I don’t care if you are Mileena’s cousin. If I ever find out that you were a part of this nigga’s plan, I will kill you where you stand.
Ryder very quickly reached in her purse for her gun and positioned it where she could get to it quickly if the need became necessary, but she sincerely hoped that it wouldn’t.
“Hello, Ryder.”
“What’s up, Carter?”
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“Sure,” Ryder said, and Carter signaled for Jillian, the bartender.
“What are you drinking?”
“Patrón - neat,” Ryder said.
Jillian dropped a bar napkin in front of Carter and then put her hands on the bar and leaned forward, giving Carter a close-up view of her healthy cleavage.
“And what can I get for you, Carter?” she asked sweetly, and Ryder rolled her eyes.
“Hennessy Black.”
“And how did you want that?”
“Neat.”
“I’ll be happy to get that for you,” Jillian said, and Ryder stuck her finger in her throat to gesture gagging but took it out before Carter looked at her.
“What am I gonna do with you?” Carter asked.
“Look, Carter, I’m gonna say this one time and you can choose to believe me if you want to. I didn’t know anything about what Jab and Kenard was up to. And yeah, you damn right I planned to do a deal with the people who killed Reese and shot Geno, but Jab said that you was good with it. But I swear to you Carter, if I had known anything about that shit, I would have killed them myself,” Ryder said, and Carter laughed. “And I ain’t talkin’ just to be blowing sunshine up your ass. I mean that shit.”
Jillian returned with their drinks and then stood there for a second or two, but when Carter didn’t so much as glance in her direction, she moved on quietly.
“We family. Mileena is my family and she loves you. That makes you my family. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you and I had something to do with it. So, you can kill me now or whatever, you can even use my gun, but that’s the truth.” Ryder tapped her chest. “I am a loyal member of this family and that’s what’s real.”
“I believe you.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” a relieved Ryder said.
“I’ve been asking around about you.”
“Have you?”
“I have.”
“Who you been talking to?”
“Mike and Shy.”
Ryder smiled, because Shy was her girl. “What Sandy say about me?”
“That you and her go back years, so if I killed you, I can forget about being invited for Thanksgiving dinner.”
They both laughed. “Sounds like Sandy.”
“Both of them had nothing but good things to say about you, but since you and Sandy go back years, I discounted what they said and talked to Rain.”
Fuck, Ryder thought, knowing that she was on Rain’s shit list. She never forgot that night in the office alone with Rain. Her guns on the desk and ready to kill me for not telling her some shit that I didn’t even know I was supposed to tell her.