“I hope so,” Brandon said. “I don’t want any other close calls around here and as long as we’re involved with Baldinis, we’ll always have to look over our shoulders.”
“Don’t let Coco hear you say that,” Zak said. “She and Drina are both paranoid that they’re bringing down too much heat on our family.”
“This should put their minds at ease. With the guns off the property, we’ll all rest a little easier.”
“You’re telling me,” Zak said, slapping Brandon on the back and walking in the barn.
Dallas was seated on one of the ATVs fiddling with his phone. “Did you guys get the guns taken care of?”
“Sure did,” Zak replied, feeling like it was a good day to celebrate.
“What kind of a loss did we take?”
“A bigger hit than we could really afford, but it was worth it to move them,” Brandon said.
Dallas shrugged. “If you say so. I don’t want to know anything about it anyway. That close call with Drina’s dad was enough to put me on edge.”
“You ain’t lying,” Zak said, leaning over his shoulder. “What are you doing anyway?”
“Deleting numbers and pictures,” Dallas explained. “I don’t need them now.”
“Old gal pals?”
Brandon said, “Dallas never had girlfriends or gal pals. He had fuck buddies.”
“Which reminds me,” Dallas said, hurriedly clicking through his phone. “Mason sent a text. He’s taking a week off to spend it in Bermuda with his cougar.”
Zak and Brandon leaned forward and checked out the picture. Brandon turned beet red. “He’s already there?”
“Apparently so,” Dallas said. “He left last night.”
“You need to talk to him.” Brandon marched to the other end of the barn. “And I don’t mean soon. I mean like yesterday. That woman is using him for his money.”
Dallas pivoted to the left. “Take a look around, Brandon. We don’t have any money anymore. Mason spent it all on cattle and ATVs!”
Brandon threw up his arm. “On second thought, tell the kid to stay in Bermuda. I don’t want to see him for a while.”
Dallas and Zak laughed, but their laughter subsided when Drina stepped out of the last stall at the end of the barn. “Hey, babe. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Me either,” Dallas said, grinning. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Zak noticed her indifference as he walked toward her. “Something wrong?”
She put up her hands in front of her. “Stop right there.”
Dallas had already started walking toward her, too. “What’s the matter?”
“You lied to me.” She shook her finger at Zak. “I asked you pointedly soon after we started seeing one another and you said you weren’t doing anything illegal.”
“And we aren’t.”
“I saw you down there,” she said, swinging her arm at the hillside where they’d crated the last of the guns.
“So?” Zak wasn’t following her. “We weren’t doing anything we shouldn’t.”
“I saw the guns, Zak.”
“Yes, you saw guns. And we still weren’t doing anything illegal.”