Chapter 7
For Christmas this year, I want my back to stop hurting.
— Dima to Shasha
DIMA
Being the right-hand man of a Bratva pakhan should be a lot harder than it was, but it seemed my brother’s enemies were behaving themselves. Meaning , I was bored.
Which had to be why I looked into the cameras I’d set up at her place.
When I’d first seen the man in her apartment, I’d nearly lost my shit.
But , after the phone call I’d heard between him and another man, I’d realized that the man in her place was related to her.
Oh , and she was about to lose her apartment.
According to the brother, the apartment’s owner had raised rent on her to the point where it would be near impossible for her to renew her lease.
That’s when I got into my computer and started tapping away, finding her apartment’s owners—which hilariously enough was a sister company to the one that I’d found out that she was the CE -fucking- O of.
The woman was all over the place, that was for sure.
After finding the right documents, I went through a few more channels and shared the information with her brother.
Oh , and by the way, the brother was newly released from prison, according to the words that’d come out of his mouth earlier.
Another fun fact I’d found out was that this Keely wasn’t just some random woman.
She was the sister of the brother that had just married my own sister.
How I’d missed that the first time that I’d met her, I didn’t know.
What I did know was that things were about to get very interesting.
One , she knew my face.
Two , eventually she’d put two and two together and figure out who I was—who I was related to.
Three , she might or might not lose her shit on me.
I couldn’t fuckin’ wait for that day.
I switched from the camera views at her apartment to the camera view of her at work and smiled.
When I was younger, I took college courses that were all over the place.
College was boring for me. I didn’t like all the courses that they wanted you to take to get that degree. I liked to hop around and get information from everywhere. I took a language arts course and immediately dropped out because it wasn’t something that I was looking for. Now , all the criminology classes were entertaining.
I’d learned about everything under the sun, and had I cared, I could’ve graduated with a degree in criminology.
But I hadn’t cared enough to do that.
As I glided through the camera views, I thanked my lucky stars, and Lev , my brother’s tech guy, for teaching me everything that I needed to know.
When I’d met Lev , I’d been intrigued by his computer skills, and I’d all but immersed myself into his life whether he wanted me there or not.
Once he knew that I wasn’t going to just go away, he’d taken me under his wing and shown me everything he knew, teaching me how to hack with the best of them.
Sure , I wasn’t as skilled as Lev , or even the Truth Teller’s MC computer genius, Apollo , but I could get by.
With those skills, I’d hacked into everything known to man that I could to get more information on Tequila ‘ Keely ’ Clayborne .
I knew her birthday, her birthplace, her credit score and her social media accounts. I knew everything—even the bad stuff that made me want to dig a man up and set his bones on fire.
I also knew that there was an issue with another man in prison—the same one that her brother had just gotten out of.
Tapping my fingers along the base of the keyboard, I idly wondered how hard it would be to kill a man in prison.
Probably not all that hard.
They got to go outside in the yard for some fresh air and sunlight, didn’t they?
I could probably kill him there…
“… You are not stronger than a man, Dorie ,” I heard my woman say.
My woman.
Jesus , I was fucked in the head if I saw her as my woman and we’d had no other communication other than possibly fifteen words in a back alley behind a sex club.
“ I probably am!” she stated emphatically. “ At least some men.”
Keely looked toward the woman who had her back to her and shook her head, as if she seriously couldn’t fathom how crazy in the head her friend actually was.
“ No , but seriously. I really am,” the woman, also known as Doris Patterson , which was shortened to Dorie , maintained. “ You are, too.”
I snorted.
Dorie and Keely had about six inches separating them in height, and from what I guessed, twenty-five pounds. Though it looked like Keely worked out—and her credit card statement showed that she paid for a gym membership—she was a little bit of a thing.
Short and grumpy at first sight, she reminded me of a squirrel that could go rabid and crazy in a blink of an eye.
Dorie , on the other hand, did look like she spent a lot of time in the gym. She looked like she was strong, but she wasn’t stronger than a man. Some men might think twice about trying anything with her, but they certainly would get her on the ground if they truly wanted to.
I wasn’t saying that strength and appearance didn’t deter some individuals, but there were a lot of crazy people out there, and sometimes their determination outweighed their common sense.
“ Again , friend, we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one,” Keely said. “ Do you have the sleep results for Richard Morgan ?”
Dorie rolled her eyes and said, “ I’ll prove it to you.”
“ You’ll prove what to me?” Keely asked.
“ That you’re strong,” she said.
Keely sighed. “ Okay , then.”
I narrowed my eyes, not liking the look of determination in Dorie’s eyes.
But Dorie seemed to release whatever determination that she was feeling because she started talking about sleep results, this week’s work schedule, and anything else under the sun that she could babble about.
By the end of the night I knew Keely’s next two weeks’ schedule, her favorite Thai place, and where she wanted to go on vacation next year.
Which was, apparently, something that she did every year by herself.
My phone rang in my hand as I was about to look up places to hike in Hawaii .
My brother’s name flashed across the screen, and I sighed long and loud.
I answered a few rings later and said, “ Hello ?”
“ Hey ,” Shasha said. “ I need a favor.”
“ The babysitting kind?” I asked hopefully.
I loved Shasha’s kids.
“ No .” He didn’t say anything more on the subject. “ Meet me at my office in town.”
I looked at the clock on the wall. “ It’s barely after one in the morning. It can’t wait?”
“ Not this time,” he said.
I sighed and grabbed my rifle case out of the safe, then loaded it up before heading out the door.
When I got to Shasha’s office, he was the only one there.
“ What’s wrong?” I asked as soon as I was in his office.
“ Multiple things.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “ You remember that bill that they’re trying to force through?”
The bill he was referencing was one on organized crime that a certain senator—the one that’d tried to kill Shasha’s wife—had introduced. Essentially , the bill that was proposed was one that would give the government free rein of our financials, businesses, and anything else they think might be related to our ‘organized crime.’
“ Sure ,” I said. “ What’s up?”
“ The bill was killed before it could get any further,” he said.
“ Okay ,” I said. “ That’s a good thing, right?”
“ Yeah .” His cheek twitched. “ Only , now they’re saying that I blackmailed them into dropping the bill. That I paid off lobbyists and made them too scared.”
“ Well …” I hesitated. “ Did you?”
“ Well , yeah.” He sighed. “ I just don’t want to deal with them shining a microscope on my life again. That’s partially why I encouraged Cutter to marry Milena . More connections means it’s harder for them to pinpoint where to start with their investigating.”
“ What exactly do you need me to do?” I asked finally.
“ Meet with someone at the prison,” he said. “ The one that Copper just got out of. He suggested we talk to his buddy, Slim , who has some information we might find interesting. But I can’t go today because it’s Vivi’s dance recital.”
I didn’t bother arguing.
This worked out well seeing as now I’d have a legitimate excuse to be there. If someone happened to die while I was there, that’s even better…
“ I’ll head there around eight in the morning,” I said. “ Gets me there at ten for visitation time.”
“ Thanks ,” he said. “ And if you get a feeling that he’s blowing smoke out of his ass, you don’t have to stay.”
I shrugged. “ It’s okay. I’ll get whatever he has, then we can sort through it when I get back later. What time will you be done today?”
“ The dance recital is at two. So maybe three-thirty-ish.”
I thought about that for a long moment before saying, “ I think I might stay down there. I have a buddy that got out a little bit before me that I want to check on.”
I did have a buddy near the prison, so I wasn’t exactly lying.
But I needed the excuse and was interested in having a rock-solid alibi.
Luckily , that buddy owed me a huge favor, not to say that he would care if I’d gone to kill a prisoner that’d hurt someone I knew. He was a good guy, and a solid citizen. But he wasn’t tolerant of men that abused women.
He’d cover for me.
Plus , I needed to do a little recon.
If I wasn’t super lucky that he’d be out today in the yard, I’d have to stay a few days to get his routine memorized and do what needed to be done.
But I had full trust in myself.
I’d figure out a way for that motherfucker not to exist, even if I had to sneak into the damn prison to do it myself.