Vinnie barked out a laugh. “Is that what she told you?”
“Marx didn’t borrow money,” Sully added. Unbuttoning his suit coat, he sat on Kat’s futon and rested his gun arm on the back of the couch. “He was contracted as a distributor for the crystal meth division of the syndicate. He moved the product but never brought in the earnings. Then he and the girl skipped town.”
“Which signed his death warrant,” Vinnie piped in with a wry grin. “Sicoli uses contracts. No matter what you sign on for, you owe him one of two things: completion of your job or your life. Marx knew the score.”
“So now you two either do your job or he has you killed, too, is that right?”
Sully shrugged a shoulder. “It’s how he operates with everyone. We don’t take it personally.”
“Good for you,” Aiden drawled. “I still don’t see what the hell any of that has to do with the girl.”
“Considering her name is on the contract, it has everything to do with her.”
Aiden’s blood ran cold. “I don’t believe you.”
“Not that we owe you proof,” Sully said as he motioned to his partner, “but see for yourself.” Vinnie pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to Aiden.
Unlike most contracts that had multiple pages of language you couldn’t understand without an attorney dumbing it down for you, this was a single page of pretty cut-and-dry terms. And at the bottom, right under Lenny’s, was Kat’s signature.
Aiden felt the cold fingers of betrayal close around his neck like a noose choking the air from his lungs. The seemingly innocent woman he’d been protecting all this time was no better than a common drug dealer. Like Lenny. Like Janey’s scumbag boyfriend. Someone who pushed narcotics on kids desperate to fit in or who want to rebel, who then end up dragged into the sordid life of a never-ending addiction with little hope of escape.
Goddamn it!
Aiden took a cleansing breath and screwed his fucking head on straight. What Kat was or wasn’t had no bearing on his role in this mess. He promised Jax he’d keep her safe, and he aimed to keep that promise.
Besides, no matter what she’d done in the past, she didn’t deserve to die. And he couldn’t live with the blood of another girl’s death on his hands.
“Don’t look so shocked, pal,” Vinnie snickered. “Just because a bitch is prettier than the other whores on the corner don’t mean she don’t spread her legs just the same.” Laughing, he turned his head to share in the moment with the only other man in the room who might find him funny.
Aiden’s eyes narrowed on the bastard. Inattention, even a split second, was a point of weakness, and it was all the opening he needed.
Rage and betrayal flooded his vision and melted the chains on the part of him he’d kept leashed for the last five years: his darker half. Aiden went for a flying arm bar. He jumped into the air, wrapping his legs around Vinnie’s outstretched arm and dragged him to the ground. The gun went off, but the shot went wild from being yanked around. Then, with the thug’s arm held tightly between Aiden’s thighs, Aiden pulled down on the limb until just before the breaking point. Vinnie howled and released the weapon, and a second later Aiden had it pressed against Vinnie’s temple.
“I’d stop there if I were you, Mr. Smith.”
Aiden froze and bit back a curse. He’d let his anger do his thinking and acted without looking at the bigger picture, which was that Vinnie wasn’t the only guy in the room with a fucking gun.
Realizing they once again had control, Vinnie took back his gun, stood up, and pistol-whipped Aiden across the face. His head snapped to the side and pain lanced from his mouth that bore a hole straight to his brain. Aiden tested the severity of his split lower lip with his tongue.
Tasting the coppery tang of his own blood only fed the animal inside him more, but as he got to his feet, he tamped down the ferocious instinct to do anything other than stand and wait.
Sully tsked his disappointment like he would to a naughty toddler. “Didn’t think that one through, did you, Mr. Smith? I should also warn you that if we can’t collect the debt in full, we have special orders to bring the girl back to Mr. Sicoli.”
A barely contained fury rolled through Aiden’s muscles. “What the hell does he want with her?”
“Well, even though most of his business deals in the pharmaceutical side of things—”
Aiden scoffed in disgust. That was one way of saying the man made money from killing people with drugs.