Page 127 of Indecent Lies

One held by Rider.

The other by Grigori.

“We found your broker and my boy broke him, if you get what I mean. He had all your accounts in minutes. Ah, now that was so fuckin’ sweet, man. Tasted good to smell all that filthy Russian money and make it clean for my own pockets. You really are a simple fuckin’ man not to see it.”

“Rider, you might want to shut up now.” Texas said out of the side of his mouth. Without realizing it, he’d moved closer to his friend.

“When I want you to bark, Tex, I’ll kick your Russian kennel.” Rider bit out, his gaze on the enemy.

“Here is the dilemma, Mr. Hunt.” Grigori spoke, eerily ghost-like.

The palpable standoff with Rider continued. The pair unrelenting.

Rider wasn’t done provoking like a death wish bastard with big balls. “Can’t forget how we took all your men from you. My pigs, man, they ate like fuckin’ fat kings on Russian meat for weeks.”

So that happened, Rider seriously showed all his cards to Grigori.

How the fuck did he expect to get out of here alive?

Turning his gaze to Texas, Grigori’s eyes were fury itself.

No man as him liked to be treated less than a lord.

“Choices are easy, Mr. Hunt. You want this man to live, you call your brother right now and make the connection we proposed. I want it to happen right now.”

TWENTY-NINE

“A bad day to get dead.” - Rider

So many emotions swirled inside Texas.

None of them sided with this motherfucker.

He’d call Mal over his own dead body, but it concerned Rider’s.

“Listen, you mad fuck, this has gone too far, put the guns down.”

Rider chuckled, without humor. “Your fall from grace landed your ass in pig swill, Texas. Congrats, man. Didn’t know you had it in you. Tell him club business, did you?”

“Shut the fuck up, Rider, while you have a gun pointed at you, yeah?”

“Too late to play white hat now.”

“Mr. Hunt.”

“This isn’t the way to get me to heel.”

“So be it,” Grigori said calmly as if ordering from a menu he didn’t care for and one second… just one second, Texas didn’t even see the man move, but he stepped right and fired the gun.

Rider’s gun fired on reflex, it hit the wall and caused a ruckus of noise.

Texas felt the reverberation going through his bones but that wasn’t what caused his heart to gallop.

It was seeing Rider hit the deck like a sack of bricks, falling on his front.

The bullet hitting him square in the chest.

Texas never thought he’d see life go by his eyes in slow motion, but his vision dimmed even as he grabbed his own gun from his holster near his ribs, and advanced viciously fast on Grigori, wrath like molten lava burning his torso with pain at what he was seeing.