Page 43 of Fixate
This had to be Henri.
Pip would have been much less formal.
As if I summoned him, I felt a gun press against the back of my head. Laughter drew the attention of the other men, who were quick to pull their own weapons.
“How the fuck did you get in here?”
The man I suspected to be Henri cursed loudly. “Pip! Drop the gun. That’s Pharrell’s guest.”
My shoulders dropped a fraction at the recognition in his voice. Then I immediately wondered how the fuck he knew me. I’d never met him before. I always remembered a face.
“Is that so? Then where is the boss?”
“For fuck’s sake, Pip. Do as he said. That’s Ricardo. He’s mine.”
I shivered at the authority in Pharrell’s voice. He spoke like he owned me. Like I was his and no one else was allowed to so much as touch me.
My cock decided it liked that very much. I was half hard by the time he walked around to face us.
Pip took his time lowering his gun. I waited until Pharrell nodded at me, then I moved to his side and faced the man who was seconds away from killing me.
“Oh, you’re cute. I can see it now, Boss,” he said.
I shook my head. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you Pip, but —”
“It would be a lie. Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it before. Usually right before I put a bullet through someone’s skull or fuck them into a coma. This is anticlimactic.”
“A coma? That’s fucked up.”
He grinned at me. Had he not just nearly killed me, I might have appreciated the curve of his mouth and the glimmer in his eye. Instead, all I saw was the deranged killer behind the handsome face.
“None of them complained while stuffed with my dick. The coma was an accident. Both times.”
“Dammit, Pip. We don’t need to hear about what you do in bed.” Henri stepped closer to us, then lowered his voice. “Besides, we have an audience. The boss might want to make things clearer rather than rehash your sexual exploits.”
Pharrell stood straighter, turning to face the room of men. Their eyes bounced between him and me, with a few watching Henri and Pip too. It was clear they weren’t all too sure what to make of everyone.
“This is Ricardo. He comes from the Romano family. Dante has granted me the right to take him into our fold under temporary reign. You are to treat him as you treat me. Understood?”
“Yes, boss!” went up around the room.
I stood still, unsure what the fuck was going on. First, he claimed me as if I were his property. Then he told his men to treat me like they did him. It was giving a very mixed image of who I was.
Either way, there was nothing for me to do unless I wanted to go up against him or make him seem like he’d misspoken. They needed to trust everything he said. That was going to be a major part of ensuring he had their undying loyalty moving forward.
We had no way of knowing how deep his wife’s reach went. She could have turned more than the men he’s already found out about. My role here was to infiltrate things enough to weed out the rest.
“Do you want to say anything, Ricardo?” Pharrell asked me, his voice still loud enough to carry.
I let me eyes rake over the group of men as I shook my head. “Not much to say yet. I’m ready to get to work. No reason to stand around when it looks like there’s money to be made.”
My tone was casual, meant to sound like one of the guys. I could see a few of them relax from the image I gave. A couple didn’t look so easy about it. They were suspicious, as they had every right to be.
I wasn’t there to be their friend. I wasn’t even there to boss them around.
I was judge, jury, and possibly their executioner. Making sure Pharrell didn’t have more unrest was my sole purpose.
CHAPTER 16
