Page 120 of Indecent Lies

Not altogether a surprise.

Texas assumed they’d have him watched to test if he went back to the MC.

He should have been better prepared, kept her out of sight.

“You don’t share her air.” He had more to add. “My girl doesn’t exist to you, are you understanding me? What the fuck ever game you want to play, you put her in it, I’m not happy.”

“You have many years with MC and yet you do not learn it is not advantageous to wear heart on your sleeve,comrade. It makes a man like you weak.” Grigori delivered the speech in his somewhat stilted English like he was giving life advice to a son and Texas about saw red as he stormed forward, leaning over the desk with his fingers holding him up.

His eyes flared as he bared his teeth and issued his own warning with quiet bullets. “Whatever is on my sleeve is my business, Russian. You stay away from my woman, you don’t pull her up in the fucking street, you don’t come to my house, ever.”

“Protection,da. The lovely one needs it in a place like this,” Grigori simpered slyly. “As you are a part of my conglomerate now, I could have a man watch her for you.”

“Fuck you. And hear what I am saying, stay away.”

“Therein lies your weaknesses, my friend. If I were a lesser man I would take advantage of such show of care. But we are friends,da?”

Fuck you, friend, Texas thought, with his rage bubbling his stomach.

“I respect your wishes, and I did not mean to scare the woman, you give her my apologies,” when Texas turned on his boots, Grigori stopped him. “But while you are here. Perhaps we talk for a moment. I wish for you to put me into contact with your brother.”

The penny dropped like a clanging symbol and when Texas spun around it was with clarity of just how Grigori had played him and Texas had delivered himself up on a fucking platter.

The other man grinned with his hands clasped on his desk.

Give a veiled threat to Poppy’s safety and then offer a solution in which Texas wouldn’t have any other choice but to accept.

“Who?” He asked.

“Ah, come now, my friend, let us not build a relationship on lies. Your brother, twin in fact, is he not? Malachai Hunt, decorated agent of the ATF department with many commendations from the mayor of New York City.”

This guy was good.

Texas buried the fact he was related to Mal for a long time, he didn’t care how Grigori uncovered the truth because he wasn’t playing his game.

“I said I’d make you money, that’s the beginning and end of this.”

“A pity then.” Grigori shrugged.

The threat clear, contaminating the air between them.

If Texas didn’t introduce his twin to thebratvaunderboss, then something would happen to Poppy.

“I think we could have a happy accord with your blood relative,da?”

Texas smirked. “The biggest mistake you’ve made… and you’ve made a lot… is showing me your plate, because I’m hungry and you want to know something? I have nothing to lose.”

Only he did. Poppy, if the implied threat was to be taken seriously.

As he’d said earlier, over his dead fucking body.

He wasn’t a violent man, but he’d gladly push a blade in his eye socket.

“This is not happening,” he turned and walked out, and luck was on his side when he took the stairs, a room on the third floor was wide open and inside were rows and rows of liquor from floor to ceiling. He snapped off a picture and emailed it to the sheriff with the location.

Let the fuckers keep busy with a raid.

When he got back to his place, it smelled delicious, gravy and wine in the air, but all Texas saw was the beauty at the counter.