Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)(5)

He listens. He’s obedient. He’d probably roll over and beg if I barked those commands, all in his quest to please his master. Who’s a good boy?

“So, uh, like I was saying,” he mumbles, picking back up right where we left off. “These card games are important to my boss. The people who play in them... they’re important, too. All this trouble that’s been happening is scaring the guys away, so my boss wants to make a deal with you.”

“He wants to make a deal with me,” I say, pouring myself another shot, splashing liquor out onto the table. “What kind of deal are we talking?”

“He’s willing to cut you a share of the profits.”

“How much?”

“Ten percent.”

I nearly choke on the rum as I swallow it down, coughing, the burn taking my breath away. Ten percent. The f*cknut is offering me ten percent of practically nothing. Pennies. “Let me get this straight. Your boss got a little problem with thieves busting up his card games. So in exchange for ten percent of what he makes off of it, he wants me to, what? Provide protection? Security? This ain’t a f*cking rent-a-cop service I’m running. What does he want from me?”

He pauses. “He wants you to stop robbing him.”

I stare at the guy. Hard. I stare at him until he starts fidgeting, and I wait for him to retract that statement, but he says nothing.

He’s not taking it back.

“You calling me a thief?”

“I’m not calling you anything. My boss is.”

“Like I said… your boss is a f*cking fool.” I rip the plastic pouring spout out of the bottle of rum and toss it onto the table, giving up all sense of propriety. Not like people expect it, anyway. Who needs manners when you’ve got a face like mine? They expect the worst, and what can I say? I don’t like to disappoint. “I have no interest in his petty little games of Go Fish with the brats he does business with.”

“Yeah, I told him as much,” he says. “Told him it wasn’t your M.O.”

I take a swig straight from the bottle before pointing it at him. “What do you know about my M.O.?”

“I know it’s not about the money to you,” he says. “The money’s a plus, of course, but that’s not why you do it. For you, it’s about the power. It’s about the respect. You’re not going to waste the energy on something that isn’t worth attaching your name to.”

Huh. He’s got me there. I do happen to be a fan of grand gestures. Go big or go home. He might have more balls than I gave him credit for out on the dock, but it’s obvious, looking at him, listening to him, that his boss takes that for granted. Georgie sent him out here tonight knowing there was a good chance he wouldn’t survive to see sunrise. He’s expendable, a simple go-between, and despite the cliché, everyone knows I’m the type to shoot the messenger.

“Tell me something.” I take another swig of rum. “What did your boss give you for coming here? How’s he compensating you?”

He hesitates. “He’s not.”

“No?”

“It was an order… it’s my job. I’m here because that’s what I do.”

“You deliver messages?”

“Among other things.”

I can hear the hidden meaning in those words. The messages he’s used to delivering aren’t verbal. They aren’t warnings. They aren’t stupid little deals. He delivers messages in the form of a bullet to the eye, telling the world, ‘I see you, motherf*ckers. I see you.’

He’s intuitive. He’s got to be, if he was able to read me. That’s a rare quality these days. Nobody trusts their gut anymore, but they ought to. Sometimes wires get crossed in the brain, things get all jumbled, everything gets confused, and your heart… you can’t trust that son of a bitch. It’ll be the first to betray you. It’ll make you feel like the world is a beautiful place. It’ll make you forget all the darkness. It’ll make you hope, and believe, and then it’ll destroy you, just when you start to think maybe it’s okay to not be so goddamn frigid.

But the gut? The gut knows. The gut remembers. You should always listen to it.

After taking one more swig of rum, I shove the bottle aside and lean across the table, closing some of the distance between us. He blanches as I do. Ballsy and perceptive, yes, but the guy is uneasy, nervous about how this is going to end, worried that I might kill him for the things he said.

I can’t say the thought hasn’t cross my mind.

But I’m going to give him a chance, maybe because I’m feeling generous, or more likely because I’m a conniving son of a bitch. Besides, I’m bored. Might be fun to poke the bear a bit.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I say. “You’re going to go back to your boss and deliver my counter offer, because this deal he’s offering just isn’t going to work for me.”

He stares down at where his hands rest on the table, clasped together like in prayer, and is quiet for a moment before he asks, “What’s your counter offer?”

Reaching into my coat pocket, I pull out my worn, leather wallet. I shift through the wad of cash, finding only hundreds, and toss one on the table to cover the cost of the rum before sliding my wallet back away.

“Tell your boss he can suck my cock,” I say, shoving my chair back to stand up. “If he does a good enough job, maybe I won’t blow his f*cking brains out for calling me a thief.”