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“Why were you at the prison?” Smith inquired.
I wasn’t tracking his question, but obviously, Nebraska understood.
Again, without hesitation, she answered.
“I needed to see Paulo Alves. I got word that two members of the PCC were planning to escape before they were transferred. That escape plan included a riot. Chaos is the greatest distraction. I slipped in, did my business, and slipped back out.”
“You mean you slit his throat,” Smith returned.
Nebraska held Smith’s stare as she answered, “Like I said, business.”
“Do you want to know why I was there?”
“I don’t waste time asking questions I know the answers to,” Nebraska quickly replied, hitching the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder. “Now, I’ll see myself out.”
“Easton will walk you down,” Zane countered.
With a dip of her chin, Nebraska wasted no time making her way to the door.
“That’s it?” Zane’s voice boomed.
Slowly and fully composed, Nebraska turned back to face the room but stayed where she was.
“I don’t know what you’re used to, Mr. Lewis, but I don’t beg. Not anyone. Not for anything.”
Nebraska’s pretty blue eyes flashed through my mind. The next thought came on the heels of the first—only, those eyes were now staring at me, hazed over with desire, and those perfect lips begging.
“Not even when your father’s life is on the line?” Zane pushed.
That garnered a reaction, though it was nothing more than a slight movement in her shoulders.
“I’m my father’s daughter,” she evenly stated, giving nothing away. “One of the many lessons he taught me—know when to cut your losses and never, but never, give someone the upper hand. Pleading with you would give you just that. Begging you to do the right thing would only serve your ego. I’m not interested in feeding you a line of bullshit just as you have no interest in eating it. So, yes, that’s it. Also, yes, even if my father’s life is on the line. But if you think you’re the only man who has threatened his life straight to my face? I hate to break it to you, Viper; you’re not the first, and you most certainly won’t be the last.”
With that she turned and left the room with her shoulders back and her head held high.
I wasn’t sure if I was impressed or if I thought she was insane.
What I did know was, I was fascinated.
THREE
Welp.
That went exactly like I thought it would go.
By the time I was at the elevator I had my burner phone out, preparing to give my father the update I knew I’d be giving before I boarded Zane’s jet to fly to Maryland, wasting an entire day when I should’ve been fleshing out plan B. I also needed him to arrange a flight to Egypt. If Zane Lewis wouldn’t help—and I knew he wouldn’t—I’d call in every favor I had and take Maddon down myself.
But at least I wasn’t walking out of the office with a limp—or worse, oozing blood—so there was that. And he didn’t seem to know who I was, so that was good. I hadn’t completely ruined everything. Now I could work the plan I wanted to work without Charlie breathing down my neck to involve Zane.
My concentration on my phone was such I didn’t hear Easton come up behind me, but boy did I feel him when he reached around me and pressed the button to call up the elevator. I felt him in a way my senses couldn’t ignore—not his heat at my back, not the scent of his soap that was on the right side of manly without being overpowering, but it was the way his arm brushed mine that had me stiffening.
I wasn’t out of the Viper’s Den yet. I needed to pay closer attention to my surroundings instead of being in a rush to escape and focused on my phone.
“Do you have plans?”
The flutter in my belly was not my style. I wasn’t a woman who was prone to flutters or butterflies. But at Easton’s question butterflies took flight. At the feel of them I wished I was a different kind of woman and he was asking under different circumstances.
That was new, too. I was who I was and I’d long ago accepted my place in this world—the morally gray fringe. A place where, when a man asked me if I had plans he wasn’t asking in the hopes he could take me out on a date where there’d be dinner and drinks, possibly candles and romantic lighting at some fancy restaurant. Whereas on this date I could wear a sexy dress and sexier shoes, small talk and flirting would commence, we’d feel each other out, discover if we were jiving in a way that would lead to us finding ourselves sharing a bed for the evening.
