Page 218 of Slashed Bonds

“What do you want me to do?”

“Bait them.”

I frown.

Because Nikolai won’t approve of me walking into a frat party. Not with what’s in those bottles. Not with what I’ve got in my history. Cassian won’t either, and Cassian’s version of not approving involves the bottle he keeps and a door that locks from the outside. And the only way the bait works, the only way I walk into a room full of Hellsing Ross’s product without looking like exactly what I am, is on somebody’s arm.

The thought of going with Mori turns my stomach over.

“I’ve got nobody to go with.”

“You and I both know if you asked your new chick, she’d go.”

“I’m not putting her in danger.”

“She’s not the one who’d be taking that shit.” He flicks ash over the rail. “Is she.”

No. But I can’t leave her alone in a room with my doped ass and four men who’ve put a drug in her neck before.

I open my mouth to say so.

“I’ve got everything you lot need to eliminate these fuckers.”

I stop.

“Documents. Video. Records. Every single thing, going back two years. Supply chain, payment, the kid who drives the van. And you know I can leak it perfectly, because there’s a so-called gala coming up, and there’s going to be money in that room ready to sponsor the shit out of whichever team looks like it has the most potential.”

I don’t argue. He hears me not argue.

“Vipers have the highest potential in the bracket.” He says it like a man reading a ledger. “Not the three of you. The green one and the twins are drawing rivalry interest from two programs. And there’s a third set of players coming from abroad to join your roster if you make semis. Signed, sealed, waiting on a result.”

That’s new. That’s not on any whiteboard in this house.

“Uppers are shifting. Multiple levels. Money’s running out in places it used to be deep, and alliances are moving with it.” He smirks at the sky, and I can see the amusement in his eyes, pure and dark. “We need an alibi. And I’d bet your girl deserves a bit of revenge. Don’t you think?”

If he’s done his research, and Dox always has, he knows about the window. The arms. The drug. The note under the rock.

“You’re going to owe me a shit ton.”

I growl it. Not because I mind getting messy. I like messy. Messy’s where I live. I’ve put a man through glass for less than a note, and the putting didn’t trouble me.

I mind bringing her into it.

“All three of us will be on site.”

He says it quiet. And from another man it’d be air, a thing you say to close a deal. From Dox it’s a different animal. His pack doesn’t guarantee anything to anyone. They’re not what they look like, three heavily inked men with a basement under a laundromat. They run the Underground. Not the part Mori worked in, the rooms and the masks. The other part. The money that moves through it, and the product that moves with the money, and the fact that none of it has ever once touched the floor where the Omegas are.

Dox guaranteeing his pack’s protection is a new level of loyalty. It’s a thing I’ll owe him for regardless of how the rest goes.

And I know what it costs him to offer. Three men who’ve spent a decade making sure nothing they touch leaves a print, agreeing to stand in a frat house full of phones with a dead Viper’s name trending, because somebody put something in a bottle meant for a woman with a wine-red ponytail. It’s not loyalty to me. It’s that the thing that moved him and the thing that’s moving me are the same shape, and he knows it, and he’s betting I’ll hold my end because of it.

He’s right. That’s the irritating part. He’s read the wall correctly.

“She can’t get hurt.” I hold his eyes. “And if she does, you get us out, and nothing’s on a camera anywhere. Not a phone. Not a wall.”

“Deal.”

“And don’t fucking tell Nik.”