Smith and Gus walked into the apartment moments later. I greeted both the same as DJ. Gus looked at Sephie, a small smile on his face. He looked to me, then said, “I mean no disrespect, sir, but Trino has talked very highly of her. I can now see why.”
“Tell Trino I love him, but he still has no chance,” Sephle said, smiling shyly.
Gus laughed loudly. “If you don’t mind, I’ll skip telling him that. But he thinks very highly of you, Sephie.”
She had put her hand in mine once again after I shook hands with Gus and Smith. I squeezed her hand, nry thumb tracing circles on hers.
“He’s here. I’ve got a clean shot,” Stephen said. Both Ivan and I looked down at Sephie. She looked up at both of us, the fear was evident on her face.
Ivan said, “take the shot,” in Russian. Silence for a moment, then “done. Guys are moving in to get him out of the way. All clear.”
Sephie quietly said, “thank you.” I looked to Ivan, who understood immediately. He put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him as I looked to the three dealers. “Gentlemen, let’s begin,” I said. “There’s still one other guy, sir. He should be here soon,” Smith said.
“He will not be joining us,” I said firmly. The dealers all looked at Chen, like he had something to do with it. “It was my decision. Chen had nothing to do with it. Chucky was not to be trusted,” I stated, flatly. I did not like to be questioned, but I entertained this one. I needed them to trust me.
“How did you know he couldn’t be trusted? You didn’t even meet him,” Smith said. He was nervous, but he struck me as the type to not back down from a fight, no matter how outgunned he was. His type was useful, given he could control his temper. It was evident that he was not happy with this situation, even without knowing what happened to Chucky yet. His tone was short. A little too short.
I felt Sephie step beside me. Just like she had told me that she could feel my anger before, I could now feel hers even before she was beside me. I didn’t need to look at her to know that she was seething at Smith’s tone. “He didn’t need to meet him. I’ve known Chucky for years. I’m the one that decides who we trust and who we don’t, so if you’re smart, you’ll watch your tone when addressing Ghost because I do not care for it and I’d ha te to see you meet the same fate as your pal Chucky.” She had crossed her arms across her chest as she began talking to him. She had taken a few steps closer to him as she noticed him. shrink back slightly, which meant that every single one of us had also taken steps closer to him as she did. It didn’t matter what she did, she knew we were always standing behind her. It gave her confidence. I was proud to see her stand up and fully realize her power. She’d fa ced demons much worse than this punk and she was becoming aware of just how strong she really was. She knew we would always be with her.
Just to get her point across with an extra exclamation point behind it, I stood directly behind her and stared down Smith until he dropped his gaze. As soon as he did, she simply said, “smart man,” and walked back to stand next to Ivan. She glanced at me. as she turned, her eyes were dark again. Like they were the day she fought Mike. I was thankful for just a brief glimpse of them It was an unexpected turn on the last time I saw her eyes go dark. I didn’t need to deal with that on top of everything else right now.
We all heard Stephen say quietly, “if I wasn’t g ay, that probably would’ve been super hot.”
I had to clear my throat to keep from laughing at him. I don’t know how the other guys and Sephie managed to not laugh, but ! didn’t hear a peep out of them.
Gus caught my eye, then glanced quickly to Smith then back to me. He shook his head discreetly. Sephie caught it too. She said quietly, in Russian, “let it play out. I want to know why he doesn’t trust him.” “Sir, if I may, on behalf of all the dealers we’ve talked with, we want you to know that we’re not down with this plan to replace the city’s supply with brawn. Most of us remember the last time brawn was in the city. I know that the bosses took the credit for stopping it the last time, but it was us. We all refused to sell it, so the bosses had no choice but to stop pushing it. We’re not down with selling it again and we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn’t happen,” DJ said.
“Tell me what you know of the plot and what you’ve found so far,” I said, looking between all three of them.
Smith was quick to object. “We’ll tell you what we know after you tell us what you know.”
We heard Stephen chuckle. “Ivan, Sephie, take one step to your left. Boss, take one step to your right.” We immediately did as he said. As soon as we were out of the way, a very obvious red dot appeared on Smith’s forehead.
Ivan said, “you talk a big game for someone who’s squarely in the cross hairs.”
Adrik
Smith looked to Ivan, somewhat confused. Stephen moved the red dot to Smith’s chest so he could see it. Ivan pointed to Smith’s chest. “You got a little something there…”
Smith looked down, then immediately back up. He was speechless. I knew Stephen would keep his sight on him for the rest of the meeting, just to prove a point.
Gus laughed quietly. “You du mbass,” he said, shaking his head. “Sir, we’ve been scouring the city trying to find where they’re making the brawn. I’m sure you know it takes a specific setup to produce, so they can’t produce it just anywhere. To get enough to replace the whole city’s supply of regular drugs, they’re going to need a massive operation. We’ve found two smaller operations. One in Vito’s area of the city, one in Niko’s. Neither of those are large enough, in my opinion, to produce enough to fully replace the supply, but they’ve been running non-stop since we found them. It’s possible, I guess, if they’ve been working at this for a while.”
“The one place we’re having difficulty getting near is the docks. It’s in Sal’s area of the city and it’s crawling with his men. My guess is they have a larger operation there, but we can’t get close enough to confirm that,” DJ said.
“You have the exact location of the smaller operations?” I asked.
“Yeah. We’ve got guys watching it all the time, since we don’t know when they’re going to try and replace the supply. We’re not depending on Sal to give his dealers the heads up. If they start moving their supply, we want to know,” Gus said.
“We’re going to need the location of those two. The third is at the docks. We’ve confirmed that one. It is large enough to replace the whole city’s supply. The other two are likely backups,” I said. “How many dealers do you guys know for sure will help us?”
“There’s a couple hundred in the city, at least. I’ve only talked to like 50, DJ talked to another like 40-50. Chen? How many have you talked to?” Gus asked.
“At least 40, maybe more. I did not realize there would be a test on that later, so I wasn’t keeping track. But I’ve talked to at least 40, Chen said.
“That’s most of the city’s dealers. You’re sure the ones that work for Sal, Niko, and Vito are with you and against selling brawn?” Ivan asked.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.