Chapter 15 #2
Dead silence meets her words. Simran finally looks up to find that the whole configuration of the room has changed.
Nearly everyone has a gun drawn. Nick isn’t looking at her anymore. His focus, along with his gun, is directed at Rory.
“So, Rory,” he says, “making a little money on the side, are we?”
Rory glares, but his hand has drifted to his waistband, too. “Are you seriously gonna believe this bitch over me?”
“I don’t know.” Nick nods to the Rolex on Rory’s wrist. “But your expensive tastes are starting to speak for themselves.”
He cocks the gun.
Simran stands without meaning to. “Wait!”
She hadn’t meant to speak so loud, but everyone’s heads swivel to her. A few guns, too. She holds her hands up, heart beating furiously. “I don’t think he’s—skimming. It could’ve been an honest mistake.”
Zohra scoffs, and Simran can’t blame her. She knows how naive she sounds. But she wasn’t trying to cause whatever this is. She was just excited to find a mistake in the ledger.
Nick ignores her. He speaks over his shoulder, to the others. “Search his car.”
Nick’s men advance on Rory. For one wild moment, Simran thinks they’re going to kill him right in front of her, and she squeezes her eyes shut.
All she hears is flesh hitting flesh, grunts, the screech of shoes against tile, and a slam against the wall.
Then silence. When she opens her eyes, a disheveled Rory is pushing off the wall, breathing hard and looking furious while the men retreat, one holding a ring of keys.
Zohra takes the keys and heads out the door. Nick remains, keeping his gun on Rory, whose nose is bleeding from the scuffle.
This is a nightmare. “Nick.” Simran can’t keep the desperation from her voice. “Please put the gun down.”
Nick doesn’t even look her way. “I knew there was something off about you, Rory.”
Rory is beginning to pale. “It was an honest mistake,” he says. “She’s right.”
“A minute ago she was a stupid, untrustworthy bitch. What changed?” Nick raises an eyebrow. “You were so reluctant to hand over the ledgers today. I wonder why.”
Rory’s jaw works.
“Please,” Simran says. “I—I wasn’t trying to—”
The store door opens again. Zohra, lips thin, tosses something at Nick. “Just this.”
A bundle of cash.
Nick turns it over in his hand, expressionless.
“You can’t prove where that’s from!” Rory’s eyes dart around. “And your shitty weighing scale wasn’t calibrated. I had to correct the number at the end after figuring it out.”
Nick’s lip curls, like he’s enjoying this a little. “Really, Rory? Why didn’t you say that before?”
Rory makes a break for it. He gets two steps before the Lions close in on him again. There’s another violent-sounding scuffle. Grunts. A flash of a knife, and Simran covers her face. She can’t watch, yet she can’t stop peeking from behind her fingers.
“Please, don’t, don’t—”
Zohra speaks. “Stop.”
And they do. Just like that.
“Take it outside,” she says, giving Simran a somewhat pitying look.
Someone gives Rory a shove, and he stumbles toward the door. Before he disappears, he turns to look at Simran.
The hatred in his eyes shakes her. She’s still staring after him when Nick comes up to her.
“Get back to work.”
Her hands are shaking. She strains her ears for a gunshot that will confirm her worst fears. “What will they do to him?”
Nick and Zohra exchange impatient looks, like Simran’s a bratty kid having a tantrum. “He knew the consequences of what he was doing.”
“Which are?”
Nick barks a laugh. He doesn’t answer her, though. “I want you to look over the rest of his work. Find out exactly how much Rory stole from us.”
The implications of that catch up to her. She’s in.
But Nick seems to read her mind. He leans over the table, getting in her face with those cold dark eyes. He seemed young to her earlier, but right now he seems ancient, barely human at all.
“Don’t get it twisted—you work for me. Don’t think about getting smart like Rory did. Don’t try being a hero, either. There’s no legal evidence in any of the ledgers you have access to. Got it? I have no problem snuffing you out if you decide to become a problem.”
She stares.
He slams his hand down on the table, making her jump. “I said, got it?”
A scream tries to work its way up her throat. She swallows it down. “As long as you leave Rajan alone.”
Nick digs into his pocket and produces another notebook. He throws it at her feet. “Fine.”
“And don’t tell him about this,” she adds, but he’s already swept out of the room, leaving her with Zohra and one of the men. Still, it’s a victory. She bends to pick up the new ledger. It takes her two tries because of her trembling.
When she straightens, Zohra sits on the countertop watching. “I used to be like you, you know. Soft.”
Used to be? How did she end up here, anyway? She doesn’t have the tattoo, but she clearly has power. Enough authority to get a bunch of grown men to take a murder outside. Enough experience to con Simran into trusting her, and enough audacity to act like it never happened.
Simran can’t help the bite to her words. “You mean, human?”
“Whatever it is.” Zohra’s expression doesn’t change. “It won’t last.”