Page 224 of Boyfriend of the Hour
“What are we going to do?” I was having a hard time breathing.
“That’s easy,” Mike replied as he draped a heavy, tattooed arm over his eyes to block out the light. The guy looked like he was in so much pain. I would have gotten up to turn it off, but I wanted to see his face. I wanted toseeperiod. “You’re gonna do what he says. You’re gonna do what he says until they get lazy. And they will get lazy because none of these assholes would be doing what they’re doing if they had it in them to make an honest living. So when they do, you’re gonna run, Joni. And you’ll let me take the blame.”
I reared back. “I can’t do that. I can’t leave you here.”
“You can, and you will.” Mike moved his arm to peer at me through his one good eye. “Joni, listen to me. You’re gonna get the hell out of the city and go straight to your brother’s. Matt has friends in the NYPD and in other high places. Those de Vries people. Xavier too—he knows some heavies. They’ll know what to do to keep you safe.”
Eric de Vries. Xavier Parker.
He didn’t have to add Nathan Hunt—or at least his family—but he belonged in that category of the ultra-powerful too.
“But what about you?—”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“You will not be fine,” I argued back. “You’re already not fine. I’m not exactly part of ‘the life’ or anything, but even I know this was probably just an appetizer if they wanted to keep you here. What do they want from you, anyway?”
Mike sighed. “Same thing they want from you. Obedience. This is what happens to people who make deals with the Antonis and don’t follow through. I told them they could have me if they left my girl and her family alone—that was twenty years ago, and Lis never forgot. What did you offer?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I swear to God, I never promised them anything.”
“Not a thing? An extra lap dance at that party, maybe? A wink and a smile? You didn’t accidentally agree to something he wanted, even if it was just to get him off your back?”
Mentally, I tried to review that night. Had I done that? Maybe smiled a little too brightly in response to one of his jokes? Given a perfunctory “You betcha, babe!” or maybe a “Can’t wait!” to a casual invitation or something equally inane?
I didn’t think so. But if I was being honest, I’d been too focused on avoiding my ex’s hands and Carrick’s disapproving glares to notice anything else.
There was one other thing, though.
“He wanted me to serve drinks at a party on a boat,” I said. “My boss—the guy who ran the gaming event—told me about it. But I said no. Or maybe. I don’t remember.”
“And he was okay with that?” Mike didn’t sound convinced.
My silence told him everything he needed to know.
There was another dip again. The feeling of my stomach being in one place while the rest of me was in another.
I didn’t think it was only because I was scared.
“It was months ago,” I whispered. “Kyle never called me back about it, and I was in Paris, then the surgery and Virginia. There’s no way that’s what this is about.”
Mike’s good eye closed, and his grim scowl told me that’sexactlywhat this was about. At least for me. Dread pooled in another dip, mixed with the knowledge that we were almost certainly not in the Bronx anymore. And if that was true, then no one was going to find us ever.
“You’re going to do what I said,” he told me again. “Give him what he wants, and leave when they give you an opening.”
“But—”
“Joni. Just do it.”
I opened my mouth to argue with him but found I couldn’t.
And it was a good thing, too. Because right then, the door opened, and Shawn walked in, followed by Kyle, another man with slicked, dark hair, and lastly, Lis Antoni himself.
FORTY-EIGHT
EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
#7 Albania
