Page 90 of Root

“Have you asked Ed?” I ask.

“Ed’s usually drunk or in Florida these days. Probably drunk there, too,” she says. “When he lost the bar in the card game in Santa Fe, the winners were careful about moving in. They kept it all lowball. But as far as Nikolai and I can trace things, the trouble we’ve had goes back to that moment. There was before Bunny’s changed hands, and after.

“We need to find out who owns it.” I shift in the seat. “The real owners because there’s zero information on paper. Just Ed’s name, but nothing going into accounts for him. Just his liquor license and a business account, but nothing personal. It’s like the new owners don’t want to be seen.”

“Yet.” She smiles.

“Yet.”

Then she stands. “We want to stop the rumblings. Keep Queenstown as it is, ours. And everyone in their place, carving out their piece in peace.”

I nod.

“It doesn’t take much to bring things tumbling down, Rush. So let’s not.”

“I’ll be careful in my poking about.”

She dismisses me, and I wait until I’m outside in the afternoon air to breathe a sigh of relief.

I need someone on the inside.

Someone who knows gangs.

Jess.

I think it might be time to channel my inner Nikolai and find out what she’s up to.

Even if I have to lie and manipulate to do so.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jess

“I think we should swap places.”

Rush flops down on the sofa opposite me and loosens his tie, ruffling his hair before pathetically reaching toward the bottle of tequila on the coffee table without leaning forward.

I harden my everything against him and his no-good boy charm he’s currently exuding.

“You can reach the booze from there, just as well as I can,” I say.

He pins me with a look. “You’re meant to be kind and pour me one. Do you know how hard it is to fill Nikolai’s shoes?”

I turn the page in the book. I like this library. I probably shouldn’t be in it as it’s clearly full of his cousin’s books, serious things bursting with a lot of death and blood. Old school people were such goths. I’m impressed.

But I’m here because Rush likes to come home and hang out in here with me when he’s done being Nikolai’s gofer.

We’ve carefully skirted the sex thing. I have, anyway, by shutting it down.

What I should be doing is getting the hell out of here.

I should be snooping.

More than I have been.

The need to snoop and find things the Ten64 might want is the only reason I’m still here. It’s nothing to do with the fact Rush is here. Nope, it’s everything to do with Brutus in the clutches of the Ten64s.

I need to text them, barter an update on Jack, maybe speak to him in exchange for the fact Nikolai and his wife have vacated.

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