Page 78 of Down & Dirty: Reaper

Good. She was asking the right questions. “Some warehouse on the south side of the city. Near⁠—”

“That’s not what’s important here,” Chen spoke up, cutting him off from giving her more details.

But at least Vi would get the idea his situation was a complete shit show.

“Who am I speaking with?” she asked sharply.

“My name is Sheng Chen. And you are?”

Reaper rushed to say, “Sally, I told them⁠—”

“Silence!” Chen roared. He then asked more quietly, “What’s your name?”

Reaper yelled, “Ms. Russo, I’m so⁠—”

One of the Chens’ goons rushed over and punched him in the gut. “Quiet!”

Fuck. That didn’t help his nauseousness.

But at least Vi got the info she needed. Or the info Reaper needed her to have. She was cunning enough to be able to put two and two together.

“Mr. Chen, what is this about?”

“That’s what I’d like to know, Ms. Russo. We captured your hired gun. He’s taken out a few of our people. I assume that was under your command?”

“It was simply a warning.”

“I’d consider having to clean up the remains of thirteen of my men as more than a warning.”

“A strong warning,” Vi clarified.

“Why would we need a warning?”

Shit. Reaper didn’t want Chen to think they could “talk things out.” That would destroy their whole plan of pitting the two crime families against each other.

“Why would you take out our people?” Chen insisted.

“For the same reason you’re taking out our people,” Vi countered.

Shit. She might have just exposed their plan.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, if⁠—”

Vi barked out a, “Bullshit! If you don’t want to admit what your plans are with us, we’ll keep our plans to ourselves, too. Good luck, Mr. Chen.”

The phone went dead.

Holy hell, she handled that better than expected. The woman was impressive. He wanted to sigh in relief but he was struggling to breathe after that punch in his solar plexus.

Even though Vi was now aware of his predicament, he was unfortunately still stuck in the middle of it. And being back in Shadow Valley, she was nowhere close by to help.

Basically, he was fucked and needed to save himself.

Unless Vi could pull a rabbit out of her hat. While she was good, she damn sure wasn’t a magician.

Unfortunately, neither was he.

“What do you want to do with him, sir?”