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Pops smirked. “I’m calm because they look ridiculous and don’t blend with the locals for shit.”
With attitude, Elle eyed all our attire. “Oh, and your matching old, dry, tobacco-ridden leather vests with patches that scream ‘get in my way and I will shoot you’ blend with the locals?”
Vice laughed until Pops kicked his shin under the table. “Ow.” He pouted. “That hurt.”
Pops lectured, “Not as bad as the bullet I’m gonna cap in your leg for not seein’ them comin’ before she did.”
“Precious,” asked a grinning Dagger, “are you jealous because you ain’t got a vest?”
Her little nostrils flared. “Is that really what you got from what I just said?” Then she glared at Pops while resting her hand on Vice’s arm. “Don’t you dare shoot him.”
Elle protecting Vice with such devotion had my heart pinging again.
Pops complained-pouted, “Then he needs to do his fucking job.”
Elle rebutted, “Maybe he needs a better teacher.”
Laughing, Dagger said, “She just went there with Prez.”
Pops blinked, asking Dagger, “The fuck she just say to me?”
As patrons started staring at us like a Dark Circus that just rolled into town, I groaned, “We are definitely not blending now.”
Elle inhaled, losing all patience. “Can we please go?”
Pops slid out of the booth. “You heard the woman. Let’s go.”
Without Elle seeing, because she was getting up from the table, Pops winked at me.
‘Legend’ had been working his mad skills again, treating her question about leaving as if a direct order from the VP’s Old Lady, yet I was still slightly blind. As Vice started to guide Elle toward the door, I took a step to follow, always needing that woman within my reach, but Pops suddenly got out of the booth to go next. “Pay the bill, kid.”
The fuck? I took a step, trying to get to Elle, but then Dagger got out of the booth and blocked me. Trying to sidestep him to get to Elle because she was getting closer to the Suits, Dagger faced me and whispered, “Every move. Every move must be calculated. See everything.”
Then he turned his back to me and followed Pops, Elle, and Vice.
All I could ‘see’ was Elle being too far away, unguarded—
She’s not unguarded, you idiot. As she had at Brass’ clubhouse, Elle was being escorted by three of the deadliest men I’d ever have the privilege of knowing.
Going to the register, I tried to understand what Dagger wanted me to see. My wallet was only halfway out of my pocket when I noticed the Suits tilt their heads when studying Elle walking past them. Their sun-glassed gazes then came to me.
Dagger’s words now felt like ice water running down my spine. My men didn’t want the Italians to know my feelings for Elle. That was made even more clear when I finally came out the door to see Elle in the back seat of the truck, in between Vice and Dagger.
Walking across the parking lot to where the truck and attached trailer were parked, I observed Pops in the passenger seat, staring at me through the windshield.
See everything…
Memories of my dad after my mom’s murder—his anguish, his… weakness.
See everything…
My eyes went to Elle. No longer wearing glasses, her beautiful green eyes locked on me as I continued toward the truck. Then they darted to Pops as he said something inside the truck. After a slight nod, she leaned her head to Dagger’s shoulder.
Again, ice water dripped down my spine.
Opening the driver’s door, I didn’t say anything, but as I slid behind the steering wheel, I saw a Suit sitting at a table by the front window, holding up his phone and snapping a picture.
Keys already in the ignition, I turned on the engine. Putting the truck in drive, I grumbled to Pops, “That picture is going to Lorenzo. You just put a mark on Dagger’s back.”
