AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know you and your men are the group I’m looking for,” Caine stated, barely loud enough for Jack to hear. “Are you ready to talk yet?”
Was he ready to talk yet?
“You order the Candless team taken out?” he asked Crossfield, watching from the corner of his eye as confusion crossed Caine’s face.
“They turned the job down before any details were given. Why the fuck would I do something so asinine?” he growled.
Jack looked over at Poppy again. She was talking to Sasha about something, and the discussion seemed intense.
“What does it have to do with Poppy?” he questioned Crossfield. “You know if she’s threatened again, I’ll come after you. Right?” He let his gaze connect with Crossfield’s then. “And I’ll make you hurt, man. Bad.”
Crossfield grimaced. “I agreed to that little plan reluctantly. It was a mistake, I have to admit. But she wouldn’t have been hurt, Jack. Just held for a while until you did a little job for me. And you would have been compensated handsomely.”
Jack wanted to kill him. Right then. Right there. He wanted to pull his knife and slice the bastard’s throat.
“Rollins and his men would have raped her, multiple times. Disfigured her. And when you ordered her release—if you ordered it—they would have sliced her throat and moved out. The money you’re offering isn’t enough to leave witnesses. Or to keep them unharmed.” Jack poured himself another shot of whiskey from the bottle at his elbow. “He only took the job because he knew the woman was mine. The other team might have been nicer, but not by much.” He threw back the shot and relished the burn that tore its way down his throat.
God, he wanted to kill this bastard!
“Do you want the job, or do I keep looking?” Crossfield asked, his tone indicating he was out of patience. “If I have to keep looking, you stand down or Poppy will pay the price.”
Crossfield was weak, Jack thought. He wasn’t the brains behind this operation; someone else was pulling his strings.
“Raise the offer by forty percent, and I want full disclosure of the job,” Jack stated. “For some reason, you’re just willing to hire men to kidnap my woman to ensure I take a job. That means it’s more than just a little dangerous.”
The time for games was over. Crossfield had made his move, and that was all they’d been waiting for. Had Jack gone to him or admitted his group had taken the teams out at the first meeting, he would have never been trusted. Sometimes, playing hard to get was the only way to get in.
“Forty percent?” Anger tinged Crossfield’s voice as he hissed the question. “You don’t even know what the job is.”
“I know it was important enough that you were willing to use a woman to get to me.” Jack shrugged. “And I don’t trust you to ensure Poppy’s safety. But the Fuentes Cartel is willing to do that for me. At a hugely discounted price. Ian Richards is partial to dishonorably discharged SEALs.”
Crossfield turned and stared at the top of the bar as the bartender set a beer in front of him.
“Richards was an unforeseen complication,” he grunted. “Without the Fuentes Cartel, I think you would have been a bit less confident in yourself.”
Jack gave a low bark of laughter. “You don’t know me well at all. But you keep thinking that.”
Crossfield’s lips twisted with an edge of humor. “It does bring me comfort, I must admit.”
Jack wasn’t in the mood for a bonding session.
“How long will the job last?” he asked Crossfield.
“A week. Two at the most.” Crossfield picked up the glass and brought it to his lips for a long drink. “I can’t give you details just yet, but all you’ll be doing is providing backup to an individual, and distraction. The main operation will be taken care of by one person. And I can’t tell you anything further right now.”
Can’t or won’t? Jack wondered.
“When?” he asked.
“You’ll meet with your employer in two days. I’d stash Poppy with friends tomorrow evening if I were you, mostly because I suspect there’s another interested party out there somewhere that was behind taking out Candless’s team, and that was a serious warning. You’ll be heading to the meeting before daybreak the next day,” Crossfield stated. “I’m just the middleman, Jack. I can secure the amount you’re asking, simply because I know you’re the man they want for the job. But it won’t be easy. I was just the man assigned to make certain you could be trusted.”
Once again, Jack shrugged. “And I didn’t appreciate having my woman threatened. She’s useful to me at the moment. You are not. And neither is your interested party. I’d get the message across if I were you.”
She was his soul. If something happened to her, then Jack wouldn’t kill Crossfield fast. He’d make it last. For days. And he’d make damned sure the other man begged to die before delivering the killing blow.
“Get her to Ian Richards’s tomorrow and wait for my call,” Crossfield reiterated. “I’ll meet you at the camping area about a mile and half from exit twenty-eight to Milton thirty minutes before daybreak. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Taking his beer, Crossfield ambled away as though they’d been discussing no more than the weather.
