Grievous (Scarlet Scars #2)(62)

Three slides into the backseat, right behind me, slamming the door a bit harder than necessary.

“Three,” I say, “you were three seconds away from getting your bowels blown out today.”

He starts to talk but immediately pauses, brow furrowing as he scoots to the middle of the backseat, looking up at me. “I think Lexie’s done that to me before.”

I look at him. “What?”

“Yeah, isn’t that where they stick their tongue—?”

Seven groans, covering his face as he leans forward against the steering wheel.

“Just tell me what you found out,” I say, cutting him off before he goes into detail about the kinky shit they’ve done. “And it better be something, because if I sat out here waiting while you got your dick sucked...”

“Of course not, boss,” he says. “Kept it in my pants the whole time. We were just talking.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense here. Tell me what your little Daisy Chain had to say.”

He starts spilling. I’ll spare you the word-for-word and summarize, since Three seems to like to hear himself talk and he just keeps going on and on and on.

Scarlet’s most definitely inside. Aristov has her locked in the basement, only one set of keys to get down there, which are usually in Aristov’s possession. Security is tightened at the moment, which is what took Three so long. Wasn’t easy navigating past all the armed guards.

“Thursday,” Three says after a moment. “I know it’s a few days away, but Lexie thinks that’s our best chance to get her out safely. Aristov has the party happening at his house, so we know he’ll be gone, and by then he’ll relax security again, figuring he’s in the clear, you know? Lexie can keep an eye out for the kid at the house while we go after Scarlet, maybe hit them back-to-back.”

“Maybe,” I agree, although it sounds a lot like bullshit. Who’s to say Aristov won’t kill them both before then? Hell, maybe they’re already dead because I took too long coming up with a plan.

Patience has never been my strong suit.

I’m not exactly keen on waiting for anything.

Nor am I good at planning, for that matter.

I’m the shoot first, ask questions never type... you know, the kind to toss a grenade in a packed room to solve a personal problem?

“Or,” I say, stressing the word, “I can just walk in right now and make it all go BOOM.”

Three laughs as he settles into the backseat, while Seven starts the car, like he thinks we’re about to leave. I don’t like it, though. I just can’t walk away. It feels wrong, her being right there and me not doing a goddamn thing about it.

That’s not me.

“Wait here,” I order, opening my door and climbing out of the car.

I carry the grenade with me.

I know the guys notice, because they sure as fuck shout loud enough, yelling for me not to do anything stupid. But stupid is sort of a relative term, isn’t it? Stupid, to me, would be coming the whole way here and not even dropping in to say hello to the Russian bastard. After all, when I called, I told him to expect to see a lot of me until this was settled.

What better time than right now to get the ball rolling?

I stroll right on up to the front door. The bouncers see me, recognizing me, suddenly all on edge, but they don’t do a damn thing as I waltz past them and head inside. Music echoes through the place, masking other noises, although none of it is detectable outside of the building.

Soundproofing is quite genius, given his business.

If I didn’t hate the guy so much, out of principle, I’d probably like him. He’s crafty. I might have to start borrowing a bit from his bag of tricks.

As soon as I’m inside, right through the doors, hulking bodies surround me—five guys, guns drawn, aimed at my head like they’d get a kick out of being splattered with my brains tonight.

I raise my hands, still clutching the grenade. They could try to take it from me, try to disarm me... hell, they could even go ahead and shoot me in the face... but they’d have four seconds to save themselves before we all got blown to pieces.

They take a few steps back, but nobody lowers their weapons, like guns are going to help them in this situation. Rock, paper, scissors, motherfuckers... you better take your pick and hope like hell you win.

“I just want to say hello to your boss,” I say, “and then me and Betty-Boom here will be on our way.”

For some reason, they don’t look like they believe me. It kind of hurts my feelings.

Just kidding.

I wouldn’t trust me, either.

A bark of angry Russian echoes nearby before Aristov rounds a nearby corner. He’s fuming, so irate that he almost doesn’t notice me, but when he does, he stops dead in his tracks. His eyes flicker around, assessing, before he simply nods his head toward his office, telling his guys, “Let him in.”

I step past them. They don’t look happy about it, but nobody tries to stop me as I walk over to Aristov’s office, following him inside. He spews out more Russian to two guys lurking in there, who immediately vacate the room, closing the door behind them, so it’s just me and him.

He heads for the vodka. “So it is true, then, that you deal in heavy weapons?”

“As true as the rumors of you kidnapping and raping women.”