Page 29 of Sweet Torture (Torture Games #1)

TWENTY-THREE

CHAOS

T he next day, Mike bursts into my office yet again.

“I need to talk to you. It is literally a matter of life or death.”

Calmly, I point to the phone plastered to my ear and extend my salutation before focusing on the jittery man before me.

“What the fuck did you do now?”

He stops and wipes his hands on his pants before he faces me. “I made a deal. And before you attack me, let me explain.”

The hair on the back of my neck rises.

It better not be what I think it is, but as my second-in-command, I need to at least hear him out. “Okay, explain.” I lean back in my chair and interlock my hands. If only to keep from strangling him before he gets the words out .

“I made a deal with the Russian,” he utters hastily.

“What the fuck?” I roar. Jason rushes to the door and closes it from the outside.

“I explicitly gave you instructions not to make the deal. I had my reasons for it.”

“Griffin, you don’t understand, it was so much money, and he would have gone to our competitors if I hadn’t sweet-talked him into working with us. You know he was very offended that you refused to even take a meeting with him.” His voice is whiny.

I throw my hands in the air, “Does it look like I fucking care? He is a criminal, Mike.”

“So are you, or did you conveniently forget about the unfortunate rundown you had with Carter the other night. That wasn’t very noble of you, was it?” His face is judgy, and I want to stomp it into the ground.

I rub my temples, getting close to obliterating the piece of shit before me.

Inhaling deeply, I cling to the last shred of calm I have.

“So, you are telling me that you want to compare talking diamonds from a conniving piece of scum, who I may add was trying to cheat me out of my money, with human trafficking?”

“You broke his hand, Griffin. That is all the upper class is talking about. It is hard to hide something like that.”

A smile returns to my face, but from the look Mike gives me, I presume it reflects the devil in me. “ I didn’t want him to be able to hide it. I wanted the world to know what happens if you lay a hand on what is mine.”

“What are you talking about? He never touched the business.”

The altercation between the girls will be my little secret, but I am sure Carter asked his daughter about it. She would have admitted that the accusations were true if she were half decent. That is why I didn’t expect any retaliation from him.

“Coming back to the Russians, what are we going to do?” Mike interrupts my thoughts.

“We are going to do nothing. You are going to devise a plan to get us out of this before there is no escape. We are not getting involved in moving kidnapped women and children across borders.

“You don’t know that is what he wants transported,” he offers.

I jump from my chair and slam my hand on the desk. “Of course I do. I did my homework before I declined his offer to a meeting. In fact, his previous courier is missing, and his whole family was murdered. They even killed the fucking dog, Mike. Even the fucking dog.”

His face turns white, and it serves him right. I gave him instructions that he blatantly ignored. He starts rubbing his hands together. “Maybe we could offer this shipment for free and then walk away.”

“Are you a fucking fool? He put pieces on the chessboard the second you agreed to ensure we could never walk away. We are trapped; actually,” I point at him, “no, you are trapped. You made the deal, and you have to fix it.”

“You can’t be serious, Griffin. You know, we have always been in this together.”

“No, Mike. You are not my partner or my wife. You are my second-in-command, and you deliberately went behind my back to broker a deal after I explicitly told you not to. That is mutiny, and I should shoot you in the head right here for disobeying me. If it weren’t for the fact that the Russians would be out for blood, I would do just that. ”

“Please, Griffin. Try to understand. He was offering more than all the deals we brokered last year. We could have retired on that amount alone.”

He is pacing up and down while not so subtly glancing at my bar cart.

I drop down in my chair again, exhaustion engulfing me. Sometimes this life is too taxing to make it worth it.

“Your greedy ass might just have gotten us both killed, and you are thinking about retirement? It might not be a bad idea. I can take a long vacation while he hunts you down and disposes of the self-indulgent piece of shit you are. When he is done, I can simply come back and run my business.”

He stops pacing and changes tactics. “I am sorry. I thought that was what you would have wanted. I never thought you would be coward enough to run,” Mike baits me.

Calmy, I state, “Oh, I am not running. I am getting out of the way of a man with one of the most brutal reputations known to man. You have endangered everything I have worked for my whole life, and you want to stand here and judge my actions. You fucked up, and it is only fair that you pay the price. Next time, if you are not murdered in bed with another one of your bimbos, listen to what I tell you to do instead of assuming you know me.”

“You know, you were never this dismissive before she came into the picture,” he grumbles.

“Excuse me?” My tone is just menacing enough to alert him to his mistake.

“You have changed in the past weeks, Griffin, and people have started noticing. If you lose your edge, they will start going to our competitors. Can you afford that? Taking this deal was my way of ensuring that we could still deliver to our other clients.” His voice is filled with hatred and defiance.

I shake my head from side to side, hands clenched in fists.

I want to demolish him and grind him to dust. Where does he get the balls to question me?

“So, you want to tell me that someone said I was turning soft, and the only way you could think of to strengthen my image is to associate me with innocent women being smuggled to be used in brothels and as sex slaves? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“When you put it like that…” he backtracks.

“I did put it like that. How would you put it?”

He steels himself for the confrontation, but it is not going to be enough. Not this time. “She is taking over your life. You are obsessed with her. You hired that private eye to research her and spend all your free time with her. I have never seen you act so…”

“So what, Mike?”

“Pussy-whipped, okay, you are pussy-whipped,” he shouts.

I march around my desk and tower over him when I grab his shirt and yank him off his feet.

“Be careful what you wish for. I will say this for the last time. If you heard rumors, you should have come to speak to me instead of taking things into your own hands. You made a fuck up of this whole situation, and we could actually lose our current client list because of your actions. Even in the underground, criminals have morals and boundaries.”

He lifts his hands up to protect his face, but it won’t protect him from my wrath. I shove him down, and my fist slams into his stomach. He falls to his knees, and I leave him there, gasping for air.

Calmly, I walk to the door, done for the day.

Over my shoulder, I warn one last time. “Fix this, Mike, before I have to step in and fix it for you. If you think I am pussy-whipped now, you won’t like me if something happens to her. Get some rest. You are going to need it.”