Page 15 of A Fine Line

“You put her in the box?” Nettie exclaims. “Seriously, Tony! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I give her an incredulous look because she knows everything that’s wrong with me, but I tell her anyway, “I fucking hate her. We’ve already covered this.”

She rolls her eyes at me, muttering incoherently under her breath, earning a laugh from Darius.

“Hate to break up the party,” Matt interrupts what was likely a lead-up to a tirade from Nettie. “It looks to me like a lot of these people are already dead. It would probably be a good idea for me to bring in Anton on this one. I bet he’ll have a lot of insight on most of these fucking assholes.”

“Cross-check those names with his crew list first. Make sure he doesn’t have any obvious double-crossing motherfuckers in there.”

Matt picks up his phone, pressing a couple of buttons before putting the phone to his ear and walking away. I don’t believe that Anton would knowingly allow a woman-beating rapist on his crew, but we know how easily snakes hide in plain sight sometimes.

Darius whispers something in Nettie’s ear, and she glares at him, then rolls her eyes and whispers loud enough for me to hear, “Fine. You have your bro time.” She leans in like she’s going to give him a kiss but instead licks the side of his face like a dog, and when he attempts to grab her, she jumps out of reach, laughing.

Fucking disgusting.

Dare catches me giving him a dirty look and asks, “What? What are you looking at?”

“I’m downgrading you from beast to lapdog.”

His lips twitch, then he shrugs. “That’s fine with me. I never liked that shit name anyway.”

He may have never liked it, but it served its purpose well. What I find most amusing about Dare’s legendary reputation is that while only 75% of it may have been true, the true highlights reel is part of the 75%. Not that I think Darius has become tame or anything. If anyone wants to get a glimpse of the Beast, all they have to do is fuck with Nettie, and they’ll quickly find out what it’s like to have their spine ripped out and shoved up their ass.

“What’s the story with Carolina?” Dare throws the question out nonchalantly, humor twinkling in his eyes as he watches me.

“There is no story,” I say calmly. I lean back against the table, showing him how relaxed I am about the whole situation. “We came to an understanding. Simple as that.”

Dare sighs, then leans toward me, his forearms braced on his thighs as he replies, “Simple as that, huh?”

I raise a shoulder dismissively, glancing over at Matt, who’s still on the phone having a rather emphatic conversation. I feel Dare’s eyes on me, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what his goddamn problem is.

He looks like he’s going to say something further, but I’m saved by Matt waving us over. I rise, walking across the room toward him with Darius right behind me, and Matt points at a highlighted name on the paper on the table. “Anton said this guy is a good place to start. I managed to cross out more than half of the names as deceased. Anton’s gonna follow up on a handful of others to see if he can find out any information.”

“What about the other list?”

“A few of those are also listed as deceased. He said a couple of them are high up in the organization, so taking them out won’t be impossible, but it also won’t be easy.”

I scoff and wave my hand dismissively. “I’m not worried about easy. One way or another, they’re gonna be dead. And from what I understand about these fucking people, we may need to make an example of them.”

Dare chuckles from behind me, and I give him a dirty look over my shoulder as I ask, “Is there something you’d like to say, Darius?”

He shakes his head, but he’s still laughing. “Not at all. What could I possibly say about your need to get revenge for this woman that you fucking hate?”

I glare at him and then turn my glare at Matt, who’s also laughing. “I can hate someone and still not want them to be violated.”

Matt laughs again, then pats me on my shoulder as he gives me an incredibly condescending yet patient look. “Don’t worry, Tony. Your secret is safe with us.”

“I don’t have a fucking secret.”

Dare leans closer to Matt and whispers loud enough for me to hear, “I think he doth protest too much,” and Matt nods his agreement.

I slam my fist down on the counter. “Can we focus on what’s important here and figure out where to start in locating Carolina’s daughter, so then she can piss off to live happily ever after far away from me?”

The two assholes have one final laugh at my expense, and then Matt sobers and clears his throat. “Anton said he’ll put a team together for us, and we can go over there and make short work of these lists. It’ll take a little bit of coordination, but it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Wait. Where’s ‘over there’?”

“Russia.”

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