‘No,’ Zoom said. ‘Wasn’t expecting you today… I called Serg.’
‘Why?’ Dax asked. Zoom’s statement carried some sort of weight that she didn’t understand.
‘One load wasn’t picked up,’ Zoom said, scrutinising her, then letting his attention flick back to Dax before it came back to her. ‘Who is she?’
‘Not a perk for you,’ Dax said, leaving her to march forward and grab Zoom by the shoulder. ‘Who was it? Who missed it?’
‘I… I gave Serg all the details, you said, you said to report to him while you were… I would’ve called you but—‘
‘You did the right thing, but I’m here now and I’m going to follow up. It’s just sitting back there?’ Zoom nodded. ‘Ok. You don’t do anything until someone is in touch. Stay here.’
Dax let go of his shoulder and Zoom tried to smile. ‘I never go anywhere else.’
Apparently unamused, or maybe just uninterested, Dax stalked back to her and grabbed her hand to tug her back outside and into the car. ‘What is that place?’
‘It’s where we cut the coke,’ he said, starting up the car again. ‘It’s cut and packaged there and it’s supposed to be picked up once it’s divided.’
‘But someone didn’t pick up their share?’ she asked as he manoeuvred out of the industrial site they had not long ago arrived at. ‘Why would that be?’
‘Someone is lazy, scared, or dead, those are the only three reasons,’ he said.
‘Serg works for Mauri too?’
‘Yeah, he’s an all right guy, once you get to know him. He’s been running things for me while my attention has been split.’
‘So that means that you trust him?’
Dax glanced at her and then the road. ‘With the product and the job,’ he said, and one side of his mouth turned into a smile. ‘Not with my girl.’
‘Another rapist friend,’ she said. ‘You know you should really expand your social circles, baby.’
‘What do you think that you are?’
‘I’m a refreshing experience,’ she said. ‘It remains to be seen whether or not you’re beyond the point of redemption.’
‘If I got any better, babygirl, you’d have died and been sent to paradise.’
He didn’t often make jokes and they were almost always dry, but she was getting used to his more genial side though that didn’t stop her from goading him too.
‘If I was in heaven you wouldn’t be the one delivering me to ecstasy,’ she said. ‘I heard you’ve already paid your room deposit in hell.’
‘A room with a view,’ he said, flashing her a smile. ‘I might be able to talk to my peeps if you’re interested in the lot next door.’
‘I thought I belonged under you? Is that lot still vacant?’
‘Not anymore,’ he said in a deep purr that made her tingle.
He left her to consider the implications of what he’d said while they rode to the next location. She would take the isolated warehouse any day over the place that they went to next. Parking in the street, Dax came around the car to take her out of it like last time, this time without the pep talk.
Graffiti covered the walls of old tenement apartment blocks, broken windows and fences surrounded groups of youths in baggy pants wearing cheap jewellery and calling at each other. This was what the “wrong side of the tracks” looked like.
Instead of going into the front of the building they were at, Dax took her through an open chain link fence beside it. Moving around the back, they passed a barking dog tethered to a side wall and a group of heavy, tattooed men on a picnic bench. Nothing affected Dax; he carried on through a swing door at the rear of the building and into a short corridor.
‘Dax,’ she said, hoping for an explanation, but he didn’t stop just reached back and locked his fingers in between hers.
His long calloused digits with their bumps and scars were so unique that their thickness was enough to offer her some reassurance. That comfort lasted until Dax shoved aside the strands of a metal-link curtain that covered a room full of jeering men who sat around a long table.
The smoke filled room reeked of cigarettes and greasy food but as soon as Dax walked in the half a dozen men shut up.
‘Boss, man,’ a blonde at the head of the table said and got up.
Though her eyelids stretched apart Ivy managed to hold in her gasp. The blonde guy had to be nearly seven feet tall.
‘You’re letting the place fall apart, Serg,’ Dax said. ‘What are you doing sitting on your ass when we’ve got a hold up at the factory?’
‘I’m on it.’
‘Apparently not,’ Dax said, unintimidated by this man’s bulk.
None of the men here appeared like the sort to mess with. They were varying grades of thug and hooligan and she recognised one or two from the party at the beach house.
The phone in Dax’s back pocket rang before he could give Serg further orders. While striding into the corridor to maintain his privacy, he dug out the cell-phone and answered it, leaving her alone with the goons.
Ivy’s initial discomfort dissipated when a thug on the right hand side spoke. ‘Are you the boss’ new slut?’
Although aware that she was supposed to be the submissive slave in front of Bruno, Ivy found herself unable to show such weakness in the face of this new intimidation.
‘If I am then you’re taking a risk in speaking to me like that,’ she said.
‘The boss has never brought a girl here before,’ another said.
‘You’re more likely to find your nose embedded into the back of your skull than you are to find yourself freed of your ignorance if you insult me,’ she said.
The men can’t have been expecting such a retort from her, if they expected any at all, because when Dax came back in they were all still suspended in silence.
‘I’m getting out of here,’ Dax said, if he noticed the atmosphere in the room he said nothing about it. ‘Get over to the warehouse. I’ll join you there in a while, Serg… Minx.’
She took his statement of her pet name as an indication that she should follow him when he departed. When they were in the outer corridor he linked their fingers again, and held them against the small of his back.
Outside, they passed the inked group again without a word and eventually got back to the car.
‘What was that place?’ she asked.
‘Out front is a bar, it’s where most of the guys hang. It’s a good place to check if you’re looking for anyone.’ She didn’t know who she would ever be looking for, but didn’t point that out to him.
‘Where are we going now?’
‘Back home,’ he said.
‘But you said that you’d go back to that warehouse. You already drove me out here and now you’re going to drive back to the beach house just to drop me off with Bruno? It seems like an awful long way to—‘
‘Bruno’s on his way to the restaurant where Mauri is eating.’
‘So I’ll be alone? Is Rita going to be there? What will she and I talk about? The only thing that we have in common is your penis… I suppose we could talk about that for an hour or two.’
‘She’s never seen my dick,’ he said with a flourish of a smile.
‘She did this morning.’
‘Never before that,’ he grumbled.
‘So you screwed her in the dark every time?’
‘Are you jealous, babygirl?’ His hand was back up her dress at her inner thigh. ‘I’ve watched Bruno put his hands all over you.’
‘And Trystan too,’ she said, curious as to how he felt about the night they first encountered each other.
‘We’re not going back to the beach house. There’s been a change of plans, Mauri wants you at the mansion today.’
All good humour and joviality drained out of her, just as she was sure the colour did too. ‘What? Why?’
‘He didn’t say, just told me to take you over there. He’s not there, so you won’t have to meet him.’
‘Is Trystan there?’
‘No, he’s still in Europe.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I’ve told you that he won’t get his hands on you and that won’t change. Trystan’s the most unreliable SOB you’ll ever meet, we could get lucky and he decides to stay in Europe another six months.’