Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)(17)
Nero had made his way to the bar. He was standing in the narrow exit. Dale was trapped, drinks in hand.
As Lukas felt the hair on his body rise along with his inner temperature, the door opened once more, distracting him for only seconds. Milan, who’d been instructed to wait in the corridor with Yasha, stepped into the room. He met Lukas’s eye with a barely perceptible frown.
“I’m not going far, Nero.” Dale’s hushed voice was friendly but verging on curt. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll return after I deliver these drinks.”
Lukas knew he had to pay attention to who’d arrived, because going by Milan’s signal, it was someone interesting. But Nero was making a nuisance of himself. He’d cornered Dale. Had introduced himself. Had he been disrespectful? Mentioned to her he wanted to fuck her? Or eat her pussy? Or any number of things Lukas had heard the crass prick say to other women over the years?
Business was cast aside as his focus was dragged back to the bar.
“Lukas…”
Vasily’s quiet tone held a warning Lukas discounted because Dale was taking a step back. Nero had just reached out and cupped her shoulder. “…won’t last long,” he was saying. “What time are you finished?”
She put the glasses down on the bar top and picked up a napkin to dry her hands. “I’m working all night, and then I’m afraid I already have plans with a friend.”
“I’ll make it worth your while to break them.”
Lukas heard the door close, but only because a hush had fallen over the room. He didn’t look to see why and assumed it was because all the men present were watching Nero take out his wallet and throw three hundreds on the bar.
“You fuckin’ whores get more and more expensive and less and less accommodating.”
Nero’s words caused an earthquake to rip through Lukas, the cracks and fissures ravaging the qualities that made him a good leader-in-training. Things like diplomacy and tact and self-control were eradicated and replaced with rash lunacy and a primitive rage unlike anything he’d ever felt.
For a split second, as he approached, his gaze connected with Dale’s. She was shaking her head and saying something he couldn’t hear over the blood roaring in his ears.
“She. Is. Mine,” he growled as he raised a hand already curled into the shape of a claw. He gripped Nero by the hair and smashed that ruddy face against the bar top.
“Knew this was coming,” Samuel complained to someone. “But if you ask him, he’ll deny being a greedy prick with his belongings.”
“Looks like she’s fallen into that category.” Maksim sounded amused. “Doesn’t look thrilled about it, either. And I can see why. Watch when he lifts the D-bag’s head.”
Lukas tuned them out and did just that. And, yeah, he could understand why the sight of Nero in the state he was now in would bother Dale. Oh, well, she’d get over it.
He hammered Nero’s head down again, two more times in quick succession, which had blood splattering across crystal and liquor bottles. By then, the glass that had been on the bar, the one Lukas had shattered with the first hit, had broken apart so that only the base and one long, jagged side remained. Though, the side was no longer visible because it had been nailed too deeply into Nero’s eye socket and was now probably lodged in his brain—if the man’s uncontrollable shaking was any indication.
A feather-like touch on his arm had Lukas landing in his right mind with an almost audible snap. He looked to see Dale staring at Nero with eyes so wide and white it was obvious she’d never done a drug in her life.
“You…” Her head was moving from side to side. “Overreacted.” Her hand slid away, and her face grew pasty. “I’m…c-canceling…our d-date.” A disturbing vacancy replaced the horror in her eyes and Lukas didn’t think twice about letting Nero fall so he could move to catch Dale before she hit the floor.
He scooped up her light weight, barely swallowed a moan at how natural it felt to hold her, and stepped over his victim to head for the door.
That was when he saw the reason quiet had descended earlier. Though, because the sizable inferno they’d left at the warehouse last night had been plastered all over CNN today, with secret sources claiming organized crime involvement, he shouldn’t have been surprised a representative had been sent by the most influential man in their world.
Gheorghe Fane stood by the table, a curious smirk curving his mouth up. He was dressed in black slacks and a maroon dress shirt that had the top two buttons undone, and, as usual, no tie in sight. There were two men with him—at least they were in suits—that Lukas had never seen before, and that mattered little. As Lucian Fane’s rep, and blood relative, Gheorghe could have brought a harem of showgirls down from Vegas and they’d have had to look okay with it as they made room.
Milan, Yasha, and Adam were now on standby. Adam had his keys out. Milan was rolling up his sleeves. Yasha was on the phone. Lukas was pretty sure he’d just ordered a cleaner, which meant they thought Nero couldn’t be saved.
“Gheorghe.” Lukas walked over with Dale and extended the hand he had tucked under her knees. It was shaken. “Forgive the unscheduled entertainment. If you’d like to make yourself comfortable, I’ll return—”
“That call Gheorghe will make tomorrow, if he even bothers to spend the night in your city,” Vasily interceded as he, too, came over and shook the Romanian’s hand. “Gheorghe. Nice to see you. Go on, Lukas. Take her home and care for her so that she’s in top shape to meet her future father-in-law tomorrow. Samuel can fill you in later. We’ll take care of Nero.”