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“I don’t like her out there. It’s not safe,” I say.
He takes a swallow of his gin. “She’s not in immediate danger. And you haven’t been escorting her to and from her door. Or have you?”
“Your kid’s upset.”
“I’m not that fucking happy about what I saw either, Orion.”
I sigh. I know he’s right. His driver’s worked for him and the Knights long enough to be inner circle. The man will knock her out if need be to get her in that car and take her home. But he’ll probably just tell Dakota one of us called a car for her.
“What the fuck did you expect?” I close my eyes and take a breath, trying to settle the turbulence inside. Then I look at him. “It started out as…” A sharp sigh slips from my lips. “Look, it was gonna be me or someone from the Collectors. That’s how it would have gone. Better me and not…” I stop. “Wait. Why the hell are you even here?”
“There’s another assignment, right up your alley, if you want it. Starts in a few weeks.” He tosses me the iPad. I don’t look at the screen.
“And?”
He takes a long pull of his drink and I cross the room to grab a bottle of rum from the bar. I screw off the cap, take a long gulp right from the bottle, then sit opposite him.
He still doesn’t say anything.
“They’re a nasty fucking lot, Smith. Anyone looked into possible connections with the sex trafficking ring that Mercer broke?”
“Those kind of perverted animals always have overlapping interests. We just clean up when asked.”
But the hard gleam in his eye says something different. His child was involved. If at some point he finds a connection to some other group, Smith will destroy them.
And I’ll be there to help.
“I’m here about something else. Malone got word today there’s a collector who isn’t happy Dakota chose you. Apparently, he wanted her.”
Fuck, that narrows it down. They all wanted a piece of her, but I keep that to myself because I’m certain he can work that out on his own.
“The art guy,” I say. “Brutus?”
“He didn’t have a name, the connection he has mentioned it since he introduced you.”
“Can he get a name?”
“He’s trying. But… all he’s been told is ‘someone.’”
I push a hand through my hair and take another pull on the rum. I open a new tab on my phone, look up Brutus McClintock, and show Smith. “This guy was way into Dakota. And she knows him.”
A muscle flexes in his jaw and I’m pretty fucking certain he’s memorizing every feature of Brutus’s face.
But all he says is, “Send it to Malone.”
I do and it takes him less than a minute to respond.
No name given. Just the mythical fucking someone. Before you ask, my job’s still fucking going.
The job? I ask.
A big-time senator and his kid. That’s all I’m giving you, asshole.
I grit my teeth. “Malone doesn’t know. What if it’s the same person he’s after? Maybe they couldn’t make it to the island until later. This isn’t a tight organization. It’s a bunch of people with too much money and self-entitlement and fucking perversions. They like to party and do fucked-up things because they know their money protects them.”
Except from us.
I leave that part hanging in the air.
