Page 2

“How much?”

I tapped the butt of the pen against the paper spread out on the desk in front of me, perusing over and over again.

It was raining outside. Grey skies, gloomy weather, memories. I fucking hated it. Rainy days had somehow proven to be harbingers of bad days over the years. And today was one of them. Something was amiss with the calculation. The figures didn’t match. My eyebrows formed a line between my forehead, and I restarted the analysis, tracing the tip of the pen over the leading points of recently concluded deals, sliding the ink through logistics settled at the hidden routes, expenses at storehouse locations, profits from the establishment, and….

I slammed the pen against the paper, feeling the black casing crack underneath my palm. “It doesn’t fucking match.”

“How much?” the bald man across the desk nonchalantly repeated, voicing his disinterest in my concerns but rather engrossed in the reason he was seated in my office. I raised my eyes to him.

Sitting comfortably cross-legged on the chair, Byrd flipped two white-wrapped bundles on the table and lifted them to the table-sized scale. Picking out a pocket knife, he cut one open, slid the knife into the powder, and pinched the powder on the tip of his tongue.

“Good stuff.” He dusted his fingers and sat up, taking a toothpick out of his mouth. “How much?”

I narrowed my eyes over the shining light reflection on his head to Arlo, who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, his attention on me. “Call Amir. Tell him the figures don’t match—what was bought, sold, and recovered. And I need to know why the fuck it doesn’t in thirty minutes. He has twenty-nine left.”

My underboss nodded, taking out his phone to call the man with his life hanging on the line. Then, I turned to Byrd, knotting my fingers under my chin. “For the pinch?”

He smirked, leaning against the chair and plopping the stupid toothpick back into his mouth. “For two hundred bundles.”

“Five million.”

Byrd sputtered like he’d choked on his bloody toothpick, the smirk melting off his face as he gripped the edge of the desk. “Five…!” His chest heaved, and shock rattled his gentlemanly facade. “No fucking way I’m getting this blow for more than nine-fifty grand.”

My eyes narrowed at his audacity.

In my world and line of work, I’d learned the hard way that good things never came easy, and there were categories of shit: the good shit, the cheap shit, and the bad shit. With those categories came different types of distributors/resellers that we had to deal with: the smart ones, the stupid ones, the cheap ones. And then there was Byrd. Not new to the game, and highly recommended with years of experience. I’d heard about him but never had to deal with him personally. Until now. Clearly, he recognized quality but preferred to get on my fucking nerves.

I inclined backward on my chair, slipping another paper out of a stack. If it wasn’t already obvious, I was in a shitty sour mood and had no time to play games. I ran my fingers through my hair and rolled up my sleeves. I pulled on my tie and snatched a new pen from a stash in my drawer to work.

“Don’t know what shit you’ve heard, and I don’t fucking care to know,” I mumbled, burying my face in a new set of reports from one of the casinos. “But we don’t haggle here. The price is the fucking price. You either take it or get the fuck out.”

I didn’t see his face, but the disapproving grunt he made in his throat reached my ears. My fingers curled around the pen, but I didn’t react. Not yet, anyway.

“Listen, Tim—”

“Nobody fucking calls me Tim.”

Arlo’s uncultured snicker echoed from the back of the room, and I eyed Byrd. He was gripping one arm of the chair for dear life, gaping as if his ears hadn’t heard me. And when I blinked, the message was delivered without a blip.

“Timur,” he hesitantly corrected. “Listen, I’m not trying to start any trouble here. I’m only saying I can’t pay five million when I have an option to deal nine-fifty for the same amount.”

Nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars for two hundred kilograms of cocaine. There was one mob who’d do something that crazy: the fucking Italians. They’d done it for years and never bothered with the repercussions that followed. Cheap crooks who wouldn’t hesitate to sell low-quality shit at an affordable price just to keep the cows trooping in. And Bryd here was one of the fucking cows. When the cows ran into problems, they’d clean up, bury, and continue selling.

We preferred to deal smarter. Smarter meant more quality. And more quality meant more price.

I dropped my pen, sitting up with an annoyed glare. He had my full attention now, and for that, he was going to have to pay somehow if he wasted my fucking time.

“So, Colombo’s offering you less, and you’re considering it. Only a fucking crook will sell that amount of coke at that price. And only an idiot will fall into that fucking trap. Listen here, Byrd . To help you, I’m going to do the math, and I’m not going to fucking repeat this: What I’m offering you is good shit. It’s wholesale price. A bundle is one kilogram, and that goes for twenty-five grand. Two hundred bundles is two hundred kilograms, roughly about four hundred and forty-one pounds, if you prefer a conversion.” I leaned forward. “Doesn’t matter if you can get it for fifty grand. I’m not giving you that shit for less than five million, which, to me, is fair enough.”

He snorted and pushed back on his chair, eyeing me with drawn eyebrows set in a scowl. The man obviously had a problem with not having things go his way. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t give a shit.

Knowing I had more work to do and less time to stomach time-wasters, I dropped my eyes to the paper in front of me; at the same time, I heard him gruffly murmur under his breath.

“Fucking Russians. The Bratva always think they’re always on top of shit. Fucking overrated, pompous assholes.”

Pen casing cracked more under my palm as I slammed it hard against the desk, and Byrd nearly jumped out of his skin. I opened the top drawer, my gaze hovering over the dark safe.

My family liked to joke that I had the shortest temper in the bunch. It wasn’t a lie. When you had a father that snapped, unleashing the monster within, like the thinnest piece of thread at anything, any time, you kind of…learned pretty fast to duck.

“Have you ever seen the Eiffel Tower?”

Byrd frowned, the scowl on his face morphing to confusion. “ What ?”

“The Eiffel Tower.” Slowly, my fingers brushed the cold butt of steel. Then, I raised my eyes. “Have you ever seen it?”

“No?” He tripped over his tongue. “I mean, no…I have never been to— Jesus…fuck! What the fuck , man?”

The loud bang of gunfire receded as Byrd dropped to the floor, folding into a fetal position while clutching his left ear. Staring at the fresh hole in the wall, I returned my Makarov to the top drawer. Pulling the paper out, I scribbled a short note of approval under the checks and balances section.

I didn’t shoot him. But it was a close shot. Close enough to allow his ear to feel the force of the bullet flying right past. If he were smart, he’d consider it a warning. If he weren’t, he’d want to take another test. And he wouldn’t be so lucky.

“You ever say shit about my family again, and you’ll see Paris from hell. Get the fuck out of my office. Right now .”

Shocked and rattled to the bone, he scrambled to his feet, grabbing his phone from the desk before running toward the door. Arlo came up to the desk, his dark eyes shining with mirth as he barked a laugh before collapsing to the swivel chair Byrd had occupied.

“Shit. Even my soul left my body. That was probably the fastest shot you’ve pulled in a while.”

“If you have a soul. Thought you sold it to the devil?”

“You are the devil, Timur Yezhov.”

I rolled my eyes, tucked the paper into a folder, and pulled out another one. “That’s what you said yesterday.”

“Yesterday?”

Tilting backward in my chair, I franked the document, stashed it away, and plucked a cigar from the box on the desk, raising a brow at him. Amongst my men, Arlo was the best. The smartest, the most ruthless. The one who knew how to get it done just the way I fucking wanted it. He stood out like a sore thumb and was loyal to a fault. Flawless . But sometimes, he joked around too much.

“About breaking the record. Roone.”

He sat up, surprised that he forgot. “The snitch? The fucker was so insignificant I forgot. Doesn’t matter, though, you broke the record today.”

“Almost broke it.” White smoke floated around us while Arlo hung on expectantly, waiting for me to finish. “Yesterday, I didn’t miss.”

He chuckled. “Still. Wouldn’t want to be in any of their shoes, Roone or Byrd’s. It’s crazy that he thought he’d get something lesser.”

“He’s not that experienced, after all. Didn’t do his research properly.” My phone hummed on the desk, and I opened the new text message. My eyes met Arlo’s. “You called Amir.”

“Yeah.” He lifted a brow. “Is there a problem?”

I opened the text. It was from Amir. Shoving the phone aside, I clasped my fingers over the desk, feeling a heat wave of anger rush over me, digging its claws into my chest until it felt like all the air in my lungs turned to steam.

“He’s lying. That’s all I need to know.”

Arlo frowned, leaning forward to sneak a peek at my phone. “He told you that?”

“No. He said there was a mix-up somewhere. His figures match. Everything’s good from his end. He thinks I was born yesterday. Probably thought he could play smart, cover his tracks, and pretend like he didn’t fucking steal from me.”

I chuckled, and a grimace formed on Arlo’s face.

“I hate it when you fucking laugh,” he sighed. “I’m going to have to get another carpet again, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. And I’ll need a new set of gloves.” Pointing at the wall with a finger, I grabbed another folder, opened it up, and pushed it toward him. “And fix up that paint, too, while you’re at it. Get Amir here now, however the fuck you want to do it. I don’t fucking care if you have to tie him up. Also, I need names, Arlo, and I need them now.”

“Names of…?”

“Debtors. Who’s fucking owing because today’s their day to pay up every single dime.”

Randomly, he flipped through the pages of the documents inside and closed it. “No one.”

No one.

Curiously, I stuck a thumb under my jaw and stroked my chin, casually shrugging my shoulders like I hadn’t reached my boiling point. “Does No One have a surname?”

His brows dipped between his forehead, and despite looking like an assassin on duty, the tug of his lips showed that he found it funny.

“No one. As in, there are no debtors.”

Though, technically, Arlo was correct, I found that little bit of information hard to believe. Maybe my thirst to crush something was currently overpowering logic at the moment, but I wanted scapegoats. I’d gone through the records and found…nothing. It was clean. Too fucking clean.

Agitated, I twisted on the chair, and, still uncomfortable, I rose to my feet, pacing the floor from the tall ceiling-to-floor glass windows, ignoring the dark grey skies outside, and back. I fingered the tobacco stick between my lips, exhaling, before facing Arlo.

“Stop fucking grinning and think. There has to be someone without a clean slate. I feel it right here in my gut.”

And he laughed. Just full-on barked a hoarse chuckle that rumbled at the back of his throat, fastening and unfastening the top button on his shirt. “You seem to forget who you are sometimes. Nobody wants to have a bullet fly close-range past their ear or get their tongue fucking sliced off.” Then, the bushy brows on his forehead creased, and the laughter died off. “Although….”

Grey smoke curling around my face, I plucked the stick out of my mouth, narrowing my eyes. “Although?

“There is someone. He stopped paying over a year ago.”

Fucking knew it.

“Who?”

“Oliver Skye.”

My brows crinkled even more. “Why? Why did he stop paying over a year ago? And how did we miss that?”

“We didn’t. Well, I didn’t.” He shrugged. “He’s dead.”

Sticking the cigar between my lips, I went back to the chair, shutting my eyes and counting backward from ten to stop myself from pulling out the Makarov and shooting Arlo in the head.

“And I’m only finding out now?”

He didn’t even bat an eyelash, just twisted on his chair and stuck a fist under his chin with his elbow up on the chair. “I swear, it wasn’t intentional to keep you out of the loop, but I didn’t think it would make any sense to bother you with useless information. Oliver’s dead.”

“Any sons?”

His tongue clicked. “The only son he has isn’t an asset. He’s a teenager.”

“Full details.” I glared at him because I wanted to punch his gut so hard it’d knock the breath right out of his lungs.

The details rolled off with ease. “The boy’s name is Jayden. Jayden Skye. Seventeen years old. Student. Unemployed. ”

Arlo was partially right. An unemployed teenager meant liability. He wouldn’t have been able to pay off his father’s debt. Glancing at the stack of papers neatly arranged on the desk, my lips curved to the side. Good thing we had clauses in contracts that allowed us to do whatever we pleased.

I met Arlo’s suspecting gaze, took out the cigar, and felt a fresh rush of adrenaline through my veins.

“But he’s a son, and he’s alive. He’ll do.”