Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
A couple of the men look down at the bleeding mass at my feet, but nobody says a word. “Good,” I say. “Rosalie is under your protection. Anybody disrespects her and they die.”
Garik clears his throat. “Disrespect includes chewing ice?”
“Yes,” I growl. “Anything crunchy, and if you have a fucking cold or allergies, stay away from her. You sniff and I’ll break your nose.” Apparently, I’m all about lessons tonight. I walk through the throng to where Garik stands by the door. “Have them finish making the lists and then make sure they all leave,” I say quietly this time.
“Rosalie?” he asks.
“You can get her from the storage room, then take her home. I need somebody on her house all night.”
“I’ll be there,” Garik says.
I think of the men behind us. “You could take shifts with somebody.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know who to trust yet.”
I breathe deep. “Thank you.” It’s not a word I would give to anybody else in my organization.
“Of course,” he says, his gaze behind me making sure no one comes at us. “What about Jerry?”
I shrug. “I don’t care. See if somebody wants to take him to the hospital. If not, toss him out back.” He’s moaning, so at least he’s not dead.
“You’ve got it,” Garik says.
I stride out into light rain and head to my bike around the corner. It’s not raining too hard, and I have work to do, so I ride rapidly through the city to the building I purchased earlier and nod at my man at the reception area before entering the elevator and riding to the penthouse. The place smells like pizza. Frowning, I walk back to the office to see Ella munching happily on a slice of pepperoni.
“What?” she asks, frowning.
“How did you get pizza?”
She waves a hand. “Oh, Geoff and George went and got pizza,” she says. “You know, the guys you have guarding the elevator in the parking garage?”
“I don’t recall giving anybody permission to do so.”
She shrugs. “We have to eat, dude.” There’s pleasure on her face, and I doubt it’s from the pizza. She’s already addicted to this computer setup. While I’m sure her setup is impressive, she lacks the funds I now have.
“Did they both go?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes. “Of course not. One stayed here to guard your whole building. Did you buy the building?”
“I did,” I say.
“Huh. Ten floors, businesses on each, penthouse on the top.” She nods. “It’s a good investment.”
“Thank you,” I say wryly. “That is my aim.”
She grins and then turns back to the computer.
“Have you found anything yet?”
She looks at me over her shoulder as if affronted.
I hold up a hand. “Sorry.”
She looks back. “Yeah, Howard Fissure is an asshole.”
“That I already knew.”
She shrugs. “Okay. So he runs Nero Tech, but honestly, he’s been partially forced out. There was a mini takeover about six months ago.”
“Why is that?” I stride into the room.
“According to corporate emails, and maybe a couple of private ones I hacked, people think he’s doing drugs, but . . .” She hops in her seat. “This guy’s involved in selling drugs.”
Impressive. The little hacker should be a detective. “How do you know that?”
“Money, offshore accounts, known associations,” she says. “A couple of the accounts are too hard to crack, even with these resources. My gut feeling is that he’s working with several organizations and not just Twenty-One Purple.”
“What about his schedule?”
She taps a few keys. “The FBI has bugged his house, so I hacked into their surveillance.”
“Go on.”
“His routine’s pretty standard. He gets up around five, jogs for three miles, gets a coffee at a stand on the corner of Fourth and Madison, goes back to his place, showers, gets ready, heads to work. He’s at the office most of the day, even though the board has taken many of his duties away, and then he may do a charity function or have a date. I printed out a list of his known acquaintances.” She nods over to a piece of paper on the far table.
“How does he distribute the drugs?”
“According to the FBI surveillance, he meets up with a member of Twenty-One Purple at that coffee shop once a week. It looks like happenstance, but it isn’t.”
I roll my neck, smelling Rosalie on me. She’ll always be on me. “So the feds don’t have enough to bring him down?”
“Not yet,” Ella says. “They’re close though.”
“That’s good to know.”
She kicks away from my desk. “All right. Are we done?”
“Not even close,” I say. “Have you conducted your deep dive on Rosalie’s boarders yet?”
Her frown is mutinous. “No, and I’m not going to. I thought we established that.”
“Don’t you want to know who Rosalie lives with?” I ask. “To make sure she’s safe?”
Ella snorts. “I’ve met all seven of her boarders. She’s as safe as kittens. They’d all jump in front of a bullet for her.” Her brows draw down. “Would you?”