missed an exciting night. At least that’s how Marcel puts it. To me it sounds just short of harrowing.
I sigh and head to my office, needing a drink more than anything. Mindy follows me in and shuts the door behind her while I pull a tumbler out of the bottom desk drawer and a bottle of Bourbon with it.
“You want a drink?” I say, voice passive as exhaustion begins to set, moving from my sternum through my rib cage, then radiating out to the rest of my bones. I’m pissed and I’m disappointed and that rage blanket is fixed and I’m tired of fighting against it. Riding on a wave of whiskey, I let it drag me under.
“I’d love one.” She comes and perches on the edge of my desk, lifting her leg just enough for me to get a perfect glimpse of her pussy. Her thong doesn’t begin to cover it. I hand her a glass and she downs it as quickly as I do, so I pour us each seconds.
“Wow. This is good stuff,” she says. It isn’t, but I don’t respond. “I’m feeling hot already. Mind if I take this off? It’s so uncomfortable.”
I roll my eyes. “Do whatever you want.”
Mindy pulls the string ties at her neck and each hip and comes around the desk. She takes a seat on it and plants her feet on either side of my chair and there she is, fully naked with her pussy just below my eye level and her big, orb-like tits floating above me.
“So can I have another drink?” she says. Lifting an eyebrow, I pour her a third glass, but as I go to return the bottle to the drawer she leans forward and slides her hand around my wrist. She draws my hand towards her and takes the bottleneck into her mouth in a parody of what Sara did on her opening show. Shit. That memory gets me stiffer than a slugger and I feel a momentary guilt when Mindy’s gaze drifts downward to the erection I’m suddenly sporting because I know she thinks it’s for her.
“I know you liked it when Sara did it for you,” Mindy says, rearing up and crawling down onto the floor between my legs. I can’t help but think back to Sara and when she did this and how hard it had been not to touch her. Not touching Mindy is easy, though this time I actually want to. I want to stop her. “I bet you’ll like it even better when my lips are around your big cock.”
Closing my eyes I wonder if I shouldn’t just let her blow me. I haven’t been laid in what feels like a century and I’ve been jacking off to the memory of Sara’s lap dance for the past weeks like a real classy kind of pervert. Her fingers are on my belt, tugging, and suddenly she’s got the zipper down, her fingers around my shaft.
“Just let me take care of you, baby,” she murmurs, and suddenly my dick is trapped between her massive tits and she’s moaning like she’s coming.
The phone rings and it’s a necessary distraction from the sounds she makes as she stares up at me and rubs her perky plastic nipples against the length of my erection. They may even be real, but they don’t look it affixed to the rest of her. Under the desk, she tries to wrap her lips around my dick as I reach for the plastic receiver, a relic from another era, but I push her aside and yank my boxers up.
“Camelot,” I growl into the receiver.
The response is immediate. “Oh shi…” But the curse never finishes. My whole body bucks, my mind blanks, and I’m throttled by the sound of her voice.
“Sara,” I bark. My voice is thick, throat hoarse.
She has to speak loud to be heard over the traffic in the background. “Wow, um…this is embarrassing.” She hawks out a little laugh. “Sorry, I just…you weren’t in today so you’re kind of the last person I expected to get through to on the phone. I was hoping to talk to Donnie?”
“He’s not in, or if he is, I haven’t seen him.” I glance down at Mindy still on the floor. Now she’s lying flat on her back with two fingers jammed into her pussy all the way to the palm. I snatch her clothes off of my desk and throw them at her. “What do you need?”
“Is Marcel there?”
“What do you need, Sara?” I say though speaking through the rage blanket is difficult; it only seems to heighten the pressure in my dick. I want to tear the damn thing off for the confusion it’s causing. I’m not myself. I don’t know who I am, but I know what I want: to see her.
“Well if you could give me Marilyn or Donnie or Marcel’s number that would also work…”
I groan and punch my fist down onto my desk. I hope she can’t hear the sound it makes, but Mindy sure can because on her feet now, she jumps. “Sara, I don’t like to repeat myself. What did you call the bar for?”
She quiets for far too long. Long enough for Mindy’s voice to cut between us. She says, “Night Dixon. It was great spending some time with you. Let me know if you want a repeat tomorrow.” She winks at me and I follow her to the door, slamming it behind her. There’s no chance Sara didn’t hear that and I feel oddly compelled to explain myself though there’s no reason to. She has no claim over me, I think to myself, but even I know that isn’t true.
“Sara.” I speak when she doesn’t. “Answer me.”
The sound of sirens interrupt her the moment she begins to speak. When they die down, she clears her throat. “It’s nothing. Yo
u’re clearly busy. If you could just put me through to someone else I would really appreciate it.” Someone else, she says, but what she means is anyone else. Just not me. My thoughts are white hot. The week’s been too long. I’m too high strung. Everything is backwards. Mer, Knox, Aiden, Ollie, Sara.
“If I tell you I’m not busy, I’m not busy,” I insist, and I’m starting to sound desperate, even to myself. Not desperate. Pathetic. “Mindy was just collecting her check,” I lie, “she switched banks and had to refile,” I lie some more.
“Oh,” Sara says and her tone becomes just a touch lighter. Just a touch.
“So what did you call for, Sara?”
“Umm…oh. Well I was…I am having car trouble.”
I’m stiff as a board and I don’t just mean my dick. I buckle my pants and pull them into place, grab my coat, then start towards the door before I remember I’m on a landline. “Where are you?”
“I’m on the 401.”
“What do you mean on the 401?”
“I mean I had to pull off on the shoulder. I spent the past ten minutes on the line with the towing company, but they are a man short tonight and can’t come get me for another hour. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind waiting, but I’ve got Brant with me and he’s starting to fuss because I don’t have a bottle. I was really hoping that I might be able to beg Donnie or Marcel or Marilyn to come get me.”
“Can you send me a pin of your location?”
“You…you want a pin?”
“Yes.”
“Are you…are you sure?”
“Sara,” I growl and it’s impossible not to sound frustrated with her.
“Umm sure…wait! I don’t have your number.”
I repeat it for her three times and hang up the phone. I wait until I’ve received the pin before I call her back. By then, I’m already climbing the Interstate ramp. “Are you in your car?”
The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1) Page 21
