Page 61 of Into the Blue

What I can’t trust is the destruction of an entire shipment due to a car accident that just so happened to affect only one vehicle. Police ruling it a hit and run. How does one car drive away unfazed while mine blew up like fireworks? Yesterday, while I was celebrating Drea’s opening, someone was plotting.

When the final embers of my blunt draw to an end, I toss the roach and crush it to the ground before I knock on the door with the end of my knife’s handle. Was gonna wait but try the knob instead and it opens without anyresistance.

As soon as I step into the house, the oxygen syphons out. There was a buzz about until everyone of his men began to notice that it was me standing in the doorway.

Colton glances up from his desk at the back corner of the room and stands a little too fast, his boots catching on the cracked floor tile. I don’t know why his house is so shitty when he’s making enough to do better. Colorado, especially Harmony Hill, has plenty of new builds that would be better than this dump. “Blue. Didn’t expect you until—”

“Until you fixed your shit?” I finish for him. My voice is low and quiet. The kind of quiet that people raise their shoulders to instinctively, like they’re waiting for the moment my mood will untether. “And yet here I am.”

He swallows. “It’s… almost under control.”

I turn my head slowly. “Almost? It’s November.”

“We’ve been tracking the routes already in place. It’s definitely not internal.” He clears his throat. “At least not on my side. Some of the runners you hired for the Colorado expansion—”

“Are dead,” I interrupt, taking another step forward. “Four of them. Van flipped. Burned. No product and no witnesses. That doesn’t feel like almost to me, Sheriff.”

His jaw tightens. I can see the twitch he tries to smother under his stubble. He gestures to another room in the house, away from his men. Guess he didn’t want them to hear me chew him out.

The pride’s still there.

Good.

I’ll enjoy cutting it out piece by piece. I decline his invitation to move to the other room.

“Give me until the end of the year,” he says, eyes darting to his crew like they’re going to rescue him now. “I’ve got a plan in motion.”

“You had a plan last month,” I remind him. “And last month, my shipments were supposed to double. Instead, I’ve got more holes in my inventory and whispers about a rat you still haven’t caged.”

One of his men, a lanky thing with too much confidence and not enough sense, chuckles behind Colton’s shoulder.

I don’t even ask what was funny. I didn’t make a goddamn joke. I just turn, slow and deliberate. When I look at him, he freezes.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

He licks his lips. “Ricky.”

“Ricky.” I nod. “Mmmh. You like your job, Ricky?”

He blinks. “Y-yeah, I—”

I flip my grip on the knife in my hand and flick my wrist, sending the blade toward him. It lands right below his kneecap.

Colton shouts and another of Colton’s goons rushes to the guy.

Ricky screams like a dying pig, clutching his ruined leg, blood pouring onto the floor in a copious stream.

I walk over, crouch down next to him, and pull my knife, “See, Ricky… there’s a difference between people who work for me and people who make jokes while I talk about my dead men and my missin’ money. Guess which one you are.”

He sobs something incoherent.

I put the knife’s reddened blade under his chin. “You’re welcome to stay. But if you ever open your mouth in my presence again, the next hole won’t be in your leg.”

I stand after cleaning my knife off on his shirt and return it to its sheath.

Colton’s shock is clear as day with the pale cast to his light skin. “Jesus, Blue.” He runs a hand over his cropped hair.

“Don’t bring him into this,” I mutter. “Know who you work for.”