Chapter 7
Yanick hated working. He loved what he did; however, he didn’t care for the people that he worked for, the staff that worked under him, nor the drive all the way to Columbus every evening that he had to go.
Sitting in his car outside the restaurant, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the seat.
He still had twenty-five minutes before he had to be inside, and he wasn’t going to rush getting in there under threat of death. It was too much for him.
“I have a question for you.” He smiled when Cass reached out for him. “It’s not a big deal that you might not know it, but you’re the first person I thought of, and that’s why I’m bugging you. Are you at work yet? I don’t want to disturb you while you’re carving up veggies or something.”
“I’m sitting in my car trying to convince myself to go inside to work.
I don’t actually carve up the veggies. I have people who do that for me.
Should they do it wrong, then I get to be the bad guy and tell them to redo them.
It’s the highlight of my day to be the mean boss.
” She asked him if he really was a mean boss.
“No. And that’s the reason that I dislike my job so much.
Everyone thinks I’m a pushover, and I have no control over what happens in my own kitchen.
What is it that I can do for you, my dear sister? ”
“What do you know about prostitution?” He wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he didn’t.
Which seemed to be fine with her as she clarified what she meant by asking him.
“I believe that Dick’s girlfriend is running a prostitution ring out of his apartment.
While none of the work goes on in the place, there is a lot of activity going on in and out of there.
Women mostly with a couple of men. I think what happens is that they show up, get their assignments for the evening, and leave.
The reason that I think that is because the neighbors complain about the amount of cars going in and out of their end of the complex.
Nothing is going on inside the place other than the phone calls and the people going in and out.
I think they might be turning over their cash too when that happens, but again, I can’t be sure. ”
“And why would you think that I’d have any idea what was going on with something like this?
I’m flattered, don’t get me wrong. I never would have thought of doing something like this in my wildest dreams, but tell me how you got to that conclusion.
” She told him. “So you think that all single men know how this works? I think you’re giving us a great deal more credit than we can ever hope to know.
I, for one, never used a prostitute. And I doubt very much that anyone I know has either, including my brothers.
But I love the way your mind works. Sure, I can see that happening.
But unless you pointed it out to me, I would never have gone there.
My mind isn’t on where my sex comes from so much as I—never mind. I don’t pay for sex.”
“I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew with this one. I don’t even know how I came to that.
But it makes sense. Like when he has money, he has a great deal of it.
I know this from talking to some of the people that he owes money to.
And there are a lot of them. But when he’s broke, he never seems to be worried about where his next buck will come from.
He pays his rent in cash along with his other utilities.
I can’t find a credit card in either of their names.
He doesn’t drive, but she does, but she doesn’t own a car.
I think she uses services to get around.
Him too, but I don’t know who he uses. She’s right out front with her money.
Wears designer clothing, expensive shoes, and makeup.
She also gets deliveries about three times a day.
” He asked her how she came to the conclusion of prostitution.
“I don’t know that either. It just popped into my head, and I couldn’t get rid of it.
I’m thinking of calling the police department and telling them what I’ve found out.
However, if they think I’m nuts, then there will be that that I have to contend with. ”
“I don’t know anything either, but if he’s not there and she’s doing it, he could just say that he didn’t know, and that would be the end of his part in it.
Unless you know that he’s part of it too.
” She told him that she didn’t, but he was right about him not being there.
“He’s suddenly has reservations in a hotel right now, he’s supposed to stay in when he gets out of jail.
Which might be sooner than expected. Do you suppose that she sent him money to live off of?
And why steal a credit card or cash if she has so much of it?
It’s sounding more and more like he has nothing to do with the ring, and it’s all on her.
I mean, I don’t know, but if you use your logic on it, it sounds like he’s just some guy who lets his girlfriend do whatever she wants while he’s away. ”
It was time for him to go in, and he didn’t want to. He was having too much fun speculating on things with Cass. As he made his way into the back door of the restaurant, he talked to her more about this supposed job that his girlfriend had.
“Even if you are right and it sounds like you’ve given this a great deal of thought, how would you get someone to go there and figure it out?
Call it in? I would imagine that they have plenty to do in New York with this sort of thing.
” He put on his apron and looked at the night’s specials.
He was going to need a lot of carved-up veggies tonight and some steaks.
He got the people working with him to get on that right away.
“This is the most fun I’ve had in a while.
I wonder where your mind went when you thought this up, but I’m also not sure if I want to know.
You have a very strange way of thinking of things. ”
“That’s why, because I think outside the box.
” He said that was good of her and laughed.
People turned and looked at him, and he waved them off.
“This is really thinking right outside of the box, isn’t it?
I do wonder at times if I should have been a detective or something.
I love looking for clues and getting to the bottom of things. ”
“Yes, but thinking about them and actually doing something about them is different. One will give you a headache, the other might well get you killed.” She told him she was being careful, and he believed her.
With her breeding, Conri would make sure she was being extra careful as well.
He did wonder if his brother knew about what Cass was doing and decided that he wasn’t going to say anything. He liked his head right where it was.
For the rest of the evening, the two of them talked about it off and on.
It made his evening go better, and he wasn’t in such a terrible mood when something went wrong.
He knew it wouldn’t be his fault when it did, but somehow it always came back to being his fault in some form or another.
By the time he was ready to go home for the day, they’d decided to see if Conri could get another pack member to watch over the place and see if what they were talking about was true.
It might not get as much jail time for Dick as they hoped, but it might also get him out of the way for a while. It was worth looking into.
While driving home, he thought about Dick and what he was doing to Sharon.
He couldn’t believe the greed of some people and was sorry that she had to go through all this.
He’d experienced some greed when he’d taken a couple of different women out.
They had it in their heads that since he had money, he should want to spend it on them.
He did to a point, but not like they wanted and expected.
As he was getting on the highway to go home, he thought of his job and how much he hated doing it anymore.
He used to love cooking, but now it was nothing more than another chore that he had to do.
It was about time he changed his career and did something that he liked and couldn’t for the life of him remember doing anything but cooking since he was old enough to reach the stove.
What he needed to do was find himself a mate so that she could shake things up for him like the other two had done for his brothers.
Not that he was actively looking for a mate.
But then neither had his brothers. They just appeared.
But he was more on his toes than they’d been and thought that if she came along, he’d be more in tune with her than his brothers did like Kendrick.
He seemed to not have any idea what he was doing most of the time, and he blamed that on not having sex with his partner.
Or that could be just him. Yanick didn’t know much about mates, but he did know that he wanted one in his life.
The last time he’d moved, he thought it was a house that he could live in for the rest of his life.
It had everything that he needed in the way of places to use.
It was larger than he thought that a couple starting out needed, but he thought that spare rooms were just that spare.
He wasn’t under any kind of obligation to fill them out with children.
He didn’t even know if he ever wanted little ones running around.
He would like a mate that he could travel with and have fun with.