Page 5 of Two Tricks

“Dax is free to do what she wants. I’ve given up trying to stop her,” Wes said, turning his gaze to me. “Call me if you need me to come get you.”

Aww, Wes was just as protective of me as I was of him.

“Sure thing. We’re taking the Camaro.” I grinned, waving my goodbye as we headed out.

Not needing two cars with both Wes and I having bikes, we shared the matte black Camaro SS. Loving speed and danger, I of course had it tricked out. It looked lethal.

“You two act like an old married couple,” Harper said, smirking as we slid into the car.

I glared at her. She kept telling me I just needed to fuck him and end the tortured need between us, and I hated it. Weston was my family, the most important person in my life growing up besides my twin. After all these years, if it was meant to happen, then it would. Since it hadn’t, I was going to leave it alone. He was too important to lose over something as shallow as sex.

Harper connected her phone to the stereo and started blasting tunes, getting us in the mood to party. The drive was about an hour, but that was life in L.A. Traffic was a bitch, and people were assholes. It would have been so much faster on my bike—one of the main reasons I owned it—but Harper wasn’t a fan of motorcycles and refused to let me take her anywhere on it.

“We have two missions tonight,” Harper announced as the GPS told us we were almost there. “One is to get mama laid! It’s been two weeks since this cat got a good scratch, and she is feeling all kinds of frisky. The second is to see if you can have fun without pissing everyone off or starting a fight.”

“Do I get points if I do both?” I teased.

“I’m being serious here!” she said, punching me in the arm. “This girl has lots of high-end friends, and she could be a huge help in drumming up new business for my boutique. I don’t need my angry midget best friend fucking this up for me.”

“Then why did you bring me?!”

“Like I would ever go to a strange person’s house without you. Bitch, please—you’re my bodyguard tonight.” She laughed at my threatening glare, unfazed. “Kidding. You know I hate to go to these things with people I can’t rely on, and the fashion world isn’t exactly known for being trustworthy.”

I took a deep breath as we pulled into the large circle driveway and up to the valet stand. Leaving the car running, I took the ticket from the attendant and slipped it into my wristlet as I took in the house. The front didn’t look anything special or even worthy of being in Malibu, home of billion-dollar homes. For houses off the PCH, though, the street view wasn’t the front—no, the beachfront was where they made their money. Walking up to the Spanish villa-style front doors, we let ourselves in after checking in with security. Walking down a long, stone-tiled hallway, we entered the living area.

The Spanish style continued through the house, accented with a modern touch. The walls were white, and so was all the furniture, with splashes of color in soft coral. It was nothing I would ever live in—there was no life to it. Instead, it gave off the feeling of it being sterile and cold. Almost too perfect. The living room was filled with beautiful women in slinky dresses and men styled to perfection in the latest trend. I still didn’t understand why their pants couldn’t go all the way to their shoes. Their socks were not that interesting.

“Oh, I found her! Come on, let’s go say hello to the hostess,” Harper said, dragging me after her.

As we stepped out onto one of the balconies, I gasped at the view of the beach and ocean. The infinity pool on the edge of the patio made it look like you could swim right out into the moonlit waters.

“Harper, I’m so glad you could make it!” a woman—the hostess, I was guessing—said.

Unable to take my eyes off the view, I let Harper deal with the niceties.

“Thank you so much for the invite. It was so generous of you to think of me,” Harper babbled, putting on her business voice. “Please let me introduce my best friend, Dax Blackmore.”

Knowing I wasn’t going to be able to brush off this introduction, I turned and was shocked to see Gabriella Rossi, of all women, in front of me.

I paced my office, waiting for Gaby’s call to let me know how the meeting went. It had taken months of research, bribes, and breaking a few fingers to get a lead like this. We now had a line on Two Tricks’ enforcer, and in my personal opinion, his lover. I had to admit that it was impressive that it took so much work to get the name of anyone worth talking to in the Hidden Empire. The Phantom Saints were done getting looked down upon by a man who couldn’t even show his face.

From what we’d learned, everything was done through a third party who was picked out by Tricks. For a criminal, he sure had a lot of rules that his buyers and suppliers had to follow if they wanted to deal.

The office door opened, and three other people filed in and took seats around the room. I kept up my pacing, because if I couldn’t put this energy into something I was going to explode.

“Any word from Gaby yet?” Picasso asked, kicking his feet up on the desk.

Walking by, I smacked them off and growled. He knew I hated that shit. Just because we were blood didn’t mean he could disrespect what was mine. “Do I look like she’s called yet?”

“Fuck, Pres, you need to have a drink or something to chill the hell out,” Picasso grumbled.

I scanned the faces of the others in the room, seeing someone was missing. “Where’s Cognac?”

“He had some issues with the last transaction and went to deal with it personally,” Void answered, looking unhappy about it.

Stopping, I pinned him with a look. “Care to tell me why our treasurer is dealing with this and not my enforcer?”

“Seems that the situation needed a more ‘gentle’ approach. If I got too rough with him, then he wouldn’t deal with us again, and we wouldn’t have a way to transport our goods out of the state,” Void explained.