I looked up at Warren and tried to strip my voice of the sheer joy the memory held for me. “He tried his best.”
“And his best wasn’t good enough. Honestly, I give the brute props for even thinking he stood a chance with someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” I asked, leaning forward and tucking my hair behind my ear.
His eyes tracked the movement hungrily. “A princess.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes and tried to get us back on topic. “So, say I did leave him. Say I did want to be with you—what would that mean?”
His eyes flared and his grip on my hands tightened. “It would mean I’d treat you right. Lavish you with money and attention.”
I pouted, flipping his hand over in mine to draw circles on the palm in a way that had him shivering. “What about those other girls?”
He frowned distractedly. “Other girls?”
“I’ve seen you with Lily and Talia. If we’re together, I don’t want to share and…” I leaned deep over the table to press my lips right beside his ear to say, “I think you’ll find I can keep you satisfied.”
He groaned. “You really are a minx, aren’t you?”
“I prefer fox, but yes, I really am,” I agreed with a winning smile.
“Well, no need to worry there. Lily and Talia are just two cogs in the machine of my alternative means of income.”
My pout deepened and I was glad I’d worn red lipstick when his eyes landed on them and stuck. “What does that even mean?”
“It means, pretty girl, that Talia and Lily are a means to an end. They deal product for me.”
I gasped in faux shock, hand flying to my heart only so I could define the shape of my breast beneath the fabric for him. My heart beat fast but it wasn’t with modest surprise, it was with adrenaline. He was staring at the catalyst of his demise and he was literally handing himself over to it.
I could have clapped, I was so happy.
Instead, I kept up the act by saying, “You deal drugs? Warren, I never knew you had such a dark side.”
He preened under my compliment and looked around the way a spy in a movie would to see if anyone was listening.
People were listening but they weren’t dumb enough to do it obviously.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a dealer, but I buy wholesale from a distributor and resell to the kids at EBA and Entrance Public. You’d be surprised by what a cash-cow partying teens can be,” he caught my eye and then laughed, “Or maybe you wouldn’t.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I admitted. “But I don’t understand. You can’t just go to Costco for drugs.”
“No, sweetie,” he agreed with a patronizing smile. “You go to the cartel or the MC.”
“Cartel?” I asked because something was sliding into place, something obvious and dangerous, the barrel of a shotgun clicking into place.
“Javier Ventura’s come up from Mexico to establish a base in Canada and he’s doing it from Entrance.”
Tell me more, you fool. Dig your own grave.
“Oh, that nice man who’s friends with my parents?”
“Looks can be deceiving. He’s really a poor wetback risen in the ranks, but yeah.” Warren spewed his cruel, racist words with the casualness of an arrogant man born white, rich and oblivious.
“So you buy it, use the students to deal it and then you split the proceeds with the cartel?”
There must have been something in my question that alerted him to my eagerness for information more than any eagerness for him. He frowned at me over the rim of his champagne glass.
“Why don’t we get out of here and continue this conversation at my place? We can get to know each other a little more comfortably there.”
I really didn’t want to but I wasn’t sure they had enough information on everyone to make the necessary arrests and there was no way in hell I was going to back off this before I bought vengeance for Mute.
So, I smiled at him. “That sounds wonderful. Just give me a moment to use the washroom?”
He tugged my hand in order to give me a brief kiss on the lips, his tongue touching my lips like a promise. I fought the urge to rub at my mouth when he pulled away and let me go with a smug tilt of his chin.
I rolled my hips side to side as I walked calmly to the bathroom, feeling his eyes on my ass. When I made it to the short hallway with the bathrooms, I unlocked my phone screen to text Zeus.
“Hey, Foxy,” someone said over my shoulder.
I startled as I whipped around then laughed when I saw Blackjack standing there with his hands in his pockets. “Jesus Christ, B.J. you scared the crap out of me. What are you doing skulking down here?”