Page 27 of Unworthy Ties
“This requires discretion.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And Felix is discreet?”
I sighed. He had a point. My brother was many things, but subtle wasn’t one of them.
“Fine. But you keep this to yourself.”
If I turned Dino away and upset him, who knew what he might do with the information. It would be best just to take him along.
Felix’s car turned into the lot, headlights sweeping across us as he pulled up. He rolled down the window, his expression shifting from surprise to annoyance when he spotted Dino beside me.
“What’s he doing here?” Felix asked, not bothering with pleasantries. “Didn’t you want to keep this a secret?”
“Nothing is a secret to him,” I muttered, walking towards the passenger door.
We headed towards The Rusty Nail, a decrepit bar on the edge of town where the Vipers liked to congregate. The place was a dump—all peeling paint and neon signs with missing letters—but it served its purpose. The kind of establishment where people minded their own business, especially when money exchanged hands.
The drive was uncomfortably silent. Felix white-knuckled the steering wheel, clearly unhappy about our unexpected plus one. Dino lounged in the back seat, looking utterly at ease as he scrolled through his phone. Every few minutes, he’d chuckle at something, the sound grating on my already frayed nerves.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dino finally asked, leaning forward between the seats. “We just waltz in, ask questions about their boss, and hope we don’t get stabbed?”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be here,” Felix muttered. “We need an asset, not a liability.”
From what I knew about Dino, all of his talents were in information gathering. I assumed that Dino’s close friend, who shared the same name, handled all the killings for him. He wouldn’t exactly be helpful if a brawl broke out.
“I’m not here for a fight,” Dino replied, sounding almost bored. “I’m here because I’m curious. And because I have something you don’t.”
“And what’s that?” Felix snapped.
Dino leaned back, a smug smile playing on his lips. “I know Ramirez, the bartender. He owes me a favor.”
That caught my attention. “What kind of favor?”
Dino’s eyes gleamed in the dim light reflected from passing streetlamps. “Let’s just say I helped him with a rather delicate situation involving his daughter and a member of the Scorpions.” He tapped his fingers against the leather seat. “The kind of help that creates the sort of gratitude that doesn’t expire.”
Felix shot me a sideways glance, his jaw clenched. I knew that look—the reluctant admission that maybe Dino’s presence wasn’t entirely unwelcome after all.
“Fine,” I conceded. “But you follow our lead. No improvising.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dino replied, though his tone suggested otherwise.
As we pulled into the gravel lot of The Rusty Nail, I could already feel the tension coiling in my stomach. The place looked exactly like the kind of dive where bodies disappeared and questions went unanswered. A neon sign buzzed and flickered, casting an eerie red glow over the handful of motorcycles and beat-up trucks parked outside.
“Let’s keep this to information only,” I said as Felix cut the engine. “There are way more Vipers than there are of us.”
“My specialty,” Dino said, straightening his tie as if we were headed to a business meeting rather than a potential death trap. “And to think you didn’t want me here.”
The smell hit me first when we walked in—stale beer, cigarette smoke, and something else I couldn’t quite place but reminded me of desperation. The Rusty Nail was fuller than I expected for a Tuesday night, filled with the kind of people who didn’t have jobs to wake up for or didn’t care if they showed up hungover.
Felix moved ahead, creating a path through the crowd with his broad shoulders. I stayed close behind him, feeling eyes track our movement across the room. These weren’t casual glances—they were assessments, calculations of threat level.
Dino, meanwhile, moved with surprising ease. Where Felix pushed through the crowd like a battering ram, Dino slipped between bodies like water, somehow avoiding contact entirely.
The three of us made our way to the bar, where an older Mexican man was polishing glasses. The bartender didn’t look up as we approached, continuing his methodical polishing as if we were just more scenery in his dingy kingdom.
“Long time no see, Ramirez,” Dino said breezily, as if he was greeting an old friend at a coffee shop rather than a known Viper associate in the heart of their territory.
“Dino,” he responded, not looking up. “I figured you’d come to collect sooner rather than later.”
