Page 69 of SINS & Riley
Do not lash out.
The mantra grinds through me, dulling the edge just enough.
I lick my lips, swallowing bile and disgust as I inject interest into my voice.
“If I need a drink, I’ll definitely find you.”
I turn back to Andre, my tone sliding into casual psychopath.
“Did you invite me here to watch you fuck her, or are we getting down to business?”
He waves a sloppy, dismissive hand and the girl scurries away, bare feet whispering against cold marble.
He reaches for the decanter, pours two tumblers, and pushes one toward me. “Drink.”
I meet his gaze, unblinking. “No.”
He nudges the glass forward another inch. “You came all this way. Do me the honor of toasting the man who took down Dante D’Angelo.”
I take it, swirl the amber liquid, and study it.
He wants me to drink. Desperately.
To be clear, I will never—this lifetime or the next—put anything this man touched near my mouth.
Poison has always been his game. Cyanide. Arsenic. Even that fucked-up brew they cook in the back alleys of Karachi.
Frankly, I’d rather die that way than from the filth festering under his fingernails.
For a man who shits more than a rhino, he’s never once turned on a bathroom sink.
Hard pass.
I lean back, lips curving. “If I wanted crap whiskey and cheap whores, we could’ve hit a bar.” My gaze drops to the carpet. “Persian?”
His chest swells, smug pride etched across his face. “Yes. Woven for a sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Seventeenth century. It’s worth ten times what I owe you. Perhaps you’d be interested.”
“I don’t think so.”
I tip the glass, swill bleeding into the threads, then drop the tumbler.
The dull thud of Baccarat crystal on a soaked weave is music to my ears.
Anger flares across his face. His hand twitches just so, and I know he’s two seconds from signaling his men to fire?—
Until I part my jacket.
That’s when his Jabba-the-Hutt expression curdles.
I’m strapped with enough plastique to turn his entire empire to ash.
He catches on, snorts. “They’ll just put a bullet in your head.”
“That’s why I have this.” I lift my hand, let him see the dead man’s switch glinting. “I go down, I let go. Andre and his merry band of fucktards go boom.”
The fury burning in his eyes is fucking priceless.
But it’s short-lived. He swallows it down.
