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“I think you have had more than enough fun to last five lifetimes, Fenway. Anyway, the answer is no. I am not doing contract work for you or your friends, Bells. Mr. Adamos, I’m sorry if Bellamy made you promises without first consulting me. That was an error in judgement on his part. If you’d like, I know several other very good negotiators that I can put you in contact with.”
“Very good,” he said, pinning me with that penetrating gaze of his. “I don’t want pretty good. I want the best. My fellow crime lords inform me that you’re the best.”
That was humor, right?
It certainly sounded like it, even if he delivered it without a hint of amusement.
“He’s right you know,” Fenway piped in. “You are the best.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Fenway. But I am not doing this.”
“You don’t even know what the job is,” Bellamy told me.
“Or how much it pays,” Fenway added.
As a general rule, Fenway didn’t often talk money. I guess because he had more of it than God, he never felt like it was something worth speaking of. So the fact that he was, I figured, meant the payment for this prospective job would be significantly more than my usual pay. And I made good money working for Quin. Hazard pay, if you will. Since I was generally the one who dealt with the hot heads, trying to make them all come to an agreement that no party was completely happy with.
“This isn’t about the money,” I insisted. And I was incredibly lucky and thankful that I was at a point in my life where I could say that and mean it. I was comfortable. Thanks to Quin and some careful investments and a lot of saving, since I was never in one place long enough to really spend a lot of money, I knew that—should Quin decide he no longer needed me tomorrow—I could live a comfortable, though in no means lavish, life without any other means of income should I decide not to work again.
“Two,” Christopher said, gaze unblinking.
Two-hundred-thousand was a fair bit more than I made on my average job. Tempting if maybe they’d contacted me the right way. But this was the principle of the thing.
“Million,” Christopher added when he realized I clearly misunderstood him.
That was, well, that was more than a little tempting; I won’t lie.
That kind of money? That would make me more than comfortable for the rest of my life.
But if I let this pass, even just this one time for this one giant sum of money, it would let Bellamy and Fenway think that they could do crap like this and get away with it—that money could solve issues even of morality.
“For that kind of money, you could have all my competitors at once. Which, combined, would give you the best.”
“You’re not going to turn your nose up at two million dollars, are you?” Bellamy asked, brows furrowing.
While Fenway could be a bit out of touch with things like money, Bellamy was a little more in touch with how much money could impact people’s lives.
“I am.”
“For what reason?” Christopher asked.
“It’s the principle of the thing.”
“Three.”
“Mr. Adamos,” I said, even though my belly was starting to wobble at the idea of turning down money like that, “I am not trying to shoo you up. I am not going to take this job.”
To that, he slowly bent forward again, eyes unblinking, tone deadly serious. “Four.”
Jesus.
Could I actually turn down that kind of money? Just because Bellamy and Fenway had fucked up the introductions?
“We’ve got your attention now,” Bellamy said, his smirk of the victorious sort. Like he knew the decision had been all but made.
“Good. We can get some frappes now, then,” Fenway said, smiling big, giving one of the crew members a nod.
Not more than a moment later, the yacht started moving, taking us closer to shore.
“You’ll take the job,” Christopher said. Not asked. Said.
Because it was truly unfathomable that money like that could ever be turned down.
“We haven’t even discussed the job yet,” I told him, moving to sit, only to be hauled back up by Fenway as he got to his feet.
“There will be time for that. In a little cafe where I fell in love with the most intoxicating of creatures.”
“For the night only,” I added.
“Naturally,” he agreed, ignoring my eye roll.
“Fine. We can talk it over frappes,” I agreed, deciding caffeine was very much needed to balance out the drugs, tequila, and now the Percocet. If I was going to take this job, I wanted to make sure I had my wits about me while making the decision.
“Do you want to go raid the spare closet downstairs to slip into something that won’t make you sweaty and miserable in five minutes when we’re on land?” Fenway asked.
