Page 151 of Nemesync
I wasn’t even joking.
Nikolai, said with a mock-serious expression, “June, I hope you’re ready for this. Uncle Eli is a bit possessive.”
The little boy nodded enthusiastically.
“Yeaaah! Ready!”
“Be careful guys!”
We headed toward the elevator, the doors closed, and we were outside in a few seconds.
Nikolai glanced at me in the car, smiling like a child. “You looked like you’d throw up when Zanae disappeared yesterday.Heart skipping a beat and shit, you’re so whipped for her Eli, it’s so funny I would’ve never thought I’d see you like that during this lifetime.”
“I don’t have the luxury of heartbeat skipping. I was just analyzing the situation.”
In fact, I had that luxury—my heart stopped beating when I saw that her car was missing, but the real panic struck when I realized she wasn’t home. And then she came back to me, well and alive, and my heart warmed up again. This woman is going to kill me, I swear.
Niko smirked. “Yeaaah, sure. Analyzing my ass. You were about to unleash the apocalypse on anyone who had a hand in her disappearance.”
Ben interjected with a chuckle, “I mean, It’s not surprising. Knowing this world, I would’ve been stressed as fuck if my woman disappeared.”
“Maybe we should give him a stress ball. Or better yet, a tracker to implant it in Zanae’s skin,” Niko suggested glancing back at Ben.
I shot him a steely look. “I don’t need a tracker. I just need her to stay out of trouble.”
Even though the idea was fucking good —tracking her—but I knew she’d fight me on it. Morals and shit.
But let’s keep the idea.
Nikolai leaned back, grinning, “Good luck with that, man. Trouble seems to follow our Little Z like a shadow, or like you, I don’t even know who follows her more at this point.”
Ben laughed, “Can’t argue with that. But hey, at least it’s entertaining.”
I may be even more obsessed with her now that I’ve tasted life with her, but how could you blame me? I feel like a blind man who saw the light for the first time, you can’t take it from me now.
We arrived at the club; and gathered in the poker room upstairs.
Our men were already waiting for us, looking down at Ben like he was an intruder.
We sat across the table from them. The air was full of the scent of cigars and alcohol; they talked about sex and missions, but some of them talked about their wives and children too.
Hushed conversations everywhere, it was so damn loud. That’s when I missed my little routine with Zanae the most. It’s so much calmer with her, life was so much more enjoyable. Now, I had to be a leader with men crowding around me, when all I really wanted was to get back home to her, finding her reading and giggling because of some fictional characters.
Focus.
We had to discuss an important matter about some kind of operation with the boss of the Midnight Serpents, an alliance of the yakuza. Kaito told us he wanted a part of the shore where we get our shipments. It wasn’t a small talk, but some of our members seemed distracted and I wanted to fucking kill them for this.
Just when I thought we had everyone focused, one of our members, a good element, Boris, decided to open his mouth. He smirked, eyeing me with a grin. “Hey, boss, that woman you were with the other night, she was looking too good, huh? I wouldn’t mind getting a piece of that.”
My expression darkened, and the room went completely silent.
Do I look like they can disrespect the woman I brought to this event? No, I didn’t.
I was about to fucking slit his throat and make him drink his own blood when Nikolai, tried to diffuse the situation. “Easy there, Boris. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Boris just shrugged and continued, “Can’t blame a man for appreciating a woman’s beauty, right?”
Before I could make good on my silent threat, Ben leaned in, his tone low and calm, “You might want to consider shutting the fuck up before saying shit like this.”
