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I turned back to the front leaving Nebraska to her thoughts.
Later.
I’d get all of her secrets later.
Then I’d tell her mine and hope like hell when she learned her mother was alive she didn’t kill the messenger.
Fucking Charlie Michaels.
TEN
“Dove.” Amani stood and greeted me with a smile. “Always beautiful.”
The man looked out of place in his suit. Though, with how well he dressed, his freshly shaven face, his close-cropped dark hair, every time I’d met with him he’d looked like he didn’t belong. Not in a swanky hotel lobby and certainly not in this dinky little house with crap furnishings.
“Mr. Carver,” I returned with one of the professional smiles I’d mastered. “Thank you for meeting with me. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“I believe I have inconvenienced you a time or two,” he said looking over my shoulder. “Shall we sit?”
I glanced at the rickety chairs and wondered if they were sturdy enough to hold up under the weight of the hulking men in the room. Although I knew from experience Amani’s three bodyguards wouldn’t sit; they’d strategically position themselves around the room.
“Let me introduce—”
“Easton Spears and Smith Everette,” Amani interrupted. “Yes, Mr. Lewis warned me they’d be joining us.”
I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. What I did know was I was extremely annoyed Zane had made the call without informing me. Not that I wanted a phone call from Zane.
Amani skirted around a beat-up, splintering wooden table that once upon a time might’ve been a decent coffee table but now looked like its best use would be for firewood. He sat in an equally tattered chair minus the splinters.
Once I was seated, Easton standing behind me to my right, Smith the same but to my left, Amani launched straight in. “It seems you have a problem.”
Boy did I.
One of those problems was Easton’s hand resting on my shoulder.
My second, bigger problem was I didn’t know how much Zane had shared with Amani, which meant I was unprepared, something that never happened. I always knew the state of play before I entered a meeting. I always knew who the players were, their motives, and had already worked out several possible outcomes.
This time, I was flying blind.
Before I could respond, Easton did. “Have you looked over the files Zane sent over?”
Files?
Zane sent files.
The vastness of my irritation grew to extreme anger.
Amani pinned me with a sharp look that made me uncomfortable. “I wasn’t unaware Maddon Judd was playing both sides.”
Well, fuck a duck.
Amani went on, “I’m not unfamiliar with people underestimating me. Actually, I prefer it. That is precisely how and why I remain as successful as I am.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. I picked up on that easily during our first negotiations. Amani sat quietly throughout the meeting and allowed the other party to speak to him as if he were some uneducated desert nomad. When in reality he went to the best schools in Egypt before he finished his secondary schooling in London then went on to study at Harvard. I pushed aside thoughts of his successful business dealings because they weren’t something to be proud of or something I condoned. But my job wasn’t to judge or stop the criminal activity. It was simply to keep it contained. Right or wrong, Amani Carver was a reasonable man.
“The problem, Dove, is not me. It’s you.”
“Me?”
