“Dude, what is up?” Rachelle asked, hitting our table right before a beer bottle hit the tabletop.
There it was. Other people felt his vibe.
“Lose yourself, Rache,” Raid ordered.
“Bro, you look tweaked. I—” she began.
Raiden’s head tipped back and he cut his eyes to her.
I wasn’t getting his look, but I still shivered.
“Bottom of my heart, but get the fuck outta here, babe.”
She bit her lip, gave wide eyes to me and wisely skedaddled.
Raiden looked at me and I wished Rachelle was back.
“You see him again, you tell him that he needs to find an alternate conduit for communication with his brother. It is not you. And you finish with telling him if you see him again after that, I will find him, rip his head off and shove it up his ass.”
Cripes!
“Raid—”
“You got that?” he cut me off to ask.
Now was clearly not one of those times to backtalk, so I nodded but sallied forth cautiously, “Yes, sweetheart, I got that, but what’s going on?”
He sucked in breath then grabbed his beer and sucked some back before he put it back on the table and again leaned into me.
“I told you about my buddy Knight having problems. A man named Drake Nair is that problem. Nair keeps fuckin’ with him. First, Nair approached Knight’s woman, Anya, sharin’ some things it was not his to share. That didn’t have the desired effect. Second, Knight has a variety of people under his protection and Nair had some of them hurt. When Knight shut that down, Nair found the guy I’m hunting, who got some of his soldiers to infiltrate some of Knight’s dealings, found some weak links, and by that I mean ex-junkies. He reintroduced them to ice, got them hooked so Knight had to clean that shit out of his business and also expend the effort to get the junkies clean again.”
Holy Moses.
Drake Nair sounded like a world-class jerk.
I wondered what Knight did to inspire this animosity, but I didn’t get a chance to ask. Raiden was still talking.
“Knight is not unaware that Nair was a nuisance that, through demonstrated tenacity, has grown into an enemy who is a genuine threat. Nick is Knight’s brother, and Nick is a wildcard.”
He quit speaking so I finally had the chance to get a question in.
“If he’s Knight’s brother, why doesn’t he just talk to his brother?”
“Nick Sebring was a pain in the ass that got off on ridin’ his brother’s coattails, copious amounts of * and cocaine. Nick’s Dad hauled him to Hawaii and supposedly cleaned up his act. He came back to Denver and since then his behavior has been random. Then he dropped off the grid, only to reappear randomly, and in not good ways, with really bad people only to drop straight off again. Although he’s thrown time, energy and money at this question, Knight still has no clue what his brother was up to.”
“Well, obviously Nick has his brother’s back if he goes out of his way to warn him of trouble,” I noted.
“Babe, wildcard,” Raid replied.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“You play with wildcards, you got one in your hand. Golden. Your opponent gets one, you’re fucked.”
“Oh,” I said.
“With the company he’s been keeping, Nick warning his brother does not mean we have him in our hand. Since he’s a wildcard, it could mean anything.”
That made sense, so I said, “Okay.”
“Bottom line, you do not give this guy any time except to tell him what I told you. Once you relay that message, you get the fuck away and call me. If you see him again after that, you just get the fuck away, around people and you call me immediately.”
This sounded like a good plan I was totally down with.
“Okay.”
“Now I need to call Knight. Food comes, start without me.”
Instead of repeating my “okay”, I nodded.
He got up and moved toward the front door.
I took a sip of wine, but paid attention this time to my surroundings and spent a good amount of effort getting my heartbeat to regulate.
Rachelle came out with the food.
“All okay?” she asked.
I gave her a grin I hope didn’t look fake. “Yep.”
Her eyes narrowed on my grin before, with experience dealing with things Raiden Miller, she wisely let it go and said, “After you eat that, you can build shrines to my brilliance. Enjoy the movies with my brother.”
Then she was off.
I started eating and at the same time creating shrines to her brilliance in my head.
Then Raid came back and started eating.
Without another word about it, we went about our evening as if my brief visit from Nick Sebring didn’t happen.
*
“More,” Raiden’s gruff voice ordered.
On my knees, booty in the air, face in the bed, I gave him more, surging back as he powered in.
Amazing.
“That’s it. So fuckin’ wild,” he growled.
I whimpered as it started to wash over me and when I reared back to find it, he pulled away.
I was about to protest when he commanded, “Back. Spread.”