He glowers at me and puts the gun to my temple. “I won’t hesitate. You’re just a business partner, always remember that.”
I give a quick nod. “I’ll be right out.”
He slams the door shut and Jaelyn pushes me off of her while she scurries around to grab her clothes. “Seriously, Sergio? Where the hell did you bring me? And who is that guy who just saw me completely naked?”
“Relax,” I mumble, pulling on my pants. “We work together. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Don’t get shot in the process,” she hisses, pulling on her leggings. “Or I’ll have to ask your hot friend for a lift home.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “You think he’s hot?”
Her lips curl upward. “Ohyes. So hot. Does that bother you?”
“No,” I grunt, my lips twisting. Alek is happily married with kids, but that’s beside the point. Just the thought of another man’s hands on Jaelyn is enough to make me go all Incredible Hulk and pound the shit outta him.
“You have a lot of hot buttons, and damn, they are so easy to find, you know that?” she says with a smirk.
I grab her around the waist and pull her close. “It doesn’t mean I want you to stop pressing them, you got that? I just need a few minutes and then you can press them all you want.”
She sits on the bed, resting her head against the pillow. “I’ll be waiting.”
I pull on my shirt and run a hand through my sexed-up hair before opening the door and joining Alek in the kitchen. He holds up the bottle of vodka. “I guess you got hungry.”
“Listen, I know this looks bad, but let me explain?—”
“Quiet.” He glowers at me. “You do realize that anything you do isn’t just on behalf of your family anymore, right? This whole syndicate we’ve formed means that your business becomes my business and vice versa. And I don’t like it when your business fucks in the middle of my business. You get that?”
I nod, rubbing the back of my neck.
Alek folds his arms over his massive chest. He’s got about six inches on me height-wise and he’s broad and built like a brick shithouse.
The head of the brutal Severinov family.
The man who sat in a restaurant in Monaco and stabbed a drug lord in the chest with a fork and pretty much split him in two with it.
He’s a king among men in the underworld.
I do not want to be on his bad side.
We haven’t really spoken much since the families banded together months ago. He’s out here to help build up his family’s interests in Vegas, and Matteo is his counterpart, not me. So, I take a backseat most of the time. I’m looking for Alek’s approval, yeah, but I don’t want to get it with my head coming out of his mouth.
Anyway, the guy has created an international empire over the past years since he took over his family, and I know I could learn plenty from him…that is, if he doesn’t kick my ass for executing my latest brilliant plan without anyone’s knowledge or approval.
“You wanna tell me who she is?” He cocks an eyebrow and gulps down a shot of vodka. “From what little I know of you, it doesn’t seem like you lack places to screw women. And a guy in your position wouldn’t take one to a fucking construction zone.”
I lean my head into my hands. I may as well tell him the truth. It’s gonna get out soon enough that the Becerra Cartel is targeting me.
All of us, really.
“The Becerra Cartel tried to kill me and my guys the other night. But we’re not their only targets.” I nod toward the closed bedroom door. “Turns out she and her brother are on their radar, too. But we worked out an arrangement — controlling share of their nightclub business to take out the cartel leaders.”
“That’s a big plan coming from the guy who’s trying damn hard to get a seat at the table.” Alek shakes his head. “Matteo knows about this?”
“Only about us getting shot up. Nothing else.”
“So you made this decision on your own to take on the cartel?”
“To get the deal I wanted for the nightclubs, yeah.” I say.