Raid - By Kristen Ashley Page 0,91

chair when I announced, “One minute ago, a well-dressed man I’ve never seen in my life sat right where you are and told me to tell you to tell Knight that he’s not being careful enough. A person named Nair isn’t going to give up and Knight has to do something permanent to get him to give up.”

Raid, his eyes locked on me, froze. The air around him froze. In fact, the entire café froze as he stared at me.

Then I felt eyes on me because the menace rolling off Raiden was so immense, we were capturing attention even though no words were being said.

In other words, I wasn’t the only one who could feel it, and it was so strong this was not a surprise.

Then he whispered in his sinister way, “Come again?”

I repeated myself.

Raiden leaned slightly toward me. “You’re tellin’ me that motherfucker walked right up to my woman in my sister’s fuckin’ place, sat down across from you and gave you a message for me?”

I hesitated due to the rumbling, scary quality of his voice that I had never heard before and the ominous blaze burning in his eyes that I had never seen before, then I leaned in and replied, “Yes.”

He sat back. “Jesus Christ. I’m gonna fuckin’ kill that guy.”

“Dude, what is up?” Rachelle asked, hitting our table right before a beer bottle hit the tabletop.

There it was. Other people felt his vibe.

“Lose yourself, Rache,” Raid ordered.

“Bro, you look tweaked. I—” she began.

Raiden’s head tipped back and he cut his eyes to her.

I wasn’t getting his look, but I still shivered.

“Bottom of my heart, but get the fuck outta here, babe.”

She bit her lip, gave wide eyes to me and wisely skedaddled.

Raiden looked at me and I wished Rachelle was back.

“You see him again, you tell him that he needs to find an alternate conduit for communication with his brother. It is not you. And you finish with telling him if you see him again after that, I will find him, rip his head off and shove it up his ass.”

Cripes!

“Raid—”

“You got that?” he cut me off to ask.

Now was clearly not one of those times to backtalk, so I nodded but sallied forth cautiously, “Yes, sweetheart, I got that, but what’s going on?”

He sucked in breath then grabbed his beer and sucked some back before he put it back on the table and again leaned into me.

“I told you about my buddy Knight having problems. A man named Drake Nair is that problem. Nair keeps fuckin’ with him. First, Nair approached Knight’s woman, Anya, sharin’ some things it was not his to share. That didn’t have the desired effect. Second, Knight has a variety of people under his protection and Nair had some of them hurt. When Knight shut that down, Nair found the guy I’m hunting, who got some of his soldiers to infiltrate some of Knight’s dealings, found some weak links, and by that I mean ex-junkies. He reintroduced them to ice, got them hooked so Knight had to clean that shit out of his business and also expend the effort to get the junkies clean again.”

Holy Moses.

Drake Nair sounded like a world-class jerk.

I wondered what Knight did to inspire this animosity, but I didn’t get a chance to ask. Raiden was still talking.

“Knight is not unaware that Nair was a nuisance that, through demonstrated tenacity, has grown into an enemy who is a genuine threat. Nick is Knight’s brother, and Nick is a wildcard.”

He quit speaking so I finally had the chance to get a question in.

“If he’s Knight’s brother, why doesn’t he just talk to his brother?”

“Nick Sebring was a pain in the ass that got off on ridin’ his brother’s coattails, copious amounts of pussy and cocaine. Nick’s Dad hauled him to Hawaii and supposedly cleaned up his act. He came back to Denver and since then his behavior has been random. Then he dropped off the grid, only to reappear randomly, and in not good ways, with really bad people only to drop straight off again. Although he’s thrown time, energy and money at this question, Knight still has no clue what his brother was up to.”

“Well, obviously Nick has his brother’s back if he goes out of his way to warn him of trouble,” I noted.

“Babe, wildcard,” Raid replied.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“You play with wildcards, you got one in your hand. Golden. Your opponent gets one, you’re fucked.”

“Oh,” I said.

“With the company he’s been keeping, Nick warning his