The Score by Bethany-Kris Read Free Book Online Page A

vehicle, you know? There were twenty bricks in the back. Twenty. A few pounds apiece. You need to get down to the club and handle this product. Check it, whatever. Decide on who you want to handle it from here.”
    Crap. This was one of the perks, and downfalls, of Anton’s position. When things were picked up that weren’t already theirs, or stolen, for lack of a better term, like the drugs Boris was dancing around, Anton was the only one allowed to handle distributing the products. That way no one could say a fucking word about the profit turned on it because the boss decided, not anyone else.
    “Just a second,” Anton muttered into the phone. Holding his hand over the receiver, he turned to Viviana. “Baby, I need to handle something.”
    Viviana’s pretty lips drew a thin line. “You promised to stay home with me tonight.”
    “I’m sorry, really. Something came up. I have to handle it tonight, get it out of my hands. The less time I have with it, the better. I won’t stay at the club late tomorrow night, okay?”
    “It’s that important?” Viviana asked doubtfully.
    “Yeah, it kind of is.”
    There wasn’t just the matter of keeping the peace between the men who picked up the drugs, but also the gang that would be looking for their product. Like Anton said, the less time it was in his hands, the better.
    Then, he had another thought and winced internally about it. “I’ll probably have to stay a little while, also,” Anton added quieter.
    “Why?”
    “The guys will want to celebrate.”
    As ridiculous as it was, they’d want to see Anton there celebrating as well. He’d been trying hard to keep his promise to his wife of being home more often and keeping the Bratva business as his day job. That wasn’t exactly realistic, and Viviana knew that because sometimes shit like this came up. Still, Anton felt like crap over it.
    “I’m sorry, Vine. I won’t be partying, just a drink or two to show face.”
    Viviana still didn’t look pleased. “Fine, whatever.”
    Anton went back to the phone, frowning. “Yeah, Boris, I’ll be there in twenty or so.”
    “Gotcha, Boss.”
    With the phone call ended, Anton went about gathering something appropriate for him to wear at the club, tossing his toothbrush back into the bathroom in the process. Viviana stayed silent while he pulled on a pair of dark slacks and a white dress shirt. Then, he dropped a kiss to his wife’s forehead and turned to leave.
    “Nothing bad, right?” Viviana asked quietly from behind him.
    “Nothing dangerous for me,” Anton replied. “Just business I have to handle because it’s me. I’ll be back in a couple of hours at the most, baby.”
    “Thanks for putting Demyan to bed.”
    Anton smiled. “Always.”
    “Be here to wake him up in the morning, too, Anton.”
    Anton made it to the club in decent time. Parking his car around the back, he called in to the bar for one of the servers to let him in through the rear exit. Natalie was the server who greeted him on the other side of the door with wave.
    “Hey, Boss.”
    Anton held back his frown. Where did that come from? “Just Anton, Natalie.”
    “Sure,” the girl drawled with a smile. “I let the guys up into the office. They were pretty insistent about it.”
    “That’s fine.”
    Despite the club only being open for a short while, Anton could tell walking through the main floor that they were already at their fire code limit for the number of bodies inside the building. It wasn’t unusual, and more often than not, the club could handle another fifty people above the limit before complaints were made, but he wasn’t comfortable with it tonight. The last thing he needed was the cops showing up.
    “Natalie, go to the front and let security know they’re to refuse entrance until some people clear out.”
    “Not a problem, Anton.”
    In his office, Anton found more men than he expected to. Boris, Viktor, one of their associates who Anton suspected had been involved