I smirked. “Funny, the cops said his assistant beat the fuck out of him right before he punched the dude in the face. One strike and the fucker was dead.” I took another swallow of the Jack. “At least, that’s what they surmised because there were no witnesses. And for the record, if I’d bothered to beat the fuck out of anyone, you can guarantee they wouldn’t be conscious long enough to speak, let alone say my name.”
“He pointed at you,” the asshole clarified.
I glanced from the open front door to the mess around me. Two people fucking on the couch, some dick passed out on the floor, a chick snorting lines off the coffee table, and a handful of stragglers doing shots in the kitchen who couldn’t be bothered by the spectacle of cops and an ambulance outside. I never should’ve invited these losers from work to this party. “Right. He singled me out among all the other assholes in here.” I took another swig. “Good luck proving that.”
“Do you see anyone else in here in a black T-shirt who’s Sanaa’s boyfriend?”
I laughed.
Then I couldn’t stop laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Amherst demanded.
“I’m not her boyfriend, you fucking dick.” I laughed harder.
The chick on the couch screamed right before the dude pounding her growled out a “Fuck.”
Amherst glanced at them in disgust, then looked back at me and leaned closer. “Let me explain something to you very clearly. Your little girlfriend shows up at my office tomorrow morning by nine ready to fulfill her contract, or I’ll make sure the cops know it was you who killed one of my employees and beat the other within an inch of his life. And when they come to arrest you? Trust me, it’ll be decades before you see the outside of a jail cell.”
Fucking prick. He had no idea who he was screwing with. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. Your manager signed Sanaa, then beat the fuck out of his assistant, and now you want to blackmail me, who’s not her boyfriend, to get your shiny new toy to show up for work tomorrow?” This shit was almost laughable. “Did I forget anything?”
“Yeah, the part where I have a witness that says you killed a man tonight.”
“And I have a woman who was with me all night who says otherwise.” Or I would as soon as I paid someone to lie for me.
We glared at each other.
Amherst broke first.
Standing, the asshole pulled a business card out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. “Sanaa better be there tomorrow.” Then he leveled me with a warning look right before he kicked my house of cards. “Or I’ll make sure your side gig of hustling guns becomes your last shit decision.” Leaning close, he dropped his voice. “Remember this about me, Conlon. I make the big bucks because I do my homework.”
The whiskey doing nothing to take the edge off, I fucking seethed.
Then I played the only card I had left.
“Do you know what your asshole manager and his assistant said in front of witnesses about an underage seventeen-year-old girl?” I didn’t wait for the fuck to guess. “They said they were going to take Sanaa for a test drive before passing her around to every executive prick who works for you.” My grip tightened on the bottle of Jack. “How many young recording artists do you think are going to want to sign with Trinity Media Group once your company makes headlines for statutory rape?”
Straightening, the fucker didn’t even blink. “Make sure Sanaa shows up tomorrow and you won’t be taken out by the people you work for.”
Maybe they’d kill me, maybe they wouldn’t. At this point, I didn’t care. “You think I have control over Sanaa?”
“I don’t think. I know.”
“Then know this.” I stood and got in his face. “She’s not walking into any goddamn recording studio or anywhere else where she’ll be cornered, coerced, assaulted, fucked, or taken advantage of.”
The asshole ran his hand down his tie, calm as shit, like he was talking about the weather. “I’ll personally take her under my wing.”
I’d heard plenty about his reputation and seen him in action enough times at the club to know exactly what that meant. “So you can fuck her first?” No goddamn way. “Not happening.” Everything I’d done tonight, I owed it to Sanaa to protect her from this asshole, but the bottom line was there was someone I would protect more.