Page 21 of Queen of Blades

“Is there like a supersecret message board on the dark web or something?”

He chuckled. His mirth wrapped around her heart, because it had been so long since she’d heard that sound. It was once beautiful. But she had to stop thinking about that. He wanted to kill her.

“Nah,” he said on a sigh. “The Colombians brought it to the table for friends of theirs. The Sicilians approved it, but it’s up for grabs. You’ll be happy to know your father’s reputation had the Japanese sitting this one out.”

She glared at him. “But not you.”

His smile fell, and his face darkened. That expression she was far more familiar with. When they weren’t banging, that was the intimidatingdon’t fuck with melook he wore.

She couldn’t help but grin defiantly in the face of it. Backing down was not on her list of things to do. If he wanted to end her life, she’d make it the most difficult kill he’d ever done. She’d go down swinging.

“I already told you,” he growled. “If I don’t do it, someone else will, and it will be far worse than anything I could ever think of.”

“Can’t my dad just buy out the contract?” she suggested, considering Paul had already made it perfectly clear she didn’t have the funds to do so.

Her father was a lot of things—mostly cruel, dangerous, and a killer himself—but he was still her dad. He cared about her and definitely didn’t want her dead. They may be on opposite sides of the law, but they had agreed to disagree on that. They were blood, and that meant something to him. He loved her.

Paul shook his head slightly. “He doesn’t have thirty million.”

With eyes as wide as saucers, she couldn’t help but gape at him as she sputtered, unable to find words.

Million. Multiple million.

“Yeah, you see the pickle we’re in.”

He didn’t have to be so glib about it. This was her life he was talking about—and so nonchalantly, like they couldn’t decide what to order for breakfast.

Staring at a blank spot on the wall, Harper tried to wrap her brain around the idea that someone hated her enough to offerthirty millionto kill her.

Who the hellhadshe pissed off?

12

Paul

“Ineedtocallmydad,” Harper whispered.

“That’s not going to help,” Paul said. They were beyond that point. Though, did she really expect him to allow her to call for help? She wasn’t stupid. What was her deal? Did she think she’d fucked him into idiocy?

“He might know something you don’t.”

He scoffed and shook his head. “You think if your dad were aware of this, you would’ve been out alone?”

She glared at him.

Paul had purposely waited two days before he acted on things. He watched her intently as she went back and forth to court, out to dinner with her family, but never, not once had she had a biker escort. Snoopy, her father and the president of the Roughneck Riders Motorcycle Club,should’veput her under protection. Any idiot aware of the situation would have.

So why hadn’t he?

The only thing Paul could imagine was that he hadn’t known. But how the fuck did word not get to him by now? They were a sloppy organization, deep into the drug trade, but still. This was his goddamn kid. Not having ears to the ground about her was completely unfathomable.

It made Paul’s blood boil. He shouldn’t be in this situation.Harpershouldn’t be in this predicament. She should be protected, even if it was by inept goons in leather. Someone needed to look out for this gorgeous tattooed woman.

“I can’t just sit here and wait for you to kill me,” she sneered.

“So you think I’ll let you call in reinforcements?” Paul snorted. She was out of her damn mind, but then again, he couldn’t blame her. She’d been thrown quite the curveball. Honestly, she handled it well.

“You’re such a dick,” she spat.

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