Page 8 of Vice

4

Viper

Dele has once again managed to stun me.

For multiple reasons.

I’d recognize Dele in any getup or disguise. I know her so well I can pick her out a crowd just by her gait. But today, even though I knew when I laid eyes on her who she was, I had to do a doubletake. Because she looks so different from the Dele I know and am familiar with.

I thought she’d looked different four years ago when I discovered her in a small sleepy town in Canada, having traded in her holey denim, crop tops, bralettes, and short hair with streaks of color for leggings, oversized shirts, and long, dark, wavy hair. But this is a total transformation. With her wavy highlighted blonde hair, breezy green jumpsuit with a slit up the sides, stiletto sandals, and accessories to match (including a hat of all things), she looks like a completely different person.

If even I have to do a doubletake, then Pray definitely won’t recognize her. The only time either of them met, she was a firecracker fifteen-year-old who made it plain she hated the man’s opinions and spent the entire time being rude and dishing him thinly veiled insults.

Pray, to his credit, had put up with her for all of ten minutes before growing just as heated. Though, a person who didn’t know him would only assume he was keeping his composure. But I saw the crinkle in his eye and twitch of his lips. I didn’t particularly blame him then, and even though I want to kill the man, I still don’t. Dele has always had a way of inciting a person’s emotions, and not everyone could put up with that. Pray certainly couldn’t.

After that disastrous meeting I vowed to never put them in the same room again. If she looks such a far cry from her normal profile, then she certainly looks nothing like the feisty fifteen-year-old that butted heads with the biggest drug kingpin in the west.

Not with the way she charms and dazzles all those around her with her smiles, her laughs, her wit, that feigned Italian tilt to her voice, and even her business savvy. Even with her chic and stylish dress, she never lets anyone think for a second that she’s all looks and no brains. Never lets anyone think she’s only the pretty face of her business while a bunch of people smarter than her make decisions. She makes sure everyone knows she’s intelligent. And more important, that she knows it too.

Even the man she hates more than anyone in the world, more than even me, the man she plans to kill, is impressed with her. Not enough to use her, but enough that he doesn’t think she’s some emptyheaded floozy as he’d said to me in private before this entire thing.

Yet even as dazzling as she is, I can’t forget that she’s here. Rightherein the predator’s nest. On his turf. Hiding in plain sight, though she may be. Right in his perilous grasps.

It’s the exact opposite of lying low, though Dele would make the argument that she is. Make the argument that I asked her to lie low as Vicious. Not as Addy Bianchi. Because it wasn’t Addy Bianchi that was under suspicion and being looked into by three men sitting at this table. But this is still dangerous. Because whether she knows it or not, she’s taunting Pray. Flaunting herself right under his nose.

What she does know perfectly well is that if I had known she planned to do this, I would have been against it. Which is why she conveniently decided not to tell me. Which is why she decided to show up and stun me knowing there was nothing I could do about it.

She needlessly and thoughtlessly threw herself into the most dangerous situation she could ever put herself in. And it infuriates me that she’s so hapless about her safety. And just as soon as I can meet up with her again, it’s going to take every piece of restraint I have not to kill her for it.

Suddenly, Dele turns to meet my gaze. She smiles at me though her question is directed to Pray.

“And what does the infamous Adrian Blake do for your company now after shelving his bad boy and gang affiliate ways?” she asks.

I blink out my brooding gaze, stunned yet again. I hadn’t expected Dele to address me. Especially not with a question that so blatantly references my past.

There’s nothing particularly strange or suspicious about it. It’s public knowledge that I used to be a Sole and the media sees them as little more than a powerful gang stopped by Pray’s bravery before they could become too powerful to stop. But it’s still bold. Most people choose to selectively never mention it. The antics of a young, immature man who didn’t know the way the world worked. Every man is allowed to have an indiscretion or two.

“Well, why don’t you ask the man that yourself?” Pray says gesturing to me.

“Well,Mr. Blake?” she asks in her feigned Italian accent.

Damn her. Damn her all the way to hell.

“I…” I shake my head. “I’m the chief engineering compliance officer.”

Dele exchanges a patronizing look with Pray of all people before looking back at me, “Oh? And what does that entail.”

“Making sure we’re kept up to date with tech and engineering codes regulations and stuff like that. Particularly when it comes to tech and machinery.”

“Oh,” she says perking up with obviously feigned curiosity. “So it’s like… like a police then? Keeping law and order and peace.”

Most cops are dirty. Mainly bought and sold by some criminal mobster or another. If they’re not actually the criminal mobster. And the ones that aren’t can only do so much when everyone else is corrupt. But her meaning is clear.

“Yeah,” I say dryly, averting my gaze from her. “Something like that.”

Pray laughs. “Don’t mind him, Addy, my dear. Adrian is quite shy.”

Dele doesn’t look at Pray as her smile suddenly turns coy. “I wouldn’t say shy. I knew many men like him back home. Silent. Broody types. Men of few words. Only speaking when it truly matters. I’m sure when it counts, he can put his mouth to much good use.”

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