Page 41 of Mimosa

There were several cars and SUVs in the driveway and in front of the house, so Sonny parked across the street and told Mims, “No details about your job more than bartending. Rememberthat they don’t know that you know about them, about what they are as a collective.”

“Got it.”

“I will be by your side every second that I can. And Mims?”

He turned and stared into those dark eyes. “Yeah?”

“You, right now, already, whatever I should say, you mean the fucking world to me. I promise you, I will take a bullet before I let you be hurt in any way.”

Tears welled in his eyes as he whispered, “You mean that.”

“Yeah. I do.”

He believed him.

“Don’t cry,” he said with a chuckle and he stopped one of his tears with his thumb. “Let’s do this.”

“Okay.”

Mims got out of the truck and met Sonny in the quiet street. They walked together to the front door and before they got twenty feet from it, they heard music and loud talking.

“Good. They’re drunk. This will be much easier.”

“Easier? A lot of people get violent when they’re drinking.”

“You’re with me, Mims. Okay?”

Mims nodded but those words didn’t work like Sonny had thought. He was shaking a little, but he forced himself to steady. Sonny knocked loudly to be heard over the din, and a man opened the door almost immediately.

It was Sandy. “Sonny! Hey, buddy!”

He was already quite drunk, and he hugged Sonny like he hadn’t seen him in years. “My good, good friend,” he said sloppily.

When he noticed Mims, he let go of Sonny and closed the distance quickly to Mims, grabbing him in hug as well. “You’re that little bartender!”

As he was hugging Mims, however, he said, in a steady, sober voice, “If Sonny gets pulled away for any length of time, find me.”

As he pulled back, Mims got a wink from him and Mims smiled, suddenly much steadier, knowing two people were on his side.

They were brought into the house with people all over the place holding bottles of beer or glasses with liquor in them. The smell of the place reminded Mims of the pub on a busy night with people knocking into one another, liquor slopping over the rims of their bottles.

This wasn’t quite as crowded and people weren’t sloppy yet, but he saw a lot of glassy eyes staring his way once he and Sonny moved inside the house.

A big man in his fifties came to them, shaking Sonny’s hand first. He had a terribly squared jaw and two big pock marks sat in the middle of his left cheek.

Not handsome at all, but there was something cold about him that gave Mims the chills.

“Who is this, Aguilar?”

“This is my date, Franklyn. Mims, this is Franklyn Monroe. Franklyn, this is Mims.”

Mims’s eyes widened for a moment, and he hoped it was overlooked. He couldn’t help it. Franklyn…Franklyn Monroe was the leader of the BBC. The head of the cartel that was the sworn enemy of good people.

Hatred radiated from him as he shook the man’s hand, and he tamped it down as hard as he could to plaster on a fake smile. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Monroe.”

“Sgt. Monroe,” he corrected, and his own fake smile was fucking frightening. “But please, call me Franklyn.”

“Mims? That’s a strange name.”

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