Page 89 of Nash

But Axel and I walk through security unchecked. We show no IDs. We keep our phones. We don’t get patted down; of course, we’re packing.

The sight, once we swing open the black, leather quilted door to the club that greets me, could almost stir my cock.

Two nude women are on the stage. They’re side by side and riding their men. I recognize them. Silas and Eily Van de May are partnered with Redix Dean and his wife, Cade Bryant.

Yes, it’s a small, kinky world we live in.

But they don’t know me. Few here do.

Silently, Axel and I move through the large room of areas for lounging and others for sex and play, all opposite a long, sleek bar that serves no alcohol.

At the door at the end of a long hallway, Axel enters another code. It beeps open, and we take the stairs.

They lead to a large, elegant seating area at the top of the landing with plush, amethyst velvet sofas, and sapphire velvet curtains framing a large window of one-way glass overlooking the club below. Seated behind a gleaming walnut desk with ornate golden legs sits The Queen, Nadine Faye.

“Mom.” Axel leans down, greeting her with a kiss on each cheek.

I do the same. She is like my mother. I haven’t seen mine since I was four.

“What do we know?” She gestures for us to sit. I do, while Axel aims for the gold and glass bar cart.

He pours three neat shots of vodka and serves his mother first, then gives one to me before he takes his.

Silently, we toast before we toss it back in one shot. Russian is never spoken in this building, our meetings, or even our homes. We can’t risk the exposure. Though inwardly, we say it, “Vashe zdorovie.”For your health.

It’s custom. It’s how you show respect to your elders.

“He’s been moving product through Beaufort.” Axel settles on the sofa across from mine. “They’re using I-95, the Intercoastal, and the rivers. We need to find his base there.”

She nods. “How are we sure?”

“Nash got the lead from his asset, and my interrogations confirmed it.”

Axel’s interrogations usually involve the loss of fingernails. Then teeth. One. By. One.

In Turner’s case, I took his eye first and made him look at it with his other while I sneered, “This is for looking at my woman with disrespect. Lucky, I’ll take your lip and not your tongue for how you spoke to her, too.”

“Asset?” Nadine raises her groomed brow at me. “You mean Ms. Monroe? Vale?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answer, shifting uncomfortably under her stunning stare.

Nadine Faye laughs at fifty-eight years old. She looks like timeless elegance, with her sable hair swept into a French twist and her bright blue eyes that could burn a hole through a glacier. She always wears Chanel, never indulges in the freedom of her establishment, and it’s impossible to escape her scrutiny.

It’s aimed at me.

“You and Vale,” she chides, “are about as covert as a buzzing vibrator on a church pew.” Axel chuckles while I clench my jaw. “What did I tell you about her?”

“To be careful,” I answer.

“And yet,” she scolds, “when we were at Alena’s fitting, you had Vale Monore glowing like a Catholic nun in a Greek orgy.”

Again, Axel chuckles, and I snort. I can’t help it. If Nadine Faye doesn’t shoot you with the Hellcat pistol she hides, strapped to her thigh, her Southern sayings will get you. She does everything to blend in.

You’d never know she used to be Nadia Kholodov, a Russian Bratva princess.

“We have a situation,” Axel coughs, trying to collect himself. “Nash loves her. She loves him. And?—”

“And you’renotbreaking my baby’s heart before her wedding,” Nadine fusses at me about Alena. It’s a common occurrence. “But after the wedding, you’ll tell her. Yes, Alena will be upset, but she’s strong. We raised her that way. She’ll learn to accept it because I’ve watched you deny your love for Vale Monroe for too long. You stand up here like a rabid wolf, watching her, so get it over with and make her your queen.”

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