Branded
Page 17
“No, he’s not,” Tag said.
“So you’re hiding?” This wasn’t like Tag, but then she’d never known him to do something stupid like this. He’d ripped people off before, stolen from people, but he always went for those with lesser means. He’d always managed to be smart enough never to get himself caught in the net of a bigger fish with greater resources.
“Hexam’s an enigma. He has the tightest inner circle anyone’s ever known. No one knows what’s happening or what he’s planning. I guarantee he’ll want payback, but I have no idea what that means. I don’t know if he’ll hurt me, hurt my men, whether he’ll try to ruin the business, whether he’ll bide his time and come at me slowly or hit me all at once. I have no idea and it’s driving me insane. The waiting, it’s making me crazy.”
“You have to find out,” she said because this could go on forever otherwise. Whatever kind of man Hexam was, if he was the type to want payback, Tag had to find out how the man would go about getting it. How he felt about Tag was crucial to figuring out his next move. They had to know how he planned to exact his revenge. “You need more information. You can’t sit here forever in this shitty apartment, in this crappy neighborhood. Your men will drift off, looking for better things. You’ll lose the business—”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he snapped at her and banged his hand on the table again. “Don’t you think I know that everything is falling apart? I don’t want to be here, stuck inside, afraid to walk down the street. I don’t know who to trust. I’ve lost my men, and I’ve got bastards like Archer chasing after me for pocket change.”
Twenty grand wasn’t pocket change to Archer, or indeed to her, but she could understand how he’d slid down in Tag’s priority list given what else her friend had going on. Tag was scared for his life and the lives of his men. His livelihood, his home, his possessions, all of it was at risk.
She’d heard stories of some of the dealers in this town, the kingpins, who would do the most horrific things to men and their families if they felt disrespected. Some did it quick, with a bullet in the back of the head when their victim was least expecting it. Others would take men and torture them for days. Some stole their families away and held them for ransom. Some blackmailed, some bribed, some ratted out their adversaries to the authorities.
There was plenty of ways to ruin a man, and it was hard to develop a strategy to combat that if they didn’t know how someone was going to come at them. “You need information,” she said.
“Yes, I do. But I’m up the creek, Yorkie, who can I trust? As soon as I put word out on the street it will lead him back to me. He’ll come for me and I won’t know what he wants. I won’t know how to stop him.”
So they needed to know what Hexam planned to do to Tag and how Tag might be able to mend the rift and erase the slight without losing his life. “Information,” she murmured to herself, linking her fingers through Tag’s. “I know who to ask.”
fifteen
“Please,” Nya whined, feeling like she’d been on his case all night.
“No,” Archer said, sticking with the same response he’d been giving her since she’d first brought it up.
Sitting on his couch, in his apartment, she was lying with her feet in his lap. He wasn’t so much massaging them with conscious thought, but he rubbed her toes and his hands felt good.
Because he was watching a news channel on mute with the subtitles streaming along the bottom, his hands were idle and she gave them something to do. Every once in a while, he stopped indulging her feet and stroked her bare legs, which sent tingles of awareness shooting up to her pelvis.
It was a shame she had to work on getting him to help Tag because her thoughts were slipping into the inappropriate.
CNN and sports, that seemed to be all he watched. Maybe he liked to stay in touch with current events, stay privy to what was going on in the world. Just like his need for information in their city, he needed information from across the globe too.
She hadn’t figured out yet why he watched on mute, why he’d rather read what was said than hear it. Maybe it was something to do with being ready, being aware, listening to what was going on outside the apartment and inside while entertaining himself with the screen.
Given what he did, it was probable that Archer had enemies. He gave out information, he sold information and it would be a tough balancing act to make sure he didn’t piss off the wrong people. Though maybe he worked on tit-for-tat, maybe when he screwed someone over, he used his skills to benefit them, thus erasing any debt they felt was owed.
Then again, when someone was screwed over, they probably cared more about the person doing the screwing than the person who’d revealed a possible secret. Archer could only get those secrets from a member of the victim’s crew, so the betrayer would be more likely to receive retribution than Archer who was simply a courier. Shooting the messenger was probably low on the priority list.
Trying to regain her own focus, Nya had to break the soothing motions of his hands on her responsive skin. So she sat up in the center seat and crossed her legs to face him while trying to think of a way to persuade him to help her.
“Come on,” she said. “Please. I cooked for you.”
His eyes rolled toward her for a second. “I don’t know what you put on my plate, but that wasn’t food.”
In mock offense, she scratched an inch of his forearm back and forth. “It was broccoli and quinoa casserole,” she said. “It was food. It just wasn’t the hunks of animal you’re used to devouring.”
He hadn’t stopped eating since they’d left the dinner table. First there was dessert, then there was a power bar, and he had just polished off the fruit salad she’d whipped up for him.
Going to the store before she came here was supposed to stock her arsenal to soften him up. Bringing up Tag’s dilemma with Archer wouldn’t be popular, and as she’d expected, she’d been shut down a few words into her speech with a single clear, and now often repeated, “No.”
“But it’s what you do,” she said.
“No.”
Taking his bowl from the far arm of the couch to put it on the coffee table, she wanted his complete concentration to be on her. It would be his urge to get up and clean the plate straight away, he was weird about keeping the place neat, but she couldn’t afford to lose his attention. Climbing into his lap, she cut off his chance of escape.
“Please,” she murmured, allowing a seductive lilt to warm her voice. Rubbing her hands up and down his chest, she kissed his lips, but got no response. Kissing his cheek, then his jaw, she let her lips drift to his ear. “Do this for me and I’ll swallow your meat.”
Resting his hands on her hips, he stroked them around to her ass, caressing her because she was in his lap rather than because he wanted to get physical. “You think I work for blowjobs?”
He was still watching the television over her shoulder, so he was only half invested in the conversation. Massaging his torso, she was enamored by the muscles he cultivated in the gym and had nurtured that day. His chest was hard, his shoulders broad and solid, and she recalled the first time she’d seen him and noted how formidable a force he would be in a fight.
“I gave you twenty grand not long ago,” she said, arching her back to present her breasts, but his view was stuck on the television. “Won’t that cover it?”
“That was money owed to me,” he said and squeezed her ass. “Twenty grand for the last job, what would you give me for the next one?”
Haggling over price was an improvement over a flat no. “What do you want?”
Brushing her lips on his again, she blocked his view, so his focus switched to her. “What are you offering?”
“Is this how you work?” she asked. “You negotiate maybe based on circumstance? How do you feel about barter?”
“Everybody’s price is different,” he said. “Depends on how tough the job is, how difficult or dangerous it’ll be. Depends on how much I like the client too.”
“That’s good to know,” she said. “Because I know for a fact that you like me a lot.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, slipping to vague amusement. “What makes you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling as she pretended to mull over her explanation. “Maybe the fact that you jump my bones every chance you get or the fact that you can’t keep your hands off my body. The fact that you gaze at me across the room when you think I’m not paying attention.”
“You’re the one wriggling all over me. You never keep still, woman,” he said, but didn’t seem to be complaining because his hands ran up her back then descended to her ass again. “I like it.”
“I’m trying to talk to you. I really need you to do this and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Can’t you do this one thing for me?”
“Except it’s not for you,” Archer said, putting her in his spotlight. She didn’t understand what he meant until he carried on. “This information isn’t for you. It’s not to make your life better; it won’t save you from anything. This information is for your buddy.”
Oh, so that was his problem, now it made more sense. She hadn’t understood why he’d put up such resistance when this was how he made his living. “That’s it?” she asked. “You won’t help me because this information might help Tag? I thought we were over that, I thought you were giving him a chance. I thought you saw that he wasn’t a bad person.”
“I’m grateful that he did what he did for you when you were a kid,” Archer said. “I hope he tore the guy to shreds. If it had been me, the guy would never have walked again, and wouldn’t have had the ability to harm any woman ‘cause I’d have ripped his balls from his body. But, Tag took care of business in his own way.”
“Ok,” she said. “So what’s the problem?”
Archer hesitated when he contemplated what to say. She could see irritation blooming in his gaze. Throughout the night she’d assumed he was resisting as part of a game that maybe he wanted her to offer him something, probably something sex related, that like he’d said before, she could pretend to be opposed to, but this would give her the excuse to do it.
Nya had expected at some point for him to make a sexual demand and she had every intention of complying. Not only because she wanted the information for Tag, but because she was learning to love their intimacy.
“What he said about me sending his guys into a trap, it pissed me off,” Archer said. “I do what I do and I do it well. I don’t screw people over for fun.”
This was going to lead them into a conversation she’d planned not to have with him. But since she was faced with it, she seized the opportunity. “Tag said the shipment that you were supposed to locate changed hands at the last minute.”
“It wasn’t the last minute,” Archer said. “It was a couple of days before. But, yeah, it did.”
“See, you knew that,” she said, splaying her fingers on his upper chest. “That’s why Tag is pissed off because you didn’t tell him.”
“He didn’t ask, it’s not my job to keep track of what he knows and what he doesn’t,” Archer said. “How could I know he didn’t already know? Hex could’ve been his intended target. I don’t give a fuck about his business. I don’t guess what clients want to know, I get specific instructions and they get specific information.”
“But you knew. You’re not denying it. And this guy, this Hexam guy, he’s a big deal. Tag seems really worried about what he’ll do.”
Archer grumbled. “Maybe your boyfriend should’ve thought about that before he started ripping people off.”
His irritation was growing, but so was hers. “Is that what this is about?” she asked. “You judge him for what he does? You don’t think it’s right that—”
“Drug dealers are scum,” Archer said. “It’s as simple as that. They do what they do for money and they don’t care about whose lives they screw.”
To have such a strong, immediate reaction, there could be only one explanation. “You know someone with a problem,” she said. “Someone you care about was hurt by drugs?”
Nya could understand because she’d seen it herself. She’d lost friends and family members to various substances and every time the grief fractured a piece of her soul. She didn’t like seeing people she cared about become shadows of themselves, but she believed in taking ownership.
These people made the decision to do what they did, nobody made them do it. They chose to pick up the needle or the pipe or the glass, whatever it was, as far as she was concerned, they screwed themselves.
“I know plenty of people with problems,” he said. “Most of the time I don’t judge. I do work for dealers all the time. Live and let live.”
“So what’s the—”
“Your friend doesn’t work on his own supply and distribution network. He doesn’t produce what he sells, he screws people over. He steals and then he sells, and he benefits while everyone else falls apart.”
Tag did have his own supply chain, but it wasn’t as lucrative as he would like. So it wasn’t unheard of for him to swoop in on a shipment at the last minute and because of his resources, his manpower, most of his victims never fought back. Now he was getting a taste of his own medicine in a way. But he didn’t deserve to pay for his mistakes with his life.
“It all balances out,” she said. “I’m not a big fan of what he does, but it’s his business as far as I’m concerned. He’s my friend and I care about him. I don’t want to see him get hurt. He’s scared and he doesn’t know who to trust. We need to help him.”
Archer’s exhale was frustrated and impatient. “What does he know?” he asked, giving nothing away in his flat tone.
Hope infused her, this could be him letting her in. Was he softening to her cause and planning to help her? “Very little,” she said. “Tag just told me that Hexam knows it was his men that day and that he wasn’t happy. Four of Hexam’s men died and Tag got part of the shipment. He doesn’t know enough about what kind of man Hexam is to know how he’ll get revenge. Tag’s heard he can be a scary sonofabitch, but that’s about as far as—”
“Scary is an understatement,” Archer said and his arms moved further around her, pulling her tighter to his torso. “Hexam never lets anything go. He can be reasoned with, but his price is always high. So I wouldn’t guarantee on Tag getting out of this unless he has something that Hexam wants.”
Nya had no intention of giving up so easily. “Like what?” she asked.
“I don’t know what he wants. Like most guys in his line of work, he wants respect, power, he wants territory. But your boy Tag can’t give him any of those things. Tag doesn’t have a patch that he can give up, he’s already disrespected Hexam. Money won’t do it because Hexam has a regular income and can squeeze any guy he wants. Hexam won’t be bought.”
“Ok,” she said, nodding. Hope might be the only thing to get them through this, because although she felt like they were developing a plan, the information they had to work from wasn’t encouraging. Pulling Tag out of a tough spot would help her to feel better about all the times he’d done it for her. “So we need to find out what Hexam wants and then we need to get it for him.”
“We?” he asked, so incredulous that his brows angled.
“Yeah.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We don’t need to do anything. I’m not the take action guy.”
That couldn’t be completely true. “You agreed to take action with me,” she said and read his mind. “About Jamie, not about sex.”
Bringing one of his hands from her ass, he laid it on her upper chest, slid it down over her breast then brought it up to curl around the side of her neck. “In rare circu
mstances, very rare circumstances,” he said, slowing each word to enunciate it for emphasis. “I have been known to get involved.”
“Can’t this be one of those times?” she asked, holding onto hope that he would agree to help her because she needed help, she couldn’t do it alone. She could try, but she wouldn’t be a very intimidating aggressor and she didn’t know a thing about trying to extract information from people who didn’t want to give it out.
“Why should I take on his cause? He’s got plenty of guys on payroll who can go and hit Hexam hard. I’m not getting my hands dirty by attacking a guy who’s done nothing to me. That’s the kind of stain that sticks. Messing with Hexam could get you killed. Tag might be a hero in your eyes but he’s not worth either of us dying for.”
Ok, so Archer had a point. Tag did have resources of his own, did have men who worked for him, did have loyal supporters. But none of the men he employed had the network or the skills that Archer did to complete the first part of what was necessary.
“You can still help me find out what I need to know though, right? To find out how pissed Hexam is, find out what he plans, find out if there’s anything he needs or wants that Tag can use to get himself out of this.”
“I could,” he said, watching his hands slide over her breasts, up to her neck and down her shoulder. His rough palm was warm and it stimulated her. Although the action itself wasn’t sexual, the intimacy of it was stirring her arousal.
“Will you?” she asked. “You must know who we have to talk to, who we can snatch off the street and tie to your pipe.”
He actually smiled and his hand slid up the column of her throat to cup around her chin. “That’s not always the first step,” he said. “Sometimes all it takes is a conversation. You have to find the right pressure points and then you push, exerting just the right amount of force. Sometimes you have to be nice or offer something in return. Sometimes asking is all it takes.”
“I had no idea,” she said, thinking about how much deeper his skills ran.