Page 29

CHAPTER 28

JOAQUIN

P arker refused to deal with me, preferring to run the partnership through Lake. It didn't mean I didn't keep up with everything on the side. I was their manager after all, but I couldn't say I hated not having to deal with this prick.

Lake took the front, leading us down the staff hallway, which for once wasn’t bustling. I slid in behind the brothers, placing a buffer between them and Beasty.

At the door leading to the private office hallways, screaming broke out.

We stopped short, Atlas running into my back. Just outside the Feral room, two dancers were going at it, pulling hair, ripping bodices, and trying their best to bite each other.

Parker whistled. "That looks like a problem."

Andre shot him a glare, but Parker just grinned.

"I'll take care of it." Beasty broke away from the group. Kim stretched his arm out as far as possible until he had to let go of her hand. He flitted his gaze between her and us.

I knew the feeling. Beasty needed to be covered, but this meeting with Parker was bound to be important.

"I–" Kim winced as he glanced between the Bastard Brothers and Beasty. He wanted to stay with us. “I’ll stay with Beasty. She needs me,” he said as he was already following after her.

"It's okay," Atlas said under his breath. He pulled out his phone and sent a text. In under a minute, a shorter version of Beasty popped out of the Urban room. Still dressed in white shorts and a sports bra, she sidled up behind Kim and Beasty, discreetly watching their backs.

A few more girls stepped out of the other rooms, and they formed a loose circle with Sarah.

"We can go now." Atlas looked to Lake.

He nodded. With a grim expression, he stepped through the door to the private hallway.

"Hmm. I'm surprised you're splitting up after everything that's happened in the last few months." Parker stuffed his hands in his pocket, twisting his upper body around to glance behind him before he continued to stroll after Lake.

We didn't answer.

Exchanging glances with Atlas, I knew we all had the same thought. The club was as safe as we could make it. There wasn't anything more we could do to keep Beasty safe within the walls. This might be the only safe place for her, plus she had Kim and an ass load of mercenary guards with her.

But the brothers...

They were the bigger threat, and I didn't want them to have any more access to her than necessary.

At the next door, Lake scanned his card, then once again to get into our office.

"That's a great security feature," Andre praised as he walked around our office. "We might have to steal a few things for our setup."

"I'm always happy to talk you through what we've accomplished here." Lake leaned his ass against his desk and crossed his arms. He was taller than Andre and I had a feeling he didn't want to place himself in a lower position.

Parker didn't have any qualms, sprawling out on the couch. Neither did Atlas who took a seat in the chair next to him.

"What are you doing here?" Lake demanded in a quiet voice.

I needed to sit down for this. If I didn't, I was going to head straight for the liquor cabinet and that was off-limits. I went behind my desk and sat. At least here, I had access to the panic button. It would lead to Guy, although I wasn't sure what he would do against these men.

Let us hope it didn't come to that.

The air kicked on, and a soft breeze stirred the stale air of the office as we studied each other.

"Am I not allowed to check on my investment?" Parker drawled, a darkness glinting in his eyes.

"About that, we want to buy you out." Lake's voice stayed firm, but his fingers bit into the skin of his forearms. While Lake and Parker entered into a stare-off, Andre walked over to the security monitors, watching the happenings in the club.

Did he not care about this? I'd always heard he was the unofficial leader of the Bastard Brothers.

Parker tutted. "It doesn't work that way. You know that." The smirk he'd been sporting grew sharp. If I'd ever seen a shark smiling, it was this man.

I tensed. Atlas' fingers twitched against the arm of the chair as he sought me out.

What would happen if we couldn't disengage from Parker? It had all seemed like a big game before, plus it was nice not to expend our own capital and have someone backing us up with their own firepower.

But what if we'd just stepped into a different trap?

"How does it work then?" Lake challenged.

"Dear brother. Do you want to tell them, or should I?" Parker twisted his head toward Andre who barely glanced over his shoulder.

"This is your business, not mine."

Parker snorted. "That's because you don't run a business. You run the government and babysit the rest of us."

Andre grunted but didn't turn around.

"What my brother should have said was, there's no way out, unless we want you out. Even then, it's not a way you'd like to travel, considering it's a one-way ticket to the bottom of the ocean."

Discreetly pulling my phone out, I sent a message to Beasty.

Me

When you're done with the girls, don't come here. Go to the main club room with Kim and sit at the VIP table.

Call it instinct, but it felt like we were about to devolve into an argument with no winners.

Lake sucked his teeth as he mulled that over. A thousand thoughts were flying through his head. I hadn't seen him this worked up since we were kids trying to find a way out of West Virginia.

At the time, it had seemed impossible. Yet we'd made it.

We could get away from the Bastard Brothers. But how?

I pulled the deck of cards out of my other pocket, separating them down the middle and shuffling them together. The cards were old and worn, having lost their shine years ago. They were buttery leather now and provided a level of comfort that calmed me.

"That doesn't work for us. I'm happy for a partnership of sorts, but we want you out of our business. We'll buy you out. We'll even pay you back your investment five times over. That will certainly make you more money than getting a cut of the profits."

"That's cute that you think this is about the money for me." Parker sat forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. "This is about power. I want access to the best intel, the best blackmail information, and I want a monopoly on it. You remember the club that I met you at?" Parker turned to me and raised his brows, his gaze briefly dipping to my hands.

"Uh–"

"What's he talking about?" Lake fired off.

"Um–" I'd never told Lake about that particular meeting.

"Your boy Joaquin was two deals away from losing his head in my uncle's club. Luckily, I was notified–by Gio no less–to come and rescue him. How many times now has he saved your lives?"

"You want to talk about Gio?" Lake pushed away from the desk, fisting his hands at his sides. "He had Beasty–He had his chance to save us, and instead, he chose to try and use her to draw out the Pescis. He doesn't prioritize your instructions over his own gain. He wants the Pescis gone, and he doesn't give a fuck how he does it."

"That's interesting." Parker shot a glance at Andre who turned around at that. "I knew you were taken. I told Gio and his men to get you back. Why do you say he tried to use your Beasty?" He said her name with distaste. "Is that truly the best nickname you could come up with?”

My face flamed at the insult to us and more importantly to Beasty.

"You don’t know anything about us. And your approval means shit," Atlas said in a fuck you tone.

"Ah, the pretty one has teeth. That's handy."

Atlas snarled but kept his mouth clamped shut. None of us wanted to make this worse, and unfortunately, Lake was the most level-headed. At least when it came to Beasty.

"He tried to use Beasty by driving her to where one of the Pescis was. They took the calls in front of her. I say tried because she escaped and rescued us her own damn self within hours of leaving them. If she'd stayed with them, they would have taken her in the opposite direction and it could have been days before she found us. If there was anything to find."

Parker stuck his tongue in the side of his mouth as he mulled that over. "That's unfortunate. I'll speak with Gio. Back to the matter at hand. Ask Joaquin if he remembers what happened to the club?"

Lake looked at me, and I widened my eyes.

I'd been pissed. I barely remembered it. Who was I with? Atlas?

I glanced at him and he gave nothing away in his expression. Asshole. He was stringing me out to dry.

Sighing, Parker dropped his head. "This is why I don't deal with Joaquin," he muttered almost to himself. "The club had a series of explosions that led to its inoperability."

Fuck this asshole.

"You do remember that, right?" He stared right at me.

I peeled my top lip up and slammed my cards down on the table. "You–”

"Are you threatening our club?" Lake's voice was a dark whisper in the shadows.

"I'm not threatening anything. If you're not my ally, you're my enemy, and we don't allow our enemies to continue operating. Just look at how we seized the top spot of the food chain."

"By killing off your family?" Atlas piped in. He was trying to be an asshole.

Yet Parker didn't fall for it the way I fell for his baiting. "Exactly. If we'll off our family as you so eloquently put it, then what will we do to you?"

"Stop." Lake waved a hand. "We want you out of our business, but we don't want to lose an ally."

"Yeah? I hear Ms. Chen worked out well for you. You see there are benefits."

"Yes, there are." It sounded like that admission was ripped from Lake's chest. He hated admitting we needed anyone. "What would it take to retain our partnership without you having any stakes in our business?"

"They're trying to bully us out, brother," Parker said to Andre. His older brother perched on the end of the couch. Why was he even here if he wasn't going to contribute?

"You're being an ass," was all Andre said.

"Which is why I'm so highly loved. It's my best quality."

"Unfortunately, it is your best quality, but not why you're loved. The two are not synonymous."

"What will it take," Lake interrupted their delusional conversation.

"Our allies are our employees." Parker quirked a brow.

"That's not true. There were the Devil Dogs."

Parker rolled his eyes. "They're practically family, and that's not the point. We inherited that little fiasco." Then he glanced at us with a shit-eating grin. "You want to become family? That would work. I'm happy to plant one of our best men in your little harem."

Everyone stood up, and Lake took two steps forward.

"Parker is joking. He's an...acquired taste." Andre slapped Parker on the back of the head. "Stop fucking with them."

So he was here to keep Parker in line. Got it.

"They should know we're hardly one to judge their relationship preferences. You could say we’re the trendsetters. In fact, I bet we could give them a few pointers."

"Unlikely, unless you fuck each other too," Atlas mused.

I widened my eyes for him to shut the fuck up.

"Well, well. I'd heard about your polyamory, but I wasn't sure if it was true or not. I don't suppose we could give you tips on positions if you're playing interconnecting Lego games." He slid a sly glance to Andre. "I'm still a better Lego engineer than you."

Andre huffed under his breath, but let it go.

"How about a wage?" I asked, placing my fingers lightly against the back of my deck. My heart fluttered in my chest as he brought his attention back to me.

"What kind of wager?" He tilted his head to the side.

God damn, this man was like a curious grenade. The tension was so thick, we could cut it with one of Lake's knives and still wouldn't be able to wade through it. Yet Parker didn't seem disturbed by it at all, he seemed to thrive on it.

"A game of chance. I'll shuffle the cards, show you ten, then give you three chances to guess the next one."

He scoffed. "That's ridiculous. What kind of game is that?"

I smirked. "A game that any card counter excels at. But if you're not good at it, just say so. We won't embarrass you."

Parker shot up, narrowing his eyes on me.

"What are the stakes?" He slowly stood.

Shit, he was considering this. I shot a look at Lake. This could be our shot. Could it be this easy?

"If you can't guess it in three guesses, then we buy you out of the club."

"Allies?"

"We can remain allies," Lake added quickly like he was afraid I was going to fuck it up.

"And if I get it right? What then?"

I blew out a breath. "Then you remain part of the club. A silent investor."

Parker grinned. "Not good enough. If I guess right, then Andre will shoot one of you. Nothing immediately fatal, maybe a gut shot. Huh, brother?"

Andre leveled him with a droll stare. "Seriously?"

"Yes. We can't just let people walk away without any blood. And they'd have time to potentially save whomever it is. As long as they receive care in a short amount of time."

"Hell to the fuck no," Lake blustered, pushing forward another few steps.

"We can change it. We can take Beasty," he wrinkled his nose at her name, "back to our compound. We could find a job for her that she'd love."

"We'll take our chances with the shot," Atlas growled.

"Perfect!" Parker clapped his hands together.

"Wait, if you're adding those stakes, then we have to up ours. If you miss on the first guess, you remove Gio from babysitting duty. He clearly doesn't care about your investment like you do anyway." The words tasted sour in my mouth. We were more than a fucking investment. "If you miss on the second guess, then you forfeit half of your investment into Snatched when we buy you out."

"And if I missed the third guess?"

I should have thought this through. He forfeited his rights to Snatched is a given. He gets no payout? Or do we need anything else?

"Then you lose all your investment into our club and you forfeit your buyout."

Parker scowled. "That's not a fair wager."

"Who told you life was fair? Anyway, you said this wasn't about money." Lake shrugged. "We'll remain allies though. We'll even secure the statue for you as a token of good faith in our continued partnership...Without you having a stake in Snatched."

"Fine. Andre, shoot the pretty one if I guess right." Parker stopped on the other side of my desk and flicked his fingers toward the cards. "Shuffle them."

Andre pulled out his gun and rested it on his knees, looking bored as a bead of sweat rolled down my temple. The cool air floating over me from the air vent did fuck all to cool my anxiety.

I'd worked this deck so many times, they practically shuffled themselves on muscle memory. Once the deck was appropriately sorted, I laid out ten cards, paying attention to the backs of the ones in my hand. After so many years, they’d gotten marked up. That also meant I'd memorized every single card in it.

Parker studied the ten cards lying face up. He pulled them apart with his middle finger.

I saw the back of the next card. Noticed the nick in the corner. Fuck. Could it be this easy or would he call me a cheater?

Flipping the corner toward me, I made a show of checking it.

"First guess?" I asked.

He didn't answer right away, still studying the cards. "Ace of spades."

"Wrong." A sickening ball of tension unraveled in my chest. "Second guess?"

"Damn it." He blew out a breath. "Three of hearts."

"Wrong." Shit, we now had help with Gio and he'd lost half his investment into the club.

Lake surreptitiously placed his hand on his waist close to his holster. There was a real possibility Parker would throw a fit and have Andre shoot one of us anyway.

"Last guess?"

Parker's shoulders bunched up and he tapped his first two fingers on the edge of the desk. He took several minutes, studying the cards. I wasn't sure what he thought he'd find there, but I didn't say anything.

I had to force myself to breathe.

"Queen of clubs."

"Wrong." I flipped over the next card.

The Joker.

Anger swirled in Parker's eyes as he lifted his gaze to mine. "You fucking tricked me."