Page 51 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

Kat went to do so, and Prince gestured to an empty round-topped table. “Your men are welcome to sit as well. Have drinks.”

“No,” Ruiz said. “They’ll stand.”

Prince regarded him a moment, clicking the ring on his middle finger against his glass. He did smile, then, and not in a friendly way. “Shall my men stand, too? And Maverick’s?”

Taking it as a cue, Shep shoved his chair back from the table, legs screeching gratifyingly over the hardwood, and stood. Pongo popped up next, then Toly, cursing in Russian under his breath.

Topino stayed seated, but one of his hands disappeared under the table, and Shep knew he had a grip on his gun.

The two thugs turned at the sound, hands hovering at their hips, where their own guns were no doubt stashed.

Shep grinned. “You wanna play quick draw?”

“How about,” Maverick said, calmly, “we all sit down, have a drink, and hash things out like the rational businessmen we are?”

The nearest thug, the larger of the two, caught Shep’s gaze, and his eyes were the flat black of a shark. If they were alone together, Shep knew, the man would try to kill him and think nothing of it. Shep didn’t even register as human in his view.

Like hell was Shep going to blink first. Ruiz barked something in Spanish, and the thug turned away.

Shep grinned to himself—until he caught Mav’s gaze and earned a single brow lifted in rebuke. He sat back down, and the others followed suit.

Kat placed Ruiz’s scotch before him, and then crossed the room to sit with Reese and Tenny. When the two thugs sat at a different table, it meant they were flanked on all sides by Dogs and mafia boys, and Shep felt a little better.

Prince smoothed the open halves of his expensive jacket and sat back in his chair, hands spread on the table in a visual bridging of the two parties. “Thank you for coming, Hector. I think it’s important to handle this situation with diplomacy.”

Ruiz shifted in his seat, shoulders drawing up toward his ears. His head jutted forward on his neck as he addressed Mav. “Diplomacy? Three of your men tied up two of mine and threw them in the back of their own van! They threatened to kill them!”

Shep searched for, and was rewarded by Tenny’s eye roll across the room.

Mav sipped at his drink, expression mild. “They apprehended them, yeah. Outside of a young woman’s house, where she and her family have been living in fear. My men spoke to yours, and then they let them leave, didn’t they?”

Ruiz shifted again and let out an angry huff. “They had no right.”

“Mr. Ruiz,” Prince said. “From my understanding, your crew is relatively new in town.” He waited for acknowledgement: a tight, reluctant nod. “I know you’re still finding your footing.”

“My footing is fine,” Ruiz hissed through his teeth.

Prince took a deep, measured breath. “Respectfully speaking: if you were fine, you wouldn’t have come in this room with such a chip on your shoulder.

There’s a hierarchy here,” he pressed on, holding up a palm when Ruiz tried to interrupt.

“The Lean Dogs are the top. They earned that spot. You heard of Abacus? Three years ago? The Dogs ended them. My organization and the Kozlov bratva work alongside them, as allies. But it would be downright stupid to pit yourself against the Dogs, and you don’t look like a stupid man, Mr. Ruiz. ”

Shep could only see the guy in three-quarter profile, so he couldn’t read his expression aside from the clenching of his jaw. He picked up his scotch and took the sort of sip that meant he probably didn’t like scotch.

When he lowered his glass, he said, “I have every right to make a living. For me and my crew.”

Mav nodded and said, “Yeah, you do. But in this case, you’re making that living in a way that conflicts with our interests.”

“Maverick’s proposing,” Prince said, quickly, before Ruiz could respond, “to buy out the contract you made with Blackmon. In full. You back off the Simpson family, and we’ll handle the Blackmons going forward.”

Shep hadn’t realized how twitchy Ruiz was until he went completely still.

“It’s a generous offer,” Prince said. “You don’t have to get your hands dirty, you stay on good terms with the rest of the underground, and you get double the cash.”

Ruiz tapped his fingers on the side of his glass. “Why?” He sounded suspicious.

Mav shrugged, loose and easy. “Because Sig Blackmon’s a nasty little prick who deserves to go to jail.” He cocked his brow again. “Do you want to help him? Or was this just about a payday?”

Ruiz sipped more scotch, then nodded.

Mav nodded back. “How much did he pay you?”

“Twenty-thousand.”

Prince snorted. “How much did he really pay you?”

More fidgeting. “Twelve.”

Pongo wrinkled his nose in freckled contempt.

Toly hummed into his vodka.

Tres Diablos? Weakass shit. Embarrassing.

Prince and Mav remained stoic, their expressions anything but insulting.

Mav said, “If you tell me everything Blackmon asked for, and agree to abandon the contract completely, I’ll give you twenty.”

Both Diablo thugs sat forward until their chairs creaked. Ruiz glanced toward them, and they shared a silent communication of head tilts and nods.

Ruiz turned back to Maverick. “Cash?”

Mav gestured, and Topino got up to join him. He stood beside his chair and set a janky old Igloo cooler on the table at Mav’s elbow; swiveled the lid back to reveal rubber-banded stacks of twenties.

Mav laid a hand on the edge of the open cooler. “Tell me what I want to know,” he said, “and it’s yours. We’ll shake hands and walk away on friendly terms.”

Ruiz hesitated another moment, but his gaze was pinned on the cooler. He wet his lips and said, “We were sitting on the house. Blackmon wanted us to get the mother or daughter off on her own. Slap them around a little. Not kill them, but scare them.”

Mav nodded. “What else?”

Ruiz fiddled with his glass some more. “There’s another girl. The friend.”

The whole room waited, silent.

Shep’s pulse threatened to drown out whatever Ruiz said next. He curled his hands into fists on the tabletop, and Toly made a subtle shushing gesture with his near hand.

“Blackmon said,” Ruiz continued, voice wavering, losing some of its hostility, “that he’d give us an extra five grand if one of my boys put her in her place.”

Shep wasn’t aware of moving. One moment he was at the table, the next he was halfway between it and the main table, and there was a wiry strong arm around his waist, and Pongo’s hands were pressed to his chest, pushing him back.

“Whoa,” Pongo said, like he was a fucking horse, his eyes big. “Dude.”

The owner of the arm revealed himself as Toly, when he took a fistful of Shep’s hoodie and yanked until the collar cut into his throat. His voice was low and calm in his ear. “You need to stop. You expected this. Calm down.”

Ruiz had twisted around in his chair—they must have been making a lot of noise—and his expression was a blend of fear and dark satisfaction.

Shep imagined shoving Pongo aside and bearing down on Ruiz; wrapping hands around his throat and squeezing until he gurgled.

Digging his thumbs into his eyes until blood ran down his cheeks like tears.

“Shep,” Mav said, not loudly, but firmly. “Please.”

Toly released his hood and pinched something in his neck that liquified all his nerves.

“Ah! Shit!”

“Sit down,” Toly hissed in his ear, and Shep allowed himself to be shoved and corralled back into his chair.

Pongo kept both hands pressed to his shoulders after. “Dude,” he said, “don’t fuck this up.”

“Let go of me.” He swatted at them, and they lifted their hands, but didn’t step back, ready to tackle him if he made another run at Ruiz.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the thugs watching him. One of them was grinning. Shep breathed roughly through his mouth, lungs pumping, heart racing. He wanted to do something .

Mav’s voice took on a new, flinty edge as he sat back down.

“Hector, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and I’m going to explain this to you.

Once. The ‘girl’ you were tasked with assaulting?

She has eight brothers, and all of them are Lean Dogs.

One of them’s in the room with us right now.

And the guy who wants to choke you out over there?

That’s her man. Her sister is a very publicly well-known model and fashion designer. ”

What the fuck? Shep wanted to yell. Don’t tell him all of that .

But Mav continued, “Believe me when I tell you that if you or any member of your crew harms Cassandra Green, you won’t even live to regret it. You’ll be gone.” He tilted his head to a meaningful angle. “Do you understand?”

Ruiz sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I understand.”

~*~

Natalia was the first of Cass’s nieces that she’d gotten to spend any real time around.

She liked babies, but she couldn’t decide if that was just because she didn’t have one of her own.

It was fun to be Aunt Cass: to hold Nat’s solid, warm weight in her arms, like she did now, and watch her perfect, soft little eyelids twitch in her sleep; to see her tiny fingers curl and uncurl.

There was something magic in all the miniature aspects of babyhood: the knee creases, the toenails, the button nose.

But who was to say she’d feel that way if she was in charge of one twenty-four-seven?

She sat cross-legged in one corner of the massive sectional sofa, Raven in the other. They’d set out to have a girls’ movie night, but neither of them was paying much attention to Pride & Prejudice .

Raven tipped against the back of the couch and propped her temple on her fist. “Why are you so good at that? Getting her to sleep.”

“It’s not me. She cried for four hours, so now she’s asleep.”

“I know. Little goblin,” Raven said, lovingly.

“Don’t listen to your mum,” Cass stage-whispered to the sleeping baby. “She’s mean.”

Raven stretched out her leg and flicked Cass in the ankle with her toes. “Brat.”