RIDING DIRTY (Steel Titans MC Book 4) by Franca Storm (ebook voice reader .txt) 📕

knew that I had to rid myself of the sedation he’d been subjecting me to. I’d needed to ensure I was at full strength as soon as possible. And I knew the only way to do that was to neutralize my aggression and continued threats and, instead, make him believe that I was willing to give him what he wanted. To do that, I’d had to come up with a reason for me doing that one-eighty.

It turned out that Adrian Nolan made a perfect alibi for that. Not only was he unfinished business to me, but he had a connection to Slade, somebody I was personally involved with. Agreeing to make him the first target and using those things as my motivations had bought me Freeman’s trust.

Now I just needed to solidify that.

Long enough for me to destroy him.

“It still falls within the realm of predictability,” I countered. “Whenever a threat is imminent, or an attempt has been made on his life—believe me, there have been many over the years—he retreats and reaches out to outsiders, leveraging whatever he can to wield them against said threat. This time, it was you, and he believed it to be a sure thing, thinking that you had a hate on for Slade Mitchell, that you were running on short-sighted vengeance.”

“Hmm,” he said, sitting back in his chair with a nod. “I see your point.”

I swallowed a mouthful of food. “Good. Then let me use these weaknesses of his to our advantage.”

He grinned.

“What?”

“I just love hearing you say ‘our’ now. It’s a far cry from a few days ago. I’m enjoying it.”

“Then let’s celebrate by pulling off our first victory.”

“Wiping Nolan off the board.”

“I can take care of it swiftly and efficiently, no blowback.”

He looked more than a little surprised by my plan. “I have a militia in play. A highly-trained, ex-military force.”

“An army will draw attention. They also don’t know Adrian Nolan as well as I do. Plus, using the militia he put you in contact with is extremely lowdown and trashy. Is that how you really wish to start your empire, with a below-the-belt and clunky move like that?”

He mulled it over for a few moments. “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”

“That’s why you hired me.” Hired was an incredibly generous term. Diplomatic too. But that was the way I had to play it right now. Sometimes you had to swallow pride and fury for a bigger payoff later.

And that was what I was all about.

I played to fucking well win.

“Right you are.”

“Good. I’m just going to need two things from you first.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and steepling his fingers. “Tell me, sugar.”

“Return all the gear you confiscated from me. Weapons. Clothing. Devices. All of it. I also need to stop off at one of my properties to pick up some additional equipment.”

He let out a laugh of disbelief. “Let me get this straight, you want me to rearm you and let you walk out of here to return to one of your strongholds?”

I eyed him steadily. “Precisely.”

“You think I’m stupid, is that it?”

“I wouldn’t have agreed to work with you if that was what I thought.”

That had him pausing, just as I’d thought it would. Guys like him couldn’t resist a stroke to their egos.

He rose to his feet and rounded the table toward me. “That’s right. You did agree. We have a deal.” He leaned over my chair, looming over me. “I would hate for you to go back on that.” He caressed the cuff binding one of my wrists to the chair. “The consequences would be unimaginable.” He slid his hand over mine, then squeezed painfully, making me grunt. “Hurting you in a severe and permanent way is the last thing I want to do.” He dipped his head and whispered hauntingly in my ear, “But disloyalty warrants my absolute worst.”

I gritted my teeth, fighting against my every instinct to react… unfavorably. He had to believe the current reality was real. He had to think that I was helpless cuffed to the chair. I couldn’t show him how easy it actually was for me to both free my hand and to take him down, all in a blink of an eye. The four guys he had stationed outside the door to his penthouse suite wouldn’t be able to stop me either.

Ending him right here and now wouldn’t be enough. I needed questions answered first. I needed to understand how far-reaching his empire was at present. Without that knowledge, I’d be risking the lives of all the Steel Titans members and every innocent living in Warlow. Cut off from any sort of tech and communication right now, that wasn’t a possibility. I also needed to know how he’d managed to acquire the militia so easily from Nolan to determine the best way for me to sever that connection.

Fortunately, I could get the answers to both questions directly from the target I’d just agreed to take down.

I eyed Freeman steadily as he pulled back and glared suspiciously at me. “There’s no reward without risk. Isn’t that what you’re all about with this empire-building endeavor?”

He stared at me up close, far too close, for the longest time.

If he thought that cliched attempt at intimidation would work on me, he truly had no idea who he was dealing with. And there was no way in hell some twisted version of a staring contest would unnerve me and crack the façade I was throwing up his way.

“Well?” I spoke when time continued to stretch and he hadn’t moved a muscle. “Are you going to let me do what I do best, or not? You can either trust me, or you can’t. And if you can’t, then this partnership is over before it really begins. There are no sure things, but with the way I work, my efficiency level, knowing what I do, I’m as close as it gets. So, decide now as to whether you want that, or if