Page 40 of Cole

“I’ve got to go. Don’t want to be late for my fun little class for my gauche degree,” I sighed as I turned on my heel and walked away, happy to leave this asshole behind

thirteen

COLE

It had been a few days of peace and quiet with no Goldilocks sneaking around, and a few more without people coming in to shoot up my bar. I was pissed off about one of them, and relieved about the other. Goldilocks was finding her way into my thoughts more often than I liked. I was going to have to do something about that. Rules, or no rules.

Then Finn called me a little after midnight. His voice was slightly panicked, and he sounded out of breath. There was a lot of noise in the background and raised voices fading in and out.

“Cole?” I knew by his tone that there was trouble.

“What the hell did you get yourself into, Finn?” I asked.

“I don’t… I mean, everything is fine. I just need…” Finn trailed off, and there was rustling on the other end of the call.

“Bailey? This kid better hope to God that it’s you,” a familiar voice came through the phone.

“Rusty?” I asked, already frustrated with this back-and-forth phone passing.

Rusty was one of my buyers. A buyer I’d had for a long time, and for good reason. He paid on time, only kept receipts in his head, and played by old-school rules. He was the kind of man you didn’t cross, and if Finn had messed up my business relationship with him, there would be hell to pay.

“Your boy must be light in the head,” Rusty said flippantly. “He came in here with his mouth running, and he closed both his damn ears.”

“What did he say?” I asked, running my hand over my face.

“He tried to tell us that we owed more on this upcoming drop. He said that you were done getting taken for a ride and that we owed you a ‘disrespect tax.’ What the hell is this ‘disrespect tax’? Because I can tell you right now, I am not paying you a single cent more than what we agreed on.”

I clenched my jaw and turned on the barstool so Maddox and Gage couldn’t read my facial expressions.

“The kid is talking out of his ass. Nothing more than we agreed on,” I said.

“You breed them brave, I’ll give you that, Bailey. Stupid, but brave,” Rusty snorted.

“He touched product?” I asked, reluctant to hear the answer.

“No, it was delivered clean, and the count was correct. Everything was running like normal until the kid thought it was a good idea to try and get clever with us.”

“How many guns are on your floor?” I asked.

“None. You know we move fast.”

“The kid is all talk. I’ll deal with him when he gets back,” I said, hoping that would be enough for Rusty.

“You know that in this line of business, talk turns to blood,” Rusty said, clearly still irritated.

“It doesn’t need to tonight. Don’t kill him. I’ll deal with him running his mouth,” I said. “If Finn were here, I would throttle him for being so stupid.”

“Give me a reason not to,” Rusty said, low and serious.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. I’ll take care of this in person,” I said, hanging up the phone.

I stood up from the barstool, too quickly to go unnoticed.

“Is there a problem?” Gage asked.

“Finn,” I said. “It's always Finn.”

Maddox groaned and stood up to follow me. “What did the kid do now?”