Page 31 of Stay Toxic

At this time of night, it could be either one.

Ivan didn’t have the same sleeping and waking hours of normal people.

It didn’t matter if it was one in the morning or nine at night, he could be sleeping, or he could be having breakfast. Ivan had no predictability, and that was why I liked him so much.

“Pakhan,” he answered breathlessly.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” I drawled.

There was a murmur of voices, and then I heard shuffling.

“Nothing,” Ivan lied.

I grinned and explained what I needed him to do.

“Get with Lev and get him working on getting eyes in Houston on Cayden McCloud,” I instructed. “Something is going down, and I want to know what. More than what’s already going on.”

Ivan knew about Paulo, Joaquin, and Cameron. They all did.

The three men had been down in Houston at the shipping yards picking up a package—Cayden and I had an understanding that we could use the shipping yard as needed, making it neutral territory—when they’d been taken en route.

The package was gone, my men had been taken, and no answers had been forthcoming for weeks now.

Had Cayden been having issues he hadn’t shared with me?

“I’ll get right on it,” Ivan said. “I’ll head over to Lev’s now.”

I had to send Ivan to Lev because Lev was a bit…unconventional.

He didn’t like answering the phone for anyone but me and Ivan—his brother. But after a certain time of night, he refused to answer it at all.

Lev was different. Not in a bad way, but in a way that most people would look at him and think he was a freak.

Lev was different enough that people didn’t do well around him. He freaked them out.

After seeing enough people treat you like you were a leper, you tended to become somewhat of a recluse.

Only Ivan and I were allowed to go to Lev’s place, and only Ivan would get him to be functional at this time of night.

That’s why I didn’t bother going over.

Lev would only stall until morning when he felt like working.

No one pushed Lev to do anything he didn’t want to do, or he’d shut down.

But Ivan knew how to coax his brother into doing things he wouldn’t normally want to do.

Pulling up my phone, I made sure that the GPS tracker was tracking on my phone, then shoved the phone into my pocket and headed to my truck.

A truck wasn’t my first choice of vehicles—I liked my cars fast, loud, and old, preferably something that the government couldn’t hack into and turn off or manipulate in any way. I had a 1969 Chevy Camaro that was my baby. But my baby tended to catch attention that I didn’t otherwise want on me.

So I got a basic bitch Ford F-250 with slightly oversized tires in boring gray upon moving to Dallas permanently after finding my sister.

One thing I could say about it, it had really comfortable seats, even if the truck was so basic that sometimes I had trouble telling mine from other people’s.

The truck started up with a throaty purr—just because it was a basic bitch on the outside, didn’t mean that I didn’t get Ivan to modify it on the inside—and headed home.

I was pulling into my drive, the front gate opening as I pulled up to it, when I got a call back from Ivan.

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