Bitter Bite (Elemental Assassin #14)(13)
bad, very obvious, very shaggy black toupee seemed to bristle with
indignation. But instead of returning my stare with another hate-filled one,
the Russian mobster grinned, picked up his soda, and saluted me with it. Then
he put the glass down, leaned forward, and started whispering to Luiz, who
gave me a quick, nervous glance over his shoulder before dropping his head and
focusing on his food again.
Luiz didn’t have either the stupidity or the balls to come at me head-on. But
Dimitri . . . Dimitri was going to be a problem.
I cleared my throat, and Silvio looked at me.
I tilted my head in Dimitri’s direction. “Our Russian friend looks
positively smug today. Which means that he’s probably decided to strike back
at me. Care to nose around and see what you can find out?”
“Of course,” Silvio murmured, a bit of sarcasm creeping into his tone. “I
live to serve . . . when you actually let me do anything. I’ve been meaning
to diagram his organization anyway.”
“Diagram it? What do you mean?”
Silvio turned his tablet around so that I could see it and swiped through
several screens of pie charts, bar graphs, and more. “Diagram it. You know,
break down his operations into manpower, money earned, front businesses, and
so on and so forth. Just in case you ever needed to, shall we say, dismantle
it in a hurry.”
I arched my eyebrows. “Pie charts are going to help me dismantle a criminal
organization?”
The vamp straightened up and smoothed down his tie, affronted that I would
mock his precious pie charts. “Absolutely. As an assassin, you should know
that information is often the key to cutting off certain problems before they
get started.”
“Of course, you’re right,” I drawled. “Silly me for thinking that I had
been cutting off certain problems with my knives for years now.”
Silvio sniffed and gave me a chiding look, not at all amused by my black
humor. Sometimes my assistant was a little too prim and proper for his own
good. I resisted the urge to lean across the counter, muss his hair, take away
his tablet, and give him a time-out.
Luiz slid out of the booth, threw enough bills down onto the table to pay for
ten meals, and skedaddled out of the restaurant. But Dimitri took his sweet
time, making a big show of giving me one more soda salute and a smug smirk
before peeling some bills off a fat roll, tossing them onto the table, and
ambling out through the front door.
Oh, yes. The mobster was definitely going to be trouble. But trouble was
another one of those things that I specialized in, along with cutting off
problems. I’d handle Dimitri the same way I had the rest of the lowlifes who
’d come after me: permanently.
The lunch rush wrapped up, and the day wore on. I was sliding a batch of
chocolate chip cookies into one of the ovens when the bell over the front door
chimed.
“I hear we’re going on a double date,” a low, familiar voice murmured
behind me.
I almost dropped the tray of cookies, but I tightened my grip at the last
second, shoved the tray into the oven, and shut the door. To give myself a few
more moments to prepare, I set the timer on the counter. Then I plastered a
smile on my face and turned around.
Finnegan Lane, my foster brother, was perched on a stool next to Silvio. The
vamp might look dapper in his suit, but Finn was positively resplendent in
his. The navy Fiona Fine jacket stretched across his shoulders, the matching
shirt underneath clinging to his sculpted muscles. Add the sharp suit and hard
body to his bright green eyes, walnut-brown hair, and dazzling smile, and you
had a devilishly handsome package, as Finn would proudly tell you himself. He
knew exactly how gorgeous he was and used it to his advantage whenever he
could.
I wondered if that was a trait he’d inherited from Fletcher—or his mother.
Finn kept grinning at me, and I forced myself to act casual and step forward,
so that I was standing on the opposite side of the counter from him, just as I
’d done a thousand times before.
“Yep. Owen and I are crashing your swanky shindig, and then I’m taking you
and Bria out to dinner at Underwood’s. My treat.”
“Your treat?” Finn asked, a teasing note creeping into his voice. “Is
something wrong?”
My hands curled around the edge of the counter, but I managed to crank up the
wattage on my smile. “Why would you think that?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Because you hardly ever offer to pay, especially at
Underwood’s.”
I snorted. “That’s because whenever I do, you always insist on ordering the
most expensive things on the menu, regardless of whether you actually like
them.”
Another, wider grin stretched across his face. “What can I say? I have
expensive tastes, baby.”
I snorted again, but Finn cackled with glee before ordering a barbecue chicken