Page 84 of Indecent Lies

While Grigori poured his drink and laughed, Texas let his eyes scope around the large office. Nothing out of the ordinary. Anyone else would presume he was an entrepreneur keeping business hours instead of the underground criminal the Russians were.

More surprising was that there were no bodyguards in the room with them.

Texas had been shown through and then the guard left them alone.

This was either going to be an epic success or failure.

Only time would tell.

“Why is everyone in this town suspicious?”

“Probably because you’re untrustworthy,” Texas said, hands in his leather jacket pockets. He didn’t want to take a seat or get comfortable. This wasn’t pleasure, and he certainly wasn’t friends with this egomaniac. “That’s just my guess.”

The older guy, by about ten or more years, smirked and toasted him with the glass before taking a sip.

“Da.”

Halfway through the conversation, mostly done by the Russian, Texas wondered again how much of a dumb shit he was by even being here.

He wasn’t in that life anymore—even when he was, he wasn’t the man to deal on the front line. He was there for his brothers, he was the one who cleaned all the money when it needed it, invested when needed too.

He’d thrown down a time or two, but only as a backup, this covert shit wasn’t his wheelhouse and his veins were tight thinking of what he had to lose.

At that, his phone vibrated and he slipped it out of his pocket, grinning to himself reading Poppy’s text. He wondered if the little girl was drunk again, she could not handle her liquor for shit.

“So let me get this straight, see if I’m hearing you right,” Texas said, walking around the room as if bored, when in reality he was seeing what was of interest. “You want me to work for you?”

“Da.” The man simpered like he thought he already had Texas.

“In what capacity.”

“Whatever I need. We make money, I hear good things about your capabilities already. I have new ventures happening and I need someone astute like you.”

If he was talking about his porno business then Texas might toss his cookies up in his mouth. But for appearances sake, he half grinned.

“I like money. but as I said, I am not fucking over my boys.”

“No longer your boys,da? We make, how you Americans say, new connections? Your brains and my skill, this is good,da?”

Texas could play the game.

He was a Renegade Souls for a long time.

He recognized a con and when a man was bullshitting him.

There was no way Grigori wanted to work with him because he thought Texas could make him money. He could, no problem. But that was beside the point.

He had a feeling Grigori just wanted to stick it to Rider.

A loud alarm and ruckus outside caused the man to rise from his seat, swear in Russian and charge out of the room, yelling for his goons.

It was the opportunity Texas waited for…planned for.

That noise outside? Yeah, his doing.

He’d paid some teens to throw bricks through the fleet of Mercedes parked at the curb.

He didn’t wait, he got behind the desk, searched the drawers, saw nothing of worth and then he thumbed through the phone left out of the table, taking shots of documents, names and the calendar. The Russian had some high powered names in there.