It was the first time Lars had seen Finn with a full plate of food. It wasn’t that the guy starved himself, but he seemed to eat more like a bird than a lion — a little bit here, a little bit there. But today, a lion could have lived a week on the amount of meat Finn had heaped on his plate.

Bailey wasn’t shy about dishing up either. In fact, it seemed they’d all woken up with roaring appetites.

Enough with the lion anecdotes.

Lars shuddered, trying to suppress a vivid flashback of when he’d been overseeing crating up the lion yesterday.

Apparently, lions were picky eaters. Somehow, the lion had scalped Gabriella, eating everything except her magnificent mane of black hair.

Again with the euphemisms.

Ana joined them a few minutes after they’d sat down, and prattled with Cora about the party later that night.

There had been no time after their session last night to discuss anything.

Cora’s bed wasn’t big enough for the four of them, but Finn had volunteered first watch, so Lars had spooned with Cora for a few hours at least.

He didn’t feel as rested as he should — not with the shit storm he was anticipating tonight — but he’d try and catch a nap a little later.

A serving girl came past with coffee, and Cora caught her by the sleeve, sending her off with what appeared to be an urgent message for someone.

Lars studied her as he chewed a mouthful of crispy bacon.

She was really settling into this whole capo thing.

The whole princess thing, too.

God, he could use vignettes of last night as jerking off material for the next three months, easy.

“Okay, wait,” Cora said, holding up a hand to cut Ana off. She turned them — for some reason, they’d sat along the same side of the table, first Finn, then him, then Bailey. “Ana’s found the most amazing place to host the party.”

Ana turned a radiant smile in their direction.

“You’re going to love it,” she began in an enthusiastically high octave.

“Doubt it,” Finn muttered beside him.

Since when had Papa Bear developed a sense of humor? Lars glanced askance at him, but returned to his plate a second later.

He was going to need a second helping; Cora’d wiped him out last night.

“It’s an abandoned hotel a few miles off the interstate,” Ana said. “It’s hauntingly beautiful—I saw pictures online.”

“It’s perfect for our Day of the Dead theme,” Cora chimed in.

Now the party had a theme? Jesus Christ.

“They have parties there all the time. They can do the catering, the setup, everything!” Ana clapped her hands together. “See? I told you it’s perfect.”

“What about the cocaine fountain?” Lars asked dryly, wiping his fingers on a napkin. “I mean, we gotta have one of those right?” He mimicked water shooting into the air from a spout. “Just…cocaine…like everywhere.”

Ana let out a delightful little giggle at this, but Cora’s face had a certain stoniness to it when he glanced up the table for her approval.

“Fine,” he muttered into his coffee cup. “We’ll just do a brick of weed in their party favors like everyone else.”

This, at least, earned him a rueful smile from Cora, but then she turned back to Ana to discuss something dull enough that he tuned off after the words, ‘dance hall’ and ‘DJ’.

He was halfway through his second helping when Cora’s lawyer, Nick, exited the villa and headed for their table.

Lars pushed away the rest of his plate. “Jesus.”

“He doesn’t seem that bad,” Finn said beside him. He was still busy with his first plate, but on his second cup of coffee for the morning.

Bailey, it seemed, preferred to eat cereal. It shocked him there wasn’t a glass of goddamn milk to go with it.

Well, he stroked dick like a champ, and that was good enough for Lars.

Nick hesitated at the end of the table, as if unsure where he should sit. Cora waved him over, shooing Ana down one seat so Nick could sit at her left.

“How did you sleep?” Cora asked, taking a sip of coffee as she addressed the lawyer.

Nick bobbed his head. “Very well, thank you for asking.”

“Good,” Cora said. She wore a strappy little yellow dress today, hair down and carefully arranged about her shoulders as if she was trying to hide the massive hickey Finn had given her last night. She ran her eyes down their side of the table. When she caught Lars’s eye, she gave him a small smile.

Such an insignificant gesture shouldn’t have caused such a visceral response, but it did.

Christ, his stomach got all full of butterflies and shit.

He looked away, and found Ana watching him over the rim of her cup. She looked down, her blush deepening, and toyed with the food on her plate.

Christ…

“Nick,” Cora said, “you said if I needed funds, I could ask you, right?”

“Of course,” Nick said, snatching back a hand that had been reaching for a muffin. “To an extent, obviously.”

“How much?”

The table went quiet. It might have been coincidence, of course, but if he was straining to hear what the lawyer’s response was, then every else would be too.

“Uh…” Nick, master of suspense, poured himself a cup of coffee before replying. “One-fifty.”

Cora snorted. “A hundred and fifty bucks?” But then her eyes darted to Lars’s side of the table. “I can’t do anything with that, can I?”

He’d been taking a sip of his coffee, but the comedic concern etched between her dark eyebrows almost made coffee come out of his nose.

Spluttering, he put his coffee cup down just as Nick gave a polite cough and said, “One hundred and fifty thousand, Ms Rivera.”

“Oh,” Cora said. But her expression didn’t change much. The girl didn’t know the value of money, did she? Then again, had she ever gone and bought something in a shop like a regular person? Had to contend with watching her bank account’s balance dropping digits?

Cora glanced at Ana. “Would that work?”

Ana shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to tone it down a little, but yeah.”

“So no cocaine fountain then?” Lars said through a laugh.

“It might sound like a lot,” Ana said, sticking her nose in the air and then blushing again, “but this is all very last minute. Everyone expects a little extra for the effort.”

“And don’t forget danger pay,” Lars said, nudging Finn in the ribs. “Amiright?”

Finn gave him a grudging smile.

Holy fuck, what was wrong with him this morning? His chest felt too tight, his breath stilted. He drained the last of his coffee, pushed back his chair, and reconsidered leaving.

Neo stepped out of the patio doors, sunglasses shielding his eyes. But there was nothing to be done with the swagger. If Neo hadn’t been wearing three-quarter shorts and some soccer team’s sports shirt, he’d have been the spitting image of Javier.

“Am I too late?”

“Not at all,” Cora said, sending a gracious wave his way. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Lars almost put a crick in his neck how he swung to look at Cora.

Had he fucked his way into Oz last night? Or had he kicked the bucket mid-orgasm and this was some fucked up mirror world?

“I hope you have some good news for me,” Neo said, taking his seat at the other head of the table, opposite Cora. Sylvia trailed him, and she sat to one side while Santino took the seat beside Bailey, but he just carried on crunching through his bowl of cereal.

“We’re throwing a party.”

Neo paused with a hand halfway to a jug of orange juice. “A party,” he repeated, scanning everyone at the table as if trying to figure out if this was some kind of warped practical joke.

Why wouldn’t the bastard take off his glasses? It was impossible to get anything from him with those black squares hiding his eyes.

Lars sat forward, elbows on the table, and tried to stare a hole through Neo’s shades.

The man didn’t notice.

“It’s neutral territory,” Cora said, lifting her hands and counting off each point on a finger. “There’ll be tons of people around, and we’ll be wearing masks.”

Neo should have burst out laughing. God, hearing Cora say all of that, he almost did. But all the guy did was pour himself a glass of orange juice and — possibly — watch Cora while he drank half of it in a few big gulps.

“That sounds good,” he said.

It was incredibly fucking difficult not to laugh. Lars pressed his lips into a line, and turned to Finn. “Are you going to object anytime in the near future?”

Finn gave a single-shouldered shrug. “I would, but you took that power away from us.”

Lars’s eyes flew wide open. “What?”

Another shrug. Finn studied the lawyer opposite them as he poured himself another cup of coffee. “She makes the rules out here, remember?”

“Hey!” Lars whispered irately as he poked Milo with his finger. “I was trying to help. Things were getting all fucking naff and shit. I didn’t mean we should let her run wild with every brain dead idea that—”

“I’m sorry, Lars,” Cora cut him off. “Is there something you want to say?”

Lars turned. A thick, anticipatory hush had fallen over the table. “This is a stupid fucking idea.”

Cora laced her fingers together, resting her chin on her knuckles. “Which part?”

“All of it,” he said, sweeping a hand over the table. “You’re going to be surrounded by hundreds of people, some of them you apparently owe a massive shipment of drugs to.”

“It’s only the dealers that know about it,” she countered coolly.

“And you trust all of them? They watched you murder—” And then he cut off, because he’d become acutely aware of eyes on him.

Neo. Silent, but so obviously staring despite his sunglasses that Lars could feel the weight of his gaze like a physical touch.

“What I mean is,” he said through a sigh, “There’s no way the three of us can secure a place like that.”

“I can add ten men to the roster,” Neo said. “All highly trained and a hundred percent loyal to the cartel.”

Lars swung to look at Neo.

“To our cartel,” Neo added.

The way he put emphasis on that word made Lars’s skin crawl. He heard Finn shift in his chair beside him, and knew it had irked him too.

“What’s to stop another cartel finding out?” Lars snapped. “We’ll be sitting ducks out there.”

“Which is why everyone’s wearing masks,” Cora said, drawing his eye. “Ana says there’s a separate room we can use to meet with the dealers. And they’ll be escorted off the property as soon as we’ve discussed everything.”

“Someone burned down your entire poppy plantation,” Lars said, trying to lower his voice and failing. “How’s that different from taking out a few hundred people at a party?”

“Your concern is touching,” Neo said, “but we’ll have everything under control.”

“Concern?” Lars repeated, laughing as he turned to face Neo. “I’m not concerned. I’m fucking shit scared the wrong people rock up at this party of yours. I mean, how—?”

“We’ll have a guest list,” Cora piped up. “If they’re not on the list, they don’t get in.”

“Yeah?” Lars’s neck was getting sore how he had to keep looking from one capo to the other. Why the fuck couldn’t they have sat next to each other? “And how difficult would it be to bribe the goon at the door?”

Cora’s mouth went tight, but there was something mischievous on those plump lips. “I don’t know, Lars, you tell me? What’ll it take to bribe you?”

He sat back in his chair.

Defeat.

He’d just been demoted to a fucking door guy, a glorified strong arm.

He tapped his finger along the side of his plate, watching Cora for a long moment before he spoke again.

“Well played, La Sombra,” he murmured, pushing back his chair. “Well played.”

He took two steps to the villa’s entrance and then turned back. He stabbed a finger in Cora’s direction. “You’d better make sure you’re wearing a fucking Kevlar vest under your costume tonight.” He swiped his hand through the air. “You may feel invincible, but a bullet’s still going to make you bleed.”