The gates slid open and I walked up the curving drive toward the house.
And by 'house', I meant 'mansion' because Lex lived big. Twelve-thousand square feet big. Three car garage. Endless windows (bullet resistant all). A grounds that included a tennis court, pool, and stable. Lex didn't play tennis, he never learned how to swim, and I suspected he wouldn't know a horse from a German Shepherd.
If you looked close, you would see the security cameras. And then you would notice the shadows lurking that could have been trees, but were actually men. And they were men with guns strapped to their backs.
Yeah. There was a good chance I wasn't walking out of there no matter what kind of mood Lex was in.
But, for the first time, I couldn't bring myself to really give a fuck. I just wanted to get the meeting over with.
As I rounded on the front door, one of the men moved into view, jerking his chin at me before opening the door and letting me inside.
It was as lavish and over the top as one could expect of a twelve-thousand foot estate. Dark wood. Deep tones. Expensive, very professionally placed furniture. Straight ahead was a horseshoe staircase with white (yes... white) carpeting. There was a hallway beneath it that seemed to lead toward the kitchen/dining area. To the left of the front door was a sitting room with a giant fireplace and bookshelves full of heavy tombs I was sure Lex had never even looked inside. To the right was yet another sitting room but that one had a grand piano and obnoxious, pretentious art on the walls and statues stationed around.
I wondered if he realized how his house looked to an outsider. How painfully obvious it was that he was trying to erase all the traces of the homeless street kid he had been back in the day. A kid who never learned how to play piano or pronounce the names of classical musicians. A kid who had never even heard of Proust or Machiavelli.
Granted, I didn't know shit about them either. But I wasn't trying to fuckin' act like I did.
“He wants you to see him downstairs,” the nameless guard said, nodding his head toward the hallway and I moved toward it, him a few feet to my back.
Downstairs.
As in the basement.
Great.
“Through here,” he said, leading me into the kitchen and opening a door that had wooden stairs leading downward. “You go alone.”
Double great.
“Right,” I said, nodding, and moving toward the stairs. No use putting off the inevitable.
I had been half expecting cinderblocks and barred windows. Maybe I should have known better. Estates like his had finished basements as a rule. His was no exception. I hit the landing and was in a sprawling space. Sand-colored tile floors, a deep reddish orange paint to the walls, a bar stationed far to one end beside a door.
That door was the only ominous thing in the room.
The rest of it looked like a place a man went to to relax, get away from his nagging wife, jerk off to embarrassing porn.
“Breaker,” Lex's voice called and I saw him closing the door beside the bar and coming toward me.
“Lex,” I said, nodding.
“Where's Alex?”
Right to it then.
“Not here,” I said, shrugging.
“I can see that,” he said, his voice getting icy. “Care to explain yourself?”
“Not particularly.”
“I'm not a man you want to play games with, Bryan.”
“Not playin' games, Lex. She ain't here. I don't feel like talkin' 'bout it. Not a game. Just how shit is.”
“It's amazing to me that you're still breathing,” he said oddly, his head tilting to the side as if it was something that truly confused him.
“Why's that, Lex?”
“Because you either lack the respect or the brains to realize who you should watch your tongue around.”
“That's me, a stupid, reckless, pain in the ass.”
“Used to be people put up with it because you got the job done and didn't ask questions or screw around. It seems that is something that has changed about your reputation.”
“Look,” I said, holding back a sigh. “Save me the lecture. Save your money. Just give me Shoot and we can both go our separate ways.”
“You see,” he started in a tone I immediately didn't trust, “that would normally be how we would handle this. You are an asset to have around even if you did screw up this job. But, unfortunately, things have... transpired since we last spoke.”
This time, I let out the sigh. “What's transpired?”
“How about a drink? Scotch? Whiskey? Vodka? What kind of man are you?”
The kind who didn't take liquor from shitheads the likes of Lex. But I could sense I was already rocking the boat and I didn't need to make matters worse. “Whiskey is fine,” I said, generally preferring vodka. But at the thought of that, an image of Alex drunk off her ass on it flew into my head- giggling, saying silly shit, coming hard and repeatedly from my mouth and cock.
Yeah. Whiskey was a better bet.
Lex moved over to the bar and I followed, wanting to keep an eye on him. He was a slimy shit. I wouldn't put it past him to slip something into my drink. But, in the end, he didn't. He just poured us each a round and we drank.
“How about we go see your friend?” Lex suggested, putting his glass back down on the bar.
“My friend?” I asked, putting my glass down as well. He had to be talking about Shooter. But why the fuck would he want to show him to me? Unless he was planning on making an example of him.
Fuck.
“Sure,” Lex said, moving to that door that I knew as bad news. “Right through here.”
Again, not having a choice, I followed.
I got my cinderblocks. But no bars. Because there were no windows. Just fluorescent bar lights across the ceiling. There were men inside. Two. Limp Dick Rick (who must have been a favorite of Lex's seeing as he was always glued to the fucker's hip), and some guy I had never seen before- younger, but solid, brown hair and eyes, utterly forgettable, standing beside a door to a small room that I figured was a bathroom.