by Bethany-Kris
Jett nodded.
“Yes, that’s what it is. I haven’t hidden that.”
“You’re right,” Jett said, “you haven’t.”
Sargon smirked. “So, do I get to stay to work another day?”
Jett laughed darkly. “For now. And lunch, too.”
“Hmm?”
“You will have lunch with me today, too.”
Sargon lifted a brow high. “Why?”
“I find you interesting.”
One of Sargon’s many blessings.
And curses.
Jett pointed at the small golden ring hanging from the leather cord around Sargon’s neck. The one and only piece of jewelry he wore, and never took off. He liked to have it close, but more so, the nearest to his heart that he could get it.
“I wondered about your … necklace there, if you could call it that,” the man said. “Should I assume it comes from your lost parents?”
“Sure,” Sargon said.
The man could assume.
Assumptions meant nothing.
“What would you do,” Jett asked, “in the case where you had two organizations battling against each other—a decades long feud that has never been close to over—and both wish to work with you?”
Sargon glanced across the table where Jett seemed to be fully engrossed in a file he had pulled from his bag. Yet, there was no one else at the table, and it was only Sargon he could be conversing with.
Another man was stationed outside the private dining area, and the other one was guarding Jett’s vehicle. One more had a seat at one of the tables on the main floor.
“It depends,” Sargon hedged.
“On what?”
“Do they know you would be working for both of them?”
Jett grinned, but never looked up from the paperwork. “No, and they both have vastly different needs in the deals they want to put forth. One being a government bribe that is far more intricate than it appears, and another is a new drug connection.”
“And I take it the separate organizations would not be pleased to find out you were working for both sides, even if it was not against the other one, per say?”
Jett’s brow lifted. “To them, working with one is automatically working against the other. What do you say, now?”
“I say it still depends.”
His boss did finally look up at him, then. “Are you one of the types with a constant death wish, Sargon?”
Sargon grinned. “No, I just have the mindset that if I can get away with it, and cleanly, then why not go for it?”
“Dangerous game.”
“It can be. What types of organizations? That would be one thing I would weigh to make my choice. I would not risk putting myself between an Irish and Italian feud, for starters. The Irish and the Italians have long had volatile issues, and Irish are known for having little care or concern for the fodder used in their wars. Russians are another one that tend to be quite extreme and violent.”
“Two Italians.”
“Cosa Nostra, Camorra, or otherwise?” Sargon asked.
“You know a lot about criminal organizations, don’t you?”
Sargon shrugged, and went back to gazing out the window. “I have lived many lives.”
That was not a lie.
“Have you left many enemies behind, too?” Jett asked.
“Don’t we all?”
“Fair enough. My issue in taking these two offers lie in the fact I don’t like to shit where I eat or sleep.”
Sargon’s gaze cut back to Jett in an instant. “What in the hell does that mean?”
“One is Camorra based, one is Cosa Nostra based. Both are based here in the state, and most business is done in the city. One controls Queens, Brooklyn, and in there. The other manages Manhattan—across the bridge, basically. There is no buffer zone between them and I, should I take the deal. We are all in very close quarters.”
“I advise you not to take it,” Sargon settled on saying.
Because that would be the smart choice.
Jett sighed heavily. “I have to take at least one.”
“And what, hope the other side doesn’t find out?”
“Essentially.”
“Who is the one playing dangerous games now, Jett?”
His boss didn’t answer because his attention was now captured by something else entirely. Sargon chanced a look over his shoulder to see what it was that had Jett so moved he was willing to drop an entire conversation.
A woman, apparently.
A very beautiful woman.
At least five foot nine, the russet brunette with the same shade eyes simpered a smile. Her bow-shaped lips curved at the edges as she entered the private dining area.
First, Sargon noticed the perfect cupid’s bow on her top lip, and then the way her dainty features set off the rest of her face. High cheekbones, and perfectly arched brows. She swayed a little when she walked—some women learned how to do that, and others were just born with the ability to look sensual when they moved.
This woman was clearly in the latter group.
Her sway drew his gaze down over her body—a trim waist, hips with enough curve to grab onto, and legs for days. All covered by a tight, black bodycon dress. The silver shoes, ones that matched the color of the serving plate in her hand, set the entire ensemble off for her.
It was not the first time Sargon had seen the girls in the restaurant wearing their uniform. It was the first time Sargon had seen this woman wearing it, and she looked far better than any of them, frankly.
To him, anyway.
Sargon was not the type to be silenced by a woman, or the look of her. He was not a boy who got his cock tied up over a woman.
Shit.
He might enjoy letting this one do it to him, though.
“Where is Rowena?” Jett asked.
The woman’s gaze lingered on Sargon’s face for a moment, and then jumped back to Jett. Her voice sounded like a melody when she spoke. “Rowena and Chase had a bit of a falling out. I am here to serve you today, sir.”
“Jett.”
The woman smiled. “I know your name. I thought it appropriate to address you respectfully unless you wished for me to do differently.”
Jett smiled widely—clearly pleased with the woman. “Call me Jett.”
“Sure, Jett.”
Jett cocked a brow. “And what’s your name?”
“Cozen, but you may address me with Zen, if you prefer. I don’t mind either.”
“Cozen,” Sargon said.
All eyes drifted in his direction. He couldn’t help himself but to look up at the woman. For the first time since she had walked into the room and looked at him, her eyes were back on his face. Piercing within their russet pools. Pinning him in place.
“To obtain by deception,” Sargon added. “That’s what the word means.”
Cozen nodded. “So I have been told, although all the name has given me is a lot of strange stares when people ask me about it.”
Jett laughed, drawing the attention back to him for the moment. “Interesting.”
“I’m glad you like it, Jett.”
Sargon’s throat felt damn tight for a reason he couldn’t name. This woman carefully chose her words with every single sentence. He didn’t miss it. She offered Jett something the man liked in women—submission. The ability to be the person in control, and above everyone else around him.
“It is a strange name, though,” Jett murmured. “Seems that’s a common theme in my life lately. Meeting people with strange names, I mean.”
Cozen laughed.
It too was a musical sound.
Like wind chimes, really.
“I don’t understand,” Cozen said.
Jett gestured in Sargon’s direction, saying, “His name is Sargon. Sargon Makri. But don’t call him Sarg, as he doesn’t like it.”
Cozen laughed again, and her hand came down to brush against Jett’s shoulder over his suit jacket. Her loose, wavy hair fell
over her shoulder and exposed the delicate line of her throat. Her skin looked soft, and sweet.
He bet it would taste just like that, too.
It was in that moment that Sargon finally understood the strange burst of heat radiating through his bloodstream.
Anger.
Possessiveness.
Jealousy.
He was jealous over this woman.
He had no reason to be.
Yet, there he was.
Jealous.
“You’re not hungry, or what?” Jett asked him.
Sargon’s gaze drifted away from the curve of Cozen’s ass just as she disappeared out of the room. “Pardon?”
Jett gestured at his plate. “You’ve barely touched your steak. It’s good food—the best on this side of Manhattan.”
That was debatable, and not a debate Sargon wanted to get in to.
“No, I’m—”
“Distracted by that woman’s backside, I would guess,” Jett interjected.
Sargon swallowed thickly.
He hadn’t even tried to hide it.
“I don’t blame you,” Jett said, raising one brow salaciously with a smile. “I was looking, too.”
“Seems she was quite focused on you, though, wasn’t she?”
Jett’s smile deepened. “She was.”
“My apologies.”
The laugh that burst from Jett’s lips took Sargon by surprise for a brief moment. His boss leaned back in his seat at the table, and tossed his napkin aside. Jett pointed a finger at Sargon, and waved it almost chidingly.
“There is something about you, Sargon, and I don’t know what it is. You’re too polite, but you’re rough around your edges. You charm and grin and go it, yet you kill a man without blinking. A beautiful young woman catches your eye—she has to be far closer to your age than mine—and you apologize because she was sweet to me.”
Sargon shrugged. “Manners are good for the soul.”
Not that he had one of those.
Manners, sure.
His mother and father taught him those for a reason.
A soul, though?
That was another one of those unworthy debates.
Jett’s gaze drifted to the doorway of the private dining area again. “Are you interested in her?”
“She’s quite beautiful.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“That’s what I noticed, Jett.”
His boss nodded once. “Well, I am interested in her.”
That tight feeing closed around Sargon’s throat again—weighted and thick, and refusing to let up for even a single breath. His stomach pained as though someone had kicked him there, but he ignored that feeling, too.
“And what would you like me to do about that?” Sargon asked.
He meant it sarcastically, but Jett took it seriously.
Shit.
“My wife has been dead a while,” Jett said. “What would you say the appropriate grieving period is before pursuing someone new?”
“You want to pursue her.”
Sargon didn’t even ask it.
Jett’s eyes darted back to Sargon’s, and glinted with the unbidden lust of a man who had a libido far more youthful than his actual age. “I liked Rowena—the woman who served me before this one. I once had a thing with her. Nothing more than her sucking me off in the back of my Benz, but it suited me well on stressful days. This girl, though, she doesn’t seem like the type.”
Sargon swallowed hard again.
Jesus.
Where had that lump in his throat come from, anyway?
“A quick blow or fuck is one thing,” Jett continued, “but pursuing someone is something else entirely when you’re a widower of my status. I wouldn’t want to offend, you know.”
Sargon doubted Jett was in any way concerned with offending anyone. “I suppose you’re not the only person in the equation, though, are you?”
Jett chuckled and waved his finger at Sargon again. “Right you are, Sarg.”
Stop calling me that.
“And so, I will leave that up to you,” Jett added. “Approach her, and see if she is interested in something. Tell her I would like to see her again.”
“Me?”
Why me?
“Yes, you,” Jett said, scowling. “She will recognize you, and she’s new here. One of my other men might scare her off, and you seem more relaxed. So yes, you.”
Wonderful.
“Go,” Jett said when Sargon didn’t move.
Well, fuck.
Eyes on the fucking target, Cozen. Eyes on the—
“Is there a story behind your name?”
Cozen straightened up from the bar faster than she thought was possible. Her internal mantra interrupted by the sound of sin whispering in her ear.
Sargon.
Her heart thundered hard in her chest as she turned to find the man in question standing just a foot away in the shadows created by the hallway and lights. The man who put her entirely off balance from the first second she stepped into the private dining area. His dark amber gaze had landed on her, and from that moment, she found it a little harder to breathe.
Then, she remembered her task.
Jett Griffin.
Putting herself in his path.
Gaining his attention.
Going from there.
Well, Cozen figured she did that, but the only way she could was by practically ignoring the beautifully unsettling man sitting across from Jett.
It was going to be impossible for her to ignore Sargon right now. In fact, having him this close to her with the illusion of privacy from Jett and his men, Cozen found her skin heating under his gaze, and her heart would not calm down no matter how hard she tried to make it relax.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked.
Cozen kept her gaze on the bill she was writing out for Jett’s dinner. She couldn’t stop her eyes from traveling to the side, and catching a glimpse of the carved-from-stone God standing next to her.
“Your name,” Sargon murmured.
The words fell from his lips, and he never moved an inch. Yet, Cozen still felt him far too close for her comfort.
Mostly because she wanted him closer.
Attraction could be a bitch.
“Is there a story behind it?” he asked again.
Broad shoulders framed his body, and the silk dress shirt he wore was just tight enough to show off a chest and arms full of hard lines, and firm muscles. His lips were shaped in such a way that he looked as though he was perpetually smirking, although she had seen him scowl. And damn him, because he was looking mighty fucking good doing that, too.
Cozen looked over at him fully. “Not that I know of.”
Sargon’s lips curved at the edges, and formed a wicked smile. The kind of grin that might make weaker women throw themselves at him. The sad thing was, Cozen knew she wasn’t a weak woman, but she’d be a lying bitch if she said she wasn’t tempted to throw something at him for that look.
“No one just picks a name like that with no reason behind it,” he said, cocking a brow.
Thick, dark brows arched over those amber eyes of his. His brows were straight, and it gave him a look of disinterest until he arched them like that. It didn’t matter—straight or not, it only made him look like something that walked out of a magazine.
“I was never told if there was a story,” Cozen said.
She offered nothing else because she wasn’t about to out the story of her past. She doubted this man would be very interested—at least, not at the moment—in listening to her regale him for hours about her life in the foster care system until her later teenage years.
Nobody liked that story.
It wasn’t a fun one.
Sargon inched closer to Cozen, and as those few inches of space closed between them, he never once removed his gaze from her. No, he simply glided over her, taking in the way her dress covered her body, and the amount of leg the skirt provided for him
to stare at. He lingered on the heels, and his eyebrow edged up fast again as his lips curved in that sexy way once more.
The guy was interested.
He didn’t hide it.
Cozen would be stupid to say she didn’t notice his interest in the dining room—the way he followed her with his eyes, and how his gaze had narrowed when she put more emphasis on her attention to Jett.
Sure, Sargon hid it well.
The man still took notice of her.
This was unsettling.
“I should apologize,” he said.
Cozen, surprised at that statement, turned to face him fully. It closed practically all and any distance between them. If she breathed too hard, her breasts would brush against his chest. His gorgeous lines and intoxicating scent were all the more apparent like this, too.
“For what?” she asked.
He smiled—softer, yet still sexy. “For frightening you when I came up on you just now.”
“You didn’t—”
“You jumped.”
He offered the words as though he didn’t intend for her to argue with him, and without any challenge at all. She knew then that this man was not as simple as he may seem. His silk shirt—the top two buttons undone, hinting at a light dusting of dark hair on his chest, and the leather cord hanging down from his neck—and slacks were a ruse.
He was not a friend or associate of Jett’s. He took notice of too many things; he watched. And carefully.
“You jumped,” he repeated, “and that frightened you. My intentions with beautiful women are never to frighten them. Challenge them, maybe. Never frighten.”
Cozen’s throat thickened with a lump of desire. One she couldn’t swallow no matter how hard she tried.
He called her beautiful. How many men called her beautiful, and she brushed the compliment off? Too many.
Yet, she wanted his.
“You startled me a little,” she admitted.
Something else she wasn’t used to …
“My apologies,” Sargon murmured.
His skin was a light shade of russet with a golden tint, and his hair, a short-cropped, dark black. The straight nose, and strong, square jaw gave him that all-man appearance. Add in the fact he looked like he hadn’t shaved for a good week, and Sargon had all the trappings of a man.
Even the scent he wore—a strong musk with overtones of amber and spice, and hints of pine—made Cozen want to get a little closer to him.