Page 141 of Tied to You

Looking at the bikers staring at him, he tries to save face. It’s gallant. “I’ll stand.”

“Very well.” Brushing my hands down the long pencil jumper I’m wearing; I reach into my bag and pull out a document detailing all of Terence’s unpaid debts.

His eyes meticulously scan over the numbers glaring back at him. “What the fuck is this?”

Denial. The first defence mechanism. “These, as I’m sure you are already aware, are the outstanding payments owed by you to financial creditors.”

He scoffs, snatching the paper from my hand.

“The ones highlighted in red are over the sum of one-hundred-thousand pounds. Yellow indicates payments of fifty-thousand pounds, and green is anything less than ten-thousand pounds. I’m sure you can agree there’s a lot of red on that paper.”

Terence’s jaw ticks. “Why are you showing me this?”

I stand a little straighter. “Because you are not in a position to be negotiating with anybody.” I let that sink in. He’s in debt up to his eyeballs. It’s no wonder he tried to use the switch from Nathan to The King as an excuse to try and do them out of money.

“Where did you get this?” He makes his way back to his chair, slumping his overweight body down.

My fingers twitch and I curse the little roll of my lips. “It was hard,” Iadmit. “But once I knew where to look, it was easy.”

Translated; once I knewwhoto ask, it was easy.

“I could have you barred for digging into this.”

I smile. “Youcouldif I were actively working. I’m on a gap year.” I say it smugly, but it feels like I just dropped a lead balloon. The sudden realisation that I have to call my dad and have an actual conversation with him about not going back, hits me hard. I have to tell him I’m getting married. To an outlaw. He’s going to have bloody kittens.

With a slight shuffle of his feet, I’m brought back to the room. My problems will have to wait for a moment.

“So what, I’m supposed to just take your word that you’ll keep this quiet?” He knows if any of this comes out his career is over.

“Oh, I can do more than keep it quiet, Terence.”

He scrunches his eyes.

“I can make it all go away.”

He looks at Travis and Dean in turn, before settling back on me.

I reach into my bag, grabbing another file. I pass it to him over the desk, speaking as he opens it. “Notice the difference?”

He looks up at me. “There’s no red.”

There’s actually no colour at all on the page he’s looking at. “That’s correct. Your debts with the creditors have been settled.”

Anxious eyes sweep the paper once more. Then he looks at me, confused.

“It wasn’t me,” I nod my head to the bikers stood behind me, “it was the club.”

“What? Why?” His voice quivers.

I take a step closer to him, wanting to round this up and get the fuck out of here. “You owe the club now. They’ve knocked off ten-percent from what you owe. Consider that a discount, provided you place your first order with The King, today.”

“I don’t understand?”

My palms press flat on his desk. “You still want the drugs?” He doesn’t say anything, but the idea of not having them slices across his flummoxed features. “I’m not threatening your job or your status, but you now owe outlaws more than six-hundred grand. One missed payment, one more unnecessary power play on your behalf, and it’s all over. No more drugs. No more work. No nothing.”

“What are you saying?”

Jesus. How many more times?“You buy from The King now. No one else. You pay what you owe, and you continue to play the role of law-abiding citizen when in actual fact, you’re no better than the rest of them.”