“I even use the blood as lube,” Oscar responds smoothly, looking down at a spreadsheet on his iPad. I’m impressed by the quick clapback actually, but I still feel bad for Aaron.
“How long is this drive anyway?” I ask, because I have no clue where we’re going. Realistically, for most girls, you’d have to be a brain-dead idiot to get in a car and start driving with four guys to an unknown destination. This, though, this is different. Like I said, nothing about this is normal.
“Fifteen minutes at most,” Cal answers, tucking a knee up against his chest and leaning his chin on it. He watches me from sky-colored eyes. “We’re taking you to the garage.”
“The garage?” I start, before the pieces of this puzzle finally click together. “Like … for cars?”
“As if there were any other kind,” Oscar murmurs, and I dig my nails into the back of my seat to keep from punching him. Instead, I focus on the spreadsheet he’s playing with and see that it’s a list of people.
My list of people.
By first and last name.
My eyes widen as Oscar flicks his gray gaze to me. He doesn’t care that I’m looking. Actually, I’m pretty sure he wants me to see it.
The first column of that spreadsheet holds names like Neil Pence down its vertical length, followed by rows of numbers. At the top of each column, there are acronyms that I don’t understand.
“Curious as a kitty cat?” Oscar quips as Hael throws us around curves in the road like he’s got something to prove. He rolls his window down to let the air ruffle his red hair, and just laughs. Okay, nope, I was wrong. He isn’t proving anything: he’s just in love with the road. “Do you want to know what this column is for?”
Even though I know Oscar is baiting me, I bite. Why the hell not?
“What?” I ask as he leans forward and gets in my face, glasses shining with a stray shaft of sunlight.
“These are my calculations for risk. That is, how likely is it that we’d be caught if we murdered the person in question.” My eyes widen, flicking back down to the spreadsheet to read the numbers. I barely get a chance to see anything before Oscar is shutting off the screen and tucking it away. He weaves his fingers together around the knee of his crossed leg and stares back at me in challenge, daring me to beg.
I’d rather die.
But at least I saw one thing of interest: Eric Kushner’s column for risk … was only three percent.
Uh-oh.
I’d sure as shit hate to be him right now.
When we arrive at the garage, Victor is waiting, sitting on the hood of some rusty junker without wheels. It looks like it hasn't been in service for, like, decades.
“What the hell is this?” I ask when I climb out, pausing at the end of the grease-soaked driveway and looking around. Off to one side, there's a row of pretty vintage cars, their paint shiny and fresh, their interiors sleek and freshly remodeled.
“Our garage,” Vic says with a shrug of his big shoulders. He hops off the hood of the car and parks a cigarette between his lips, talking around it as he cups the end and lights up.
“By our, you mean …”
“Havoc's garage,” Oscar says, pausing beside me with his mouth in a thin line. “We collect junkers and flip them for profit.”
“You mean I collect junkers and flip them for profit,” Hael says, moving over to stand beside the rusty piece of shit that's propped up by cinder blocks. He taps the side of the car and flashes one of his shit-eating grins at me. “And this one right here, Blackbird, this is for you, baby.”
I lift a brow and then glance over at the baby pink convertible on my left that matches my leather jacket.
“That …” I start, pointing at the rusted crap-heap. “That's my car? Why can't I have one of those?” I switch my finger over from the junker to the classic beauties on my left. “I'll give you a hint: one of these makes me wet, and the other turns this cooch into the Sahara Desert.”
Hael howls with laughter, and Vic grins as Callum hops up onto the hood of the pink convertible.
“Those cars are already marked for sale,” Oscar says, glancing down at his goddamn iPad again. Sometimes I want to tear it from his hand and smash him in the face with it. Fairly sure at this point that he's married to the damn thing.
“Besides,” Vic says, gesturing with his chin in Hael's direction. “He picked this one out for you, all special and shit. You want to tell her about it, Hael?”
I cross my arms over my chest as Hael walks around the junker, whistling under his breath like he's checking out a particularly beautiful woman.
“Well, my dear Miss Blackbird,” he says, grabbing onto the trunk and pretending to fuck the crap out of the car's trunk. I'm not amused. I raise a brow at him, waiting for an explanation.
“I'm sure you think having your semen splattered across the trunk of the car makes it more valuable, but to be quite honest, I'm not buying it. Explain, or I'll start to think you don't like me.”
“This,” Hael begins, flashing a sharp smile. “Is a ‘57 Cadillac Eldorado.”
He pauses for dramatic effect, but since I don't know shit about cars, I just stand there, waiting for the rest of the explanation. Hael sighs and comes back around to stand next to Vic.
“Do you know what one of these things is worth fully restored?” he asks me, crossing his arms over his broad chest. He makes a nice complement to Victor, I must say, like they're two halves of the same deal. Like, maybe, if I were really lucky, I could have them both.
“I have no clue. Enlighten me,” I say dryly and Aaron smiles, scrubbing his hand over his chin. He likes seeing me saucy, even if he doesn't care to admit it.
“Girl, come on,” Hael says, throwing up his arms in mock frustration. “You impressed me on that first day, when you came sauntering up to us in your leather pants, all sexy and saucy, with that pretty mouth of yours, talking about my baby's grille.” He gestures in the direction of the Camaro, and then moves over to stand in front of me, hooking his thumbs into the belt loops on my leather pants.
“Say pretty mouth again and see what happens,” I quip, smiling at him. I pretend like I don't enjoy having his hot, tattooed body pressed up against me, but you know, I'm not a complete and total hard-ass.
“I stand corrected: a pretty mouth with an acerbic tongue, and teeth that'd just as easily bite off a dick as suck it. Better?” I cock a brow, and he nods, continuing. “Well, cranky Miss Blackbird, listen to this: a ‘57 Caddy Eldorado is worth a hundred and fifty grand when it's fully restored.”
“When it's fully restored,” I correct, peeking around him at the heap of trash propped up on the driveway. We're in a seedy part of town, not far from Billie's trailer. I wouldn't want to be caught alone out here after dark. Not without a gun, I mean. Or a knife. I could probably handle myself with a knife. “It doesn't even look salvageable to me.”
“Yeah, well,” Hael says, like the cocky motherfucker he is. He runs his tongue over his lower lip and steps back, walking backward until he gets to the side door of the garage. Hael kicks it open with his boot without even bothering to turn around, and then steps back, holding out a hand to beckon me forward. “You've never had the services of Hael Harbin at your beck and call, now have you?” I step up to the doorway and look aside, finding several other half-eaten rust heaps stacked inside the room. “Between all of these, I've got the parts I need to make this shit happen. I'll even let you pick the paint colors.”