Page 112 of Pretty Vengeful Queen

DANTE

“He giveyou any incentive to go easy on him, Tre?” one of the weasels I’m with, a young guy named Duke, asks with a snicker as the three of us head to McKenna’s house.

We just finished a bullshit job, a shakedown that’s gonna burn more bridges for West Point than it’s gonna build, but neither of the two idiots in the car with me seem to see that.

I’m not surprised. The way McKenna does business doesn’t really leave room for the type of followers who know how to think for themselves. He’d only see them as a threat.

Instead, he seems to collect dumb pieces of shit like these two, who truly don’t seem to give a shit that fucking with the supplier they just threatened is gonna backfire if they ever have to follow through on their blackmail threats. If they take him out, a whole supply chain breaks down here in the city, and I’m not talking about the kind that city officials are gonna care about.

The Six, though? This ain’t the type of intel I’m looking for, but when we do get a chance to bring McKenna’s plans to their attention, I’m for damn sure gonna use it too. Even if McKenna wasn’t gunning for them directly—which I’m now fully convinced Sienna was telling the truth about, even though I still haven’t been able to get my hands on anything incriminating enough to bring in front of The Six—if left unchecked, his shoddy business practices are gonna destabilize Halston’s underground.

And that’s a threat to all of us,includingThe Six.

“What about you, Dante?” Duke asks, nudging me with his elbow as he gives me a knowing grin. “You grab a little bonus for yourself while we were working him over?”

“Nah,” I say, giving him a lazy smile. “I’m still new here, remember? And that shit would have gotten me some repercussions with my last gang.”

Duke makes a rude sound. “Good thing you got out then before you went down with them.”

“No shit,” I say with an easy grin, burying my true feelings down so deep it’ll take a fucking excavator to extract them again. “But for real, Boss doesn’t mind if we skim a little here?”

“Boss doesn’t give a shit about what he doesn’t know, you know what I’m saying?”

I laugh along with him, but what I actually know is that they’ve got about as much loyalty to McKenna as he does to them, and about as many smarts too. Not only did McKenna send these two out to shakedown a supplier he actually needs some loyalty from if he wants to keep running a profitable business, but he obviously doesn’t take care of his own people well enough if they’re this excited about taking a little extra for themselves on the job.

Duke and Tre aren’t actually bad guys, just dumb as fuck and stuck with shitty leadership. Doesn’t mean I want to spend any more time with them than I have to, of course, but luckily for me, I’ve got a gift for blending in with people and getting them to trust me, so none of that shit shows on my face.

The two of them think we’re all tight, which works for my purposes. But if I hadn’t already hated these weasels before I was stuck masquerading as one of them for the past couple of weeks, I sure as shit do now.

None of them will ever truly get me the way my brothers and Riley do, but instead of letting my mind go there, I do a little fishing.

“Guess you gotta be here for a while to get one of those, yeah?” I ask, tapping the gaudy gold knuckle ring Duke’s wearing. I play up a hint of jealousy just to stroke his ego, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those signature “W-P-G” monstrosities that West Point treats as a point of pride.

And sure enough, Duke holds up his hand, twisting it so the light glints off the three stylized letters. “Definitely gotta pay your dues for one of these,” he says with a grin. But then he frowns. “And fuck, you’d think the boss would put more faith in those of us who’ve earned them, right, Tre?”

“Not lately,” Tre grumbles, keeping his eyes on the road as we wind through the ugly neighborhood McKenna’s house is in.

It’s all the encouragement Duke needs to keep bitching, so I just nod and keep quiet and let him. All information is potentially a weapon, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna miss out on anything that could help us here.

“Damn right,” Duke huffs. “He’s been treating us like expendable grunts lately. What even was this bullshit today? He could have had a couple of runners handle it. There weren’t even any… any…”

He flaps a hand around, scowling.

“Good shit,” Tre offers from the driver’s seat, flicking his eyes back in the mirror. “There weren’t no good shit. Boss should’ve just sent some runners to handle it today.”

Duke nods. “He’s been giving all the good jobs to the new people he brings in.” He nudges me with his elbow again. “Fucking noobs.”

“Hey now, I may be new, but I don’t know what all these ‘good jobs’ are you’re talking about. He sent me along with you today.”

I keep my smile bland as all fuck to mask how sharply I’m listening now. I’m sure by “new people,” Duke actually means the hired mercs, and any specifics I can get about what kinds of jobs McKenna’s been giving them is gonna help.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Duke says as we finally pull into McKenna’s driveway. Then he smirks at me and adds, “Then again, he didn’tbringyou in, you came begging, the way I hear it. Maybe that’s the difference.”

“I don’t remember begging. I just offered my services,” I say, giving him a lazy smile and refusing to rise to the bait. “I mean, come on now, a man’s gotta look out for himself. Isn’t that what we were just talking about?”

“Damn straight,” Tre says as we all pile out of the car. “Which is why next time, you gotta make sure you get a little something for yourself when Boss sends us out on one of these supply maintenance runs.”

He gives me a fist bump in solidarity, and I see my window of opportunity closing, so I push a little.

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