AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good,” I said. “Whenever her father isn’t meddling, it’s always good.”
Dante said nothing to that.
A moment later, one of the guards raised his hand and gestured to me across the terrace.
“It’s showtime,” I said.
“I’ve got backup if we need it,” Theo said. “Just down the road.”
Dante stayed silent.
Footsteps were audible, even over the noise of the fountain, before they became visible. A group of men approached, five of them in total, all dressed in t-shirts like they didn’t take our winter weather seriously. Two of them had face tattoos, and another one had eyes so wide it looked like he had a direct view into the horrors of the underworld.
We didn’t rise from our chairs. Just watched them with indifferent eyes.
They moved to the other side of the bonfire, where the chairs were scattered. They dropped into them and stared at us, taking several moments to evaluate us as opponents rather than business partners.
My guys had checked them not only for weapons, but for explosives wired to their clothing, in case this was a suicide bombing. We’d even installed a metal detector to catch anything they could have. Even if it was an innocent piercing, it had to go.
The standoff ensued, them sizing us up as we did the same in return.
I was the one to break the silence. “Tensions are heavy. Hatred is rooted in your bones. It’s understandable. But none of that would have happened if Christian hadn’t foolishly attempted to take a business from men he greatly underestimated—and touch one of their wives. I’m not sorry he’s dead, not after he made my wife bleed, but I am sorry that our thriving partnership has turned to shit.”
The one in the middle stared at me harder than the others, like he had an imaginary knife to my throat. He had tattoos in the corners of his eyes.
“We have two options here. We can let bygones be bygones and continue our partnership that has flourished for twenty years—or we can start a war. What do you want to do? Avenge a family member who crossed us or make money hand over fist?” I scanned them all, looking for reactions and weaknesses.
None of them looked at one another. None of them whispered to one another. They seemed to have had a game plan before they’d walked in. The one in the middle had his mouth covered with his hand, but he dropped it to speak. “An apology would be nice.”
“An apology for what?” I asked coldly.
Dante turned to me but didn’t say anything.
The man scooted forward to the edge of his chair. “We asked for ten percent—and you disrespected us.”
“Ten percent is awfully generous when you aren’t a part of this business.”
“Our product has allowed you to have a business,” he snapped. “It’s a small price to pay to stand on our spines. My cousin would still be alive if you’d just honored the request.”
“No,” I barked. “He would still be alive if he hadn’t threatened to rape my wife and nearly broke her nose. That’s why he’s fucking dead. And I’d kill him again—right in front of you—for what he did.”
“Axel.” Dante spoke under his breath.
The Colombian’s stare remained composed, but there was a flare to his nostrils he couldn’t restrain.
“However,” Theo said, jumping in to mitigate the damage I’d caused. “We would like to offer the ten percent and include you as a partner in the business going forward, as a sign of respect and sympathy. Business would continue as it always has, but you’ll receive a bigger piece of the pie. Do you accept?”
My temper had gotten the best of me, but I couldn’t see straight when it came to Scarlett. I would always remember her bloody face because it was carved into the backs of my eyes. The image appeared in my dreams, in the quiet moments as I sat in front of the fire, in the times that I felt at peace. It was a sick torment.
Their spokesperson looked down at the fire, slouching back into his chair, arms hanging down in a relaxed pose.
If he tried to negotiate for more, he would be denied, so I hoped he wouldn’t waste his time with that.
“If you’d just offered this in the first place, my cousin would be alive right now.” His eyes lifted to look at me, daggers in that stare. “All you had to do was agree, but you chose to be arrogant.”
“Christian had a lot of other threads he could have pulled to get what he wanted,” Dante said. “He could have left the meeting and withdrawn his product until we were forced to come to the negotiation table. Trying to take the business, along with my daughter and me, was not the right hand to play. Don’t blame us for your cousin’s foolishness. What happened was tragic, but we are in no way responsible for the bloodshed. The smart thing to do is move forward and continue this business arrangement. It’s obvious we need one another. We need you as our supplier, and you need us as your biggest client. Let’s learn from the past and not squander millions because of our tempers.”
Moments like this reminded me that Dante wasn’t completely useless. Unlike me, he could keep his temper, or at least halt it until the appropriate moment. When his eye was on the prize, he was focused like the point of a laser.
