"Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?" she questioned. "Maybe I can help."
"It ain’t your place, baby."
"I’m getting pretty fucking tired of being told where my place is or isn’t, Aidan," she drawled, her tone cooling. "I’m not an idiot. Nor am I like Inessa or Camille. I’ll worship that cock of yours and I might fangirl like crazy, but a docile and obedient wife I am not."
"You think you’re telling me something I don’t know?" I snapped.
"So just tell me the rest. Is it an issue with the Sparrows? I know you and Luc were discussing business earlier. Is there a problem with the Sicilians?
"I told you at Christmas that if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll go hunting for answers on my own."
That was only part of the problem.
When she’d told me that, like the moron I was, I’d immediately fucking lied to her about how many Sparrows were in the ranks.
I scraped a hand over my jaw.
What to do, what to do.
I knew she was more than capable of getting her ass handed to her as she went investigating shit on her own.
Last time she’d done that, she’d come to my da’s fucking attention. Which was what brought us to this point in the here and now…
I released a breath and went for broke: "You heard of Red?"
"The drug?"
Heaving a sigh, I muttered, "Of course, you know what that is."
"Is that a complaint?" she retorted sweetly. "What about it? I know it’s more popular with men than women, but I think that’s an urban legend."
"Urban legend? It’s a new drug. How the fuck has it started an urban legend?"
"They say this guy had a boner for seventeen hours with it," she said around a chuckle. "He had to go to the ER to get it to come down."
"What’s the urban legend? That he got the boner?"
"Nah, that it fell off."
I had to snicker at that and, as both of us chuckled, I shook my head. "One of Da’s men got his hands on some Red. He visited a club that I found out Da owned on the side, and the hooker whose services he purchased, he beat to death."
"That’s so sad," she murmured, twisting in her seat as she turned to look at me.
Traffic was bad again so I couldn’t glance at her, but I felt her sorrow.
That was half the reason I didn’t want to share shit like this with her, dammit.
"Yeah, it is."
"That’s the problem?"
"No. Da had a rule for his detail—no drugs."
"Because of you?"
"No. Da had a problem himself back in the day, not that I knew that until recently. But I think that’s why. He was always the same with the guys that were his or Mom’s guards.
"Anyway, Red makes users progressively more violent."