The asshole stands on the opposite side of the table, followed by his little groupies. What purpose do they even serve? They look fucking ridiculous, sandwiching him between their short frames.
We stand for a while, staring each other down, while I silently beg him to make the first move.Give me an excuse to put you on the ground, man, and I won’t think twice.
“Gentleman,” Colt chimes in. “Can we be civil, for once?”
The corner of Nash’s mouth ticks up into a cocky smirk. “This is civil,” he says.
“Then both of you – sit. Down.”
As Nash lowers himself into his seat, I grit my teeth and do the same, not taking my glare off of him.
“I’m sure that we can reach a compromise that works for everyone,” Colt tells all of us.
From the corner of my eye, I see Emmett completely zoned the fuck out. This might have been a little too much for the kid’s first big meeting as a shareholder, but he needed to be here. All of us were at Arcane, and all of us are responsible for what happens to the company.
“Just keep your people out of my clubs until yours is finished,” Nash finally says. “I don’t want a single one of you in my buildings, taking the ideas that I came up with. There are plenty of others out there, stay the fuck out of mine if you’re looking for inspiration.”
Emmett is still not present, so I knock my knee against his under the table and use my eyes to tell him to pay fucking attention to the conversation going on around him.
“That sounds fine,” Colt shrugs. Poor dude just wants to get this shit over with, and I don’t blame him. “Is everyone in agreement, then?”
“I can live with it,” I tell him.
Somehow not seeming pleased, despite getting exactly what he wanted, Nash says, “Sure.”
“Yeah,” Emmett finally pipes up, “that sounds good to me.”
Montgomery and his buddies are the first to leave, the rest of us following closely behind, and Emmett rushes to catch up with me, looking like he’s just been slapped in the face. I feel a little bad for him, he hasn’t been doing this more than a couple of months and it’s not easy to navigate. Hell, I still hardly know what I’m doing, and I’ve been at it for years.
•
About half of our employees finish their days around four, so by five, there’s just about a third of us left in the office and it’s always too damn quiet. This is usually around the time I’ll wander around, trying to find something else to do withmy time, because if I have to answer one more goddamn email or sit in silence for another minute, I might actually lose my shit.
I grab a bottle of whiskey from under my desk and pour myself a few fingers’ worth into my empty coffee mug before getting up and strutting out of my office and into the main building, heading for my best friend’s office. We’re basically stuck sitting with our thumbs up our asses like a pair of idiots, waiting on a conference call that we’re not sure will even actually happen today, and it’s got me anxious, so I want to check in.
Walking through the building, I see some guy wandering the halls. I know everyone who works here, but I’m especially familiar with the people who stay past five, and he’s not one of them. There’s something familiar about him, but I can’t put a finger on it.
“Hey man,” I say, clapping him on the shoulder. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yeah, um, I’m looking for someone.” He looks around, fiddling with a purple coin in his hand. I’m not sure if he’s trying to get his bearings or if he’s trying to find the person he needs and get out of here. “My daughter? She works here, I think.”
Oh shit, that’s why he looks familiar. He looks cleaned up; he’s got on a button up shirt and a pair of slacks, his hair is clean, freshly cut, and combed back with product. He’s skinnier than he was when I knew him, by a lot, and his eyes are kind of yellowed out, but I do know this asshole. He used to fucking work for me.
He’s Colt’s father in law.
“Oh, she’s not here anymore,” I lie, fighting the tension in my jaw. “Real sad story, that one. She had this shitty dad who did a number on her. Drunk, abusive, you know the type. Followed in her daddy’s footsteps so we had to let her go. Dunno where she ended up.”
I pull a sip of scotch from my mug while I watch his face fall, my jaw flexing. IknowColt warned this bastard not to come around. If I had it my way, he’d have been on the ground the second I recognized him; when Colt told me about this guy and how he treated his daughters, I was ready to go to his house with a golf club and fucking beat the life out of him.
People who hurt kids deserve to be pulled apart and allowed to rot, if you ask me.
“Thank you,” he tells me. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
As he turns to walk down the hall, I raise a hand up. “Oh and Heath?” His head snaps around his neck like a fucking owl and I throw him a wide grin. “If I hadn’t already been told you were off limits, I just want you to know I’d put a bullet in you for what you did to those girls. You take care, now,” I tell him with a wave, pivoting to take a different route to Colt’s office.
The old bastard sits at his desk, picking at a salad while he stares at something on his screen; probably an email or some sort of request. I snatch the bowl of greens from him and inspect it, curling my lip. “All you eat in here is fuckin’ rabbit food,” I tell him as I drop into the seat at the front of his desk, tossing the bowl back in front of him. I stick my foot under the desk’s backing and give a little swipe across the carpet. “Half expected your wife to be down there.”
“She wanted some time to get things ready for game night, which I don’t think we’re going to make,” he tells me. “She left at four.”
