Julio narrows his eyes, staring at me. He laces his fingers together, resting his interlocked hands over the paunch of his belly. “And after, when Ramirez is gone, the Widow Makers will just stand by and allow me to conduct my business freely? Is that so?” He laughs, the sound scathing. “I don’t think so. I know you too well, my friend. You cut the head off a hydra and you expect that to be the end of it. You expect it to die quietly forever, never to be heard from or seen again. That is not what will happen. I am a man who loves money. I love women and drugs and power. I’ll simply take Ramirez’s place, and that won’t sit well with you. You’ll turn your eye to killing me, too.”
“I don’t give a shit what you do after Ramirez is dead, Julio.” It almost kills me to say this, but it’s all I’ve been able to think of. I told Sophia last night that I would have figured out what leverage we could use in return for Julio’s help, and this is it. This is all I could come up with. Allowing Perez to deal his drugs and sell his women goes against everything I stand for. If I’d had to strike a deal with the bastard six months ago, this would never have been on the table, but so much has changed now. Now, there is Sophia. Now, I don’t have a fucking choice.
Julio looks at me for a very long time. Eventually, he says, “Are you a man of your word, Rebel? People say this about you, but I need to look you in the eye and hear you say it.”
“I am.”
“And you know what happens if you go back on your word in our world, no? It doesn’t end well for me or for you.”
“I know what happens.” He’ll come after the club. He won’t have any other option. Even if he knows he’ll lose his life, he’ll have to. His honor won’t allow him to take any other course of action, and if he does come after the Widowers who knows what will happen. We’ll probably slaughter his men if it comes down to a numbers game, but it would be a miracle if we came through the other side unscathed. Loss of life would be a certainty, and I don’t think I could handle knowing it was avoidable somehow.
Julio glances at Sophia out of the corner of his eye. “I would make it a personal point of interest to ensure that some very unpleasant things happened to your friend here if you reneged on any agreement we came to. That is something you should understand, my friend.”
Well, shit. Julio has no idea how close a friend Sophia is. If he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t be tossing around threats like that. He’d be doing his absolute best not to make eye contact with her, or even look in her general direction for that matter. I grind my teeth together, pressing my palms against the tops of my thighs to prevent myself from making fists and knocking the shit out of him. I plan on warning him, giving him advanced notice that he can expect to be digesting food through a stomach tube for the rest of his life if he even thinks dark thoughts about Soph again, but I don’t get a chance.
Soph gets to her feet and takes a step toward Julio, so she’s standing right next to him. She bends down and smiles. “I’m not the same frightened girl you bundled into the back of your car six months ago, Mr. Perez. I’m someone entirely different altogether, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk about me as if I wasn’t sat two fucking feet away from you. Otherwise there might be consequences for you.”
Julio blinks up at her in a very owlish manner, confusion written all over him. I have no idea what my girlfriend thinks she’s doing right now, but holy fuck if it isn’t hot. Julio Perez doesn’t let grown ass men with a history of violent murder talk to him this way. The slender brunette with the bad temper seems to have him on the back foot, though. He looks at me, his mouth slightly open, and jerks his head back. My hand is itching, ready to reach for the knife in my pocket—I’ll slit the bastard’s throat if he harms a hair on her head—but Julio’s serious expression melts into one of disbelieving amusement. He laughs, the sound of his mirth echoing around the enclosed courtyard loud enough that one of the women servicing the men on the other side of the pool yelps and falls off her patron’s lap.
“This one…you’d better get rid of this one, Rebel,” Julio says, wiping his eyes. “She’s too much for you to handle. Hell, I think she’d be too much for any of us to handle.”
I avoid looking at Sophia. I don’t want Julio to see it in my eyes—how much this girl means to me. If he suspects for a second that I’m in love with her, it’ll plant a seed. He’ll always know that he can use her against me if he needs to. in hindsight, it’s better I kept quiet and didn’t say anything about his threat just now. “She knows when and when not to open her mouth,” I say.
“Women in my home usually only open their mouths so someone can shove a dick down their throat.”