I grimaced at his back. He’d be in touch. Not if I could help it.
Jerry and I were going to have a little talk. He let me walk into this unprepared so I could be ambushed. Oh yes, we were going to have a long, very loud talk, and I wasn’t going to let the fact that he was my boss and very intimidating stop me. That’s what phones were for after all. To give you time to hide when you poked the bear.
Chapter Four
Predictably Beatrix was the one to answer when I called Jerry’s number.
“Hermes Courier Service. We’ll come to you. How may I help?”
“Put him on, Janice.”
“Aileen.” My name was a curse.
“Now that we’ve established the obvious, put him on.”
“Jerry’s busy at the moment.”
I bit back a growl.
“Put. Him. On.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible.”
Deep breath. Threats of physical violence wouldn’t work. I needed to be smarter than the obnoxious secretary.
“Janice, this is for a job. I need to talk to Jerry. If you keep stone walling me, I will be forced to use my own judgement. Do you really want me to do that?”
There was a moment of silence. Then a click and a slight buzz as the call was transferred.
I allowed myself a small moment of victory, which vanished the moment Jerry answered.
“Aileen.” His voice was terse.
“Jerry. Is there a reason you didn’t warn me?”
“I was told not to.”
“Since when do you listen when clients tell you how to conduct your business?”
Hermes was notorious for blacklisting people if they got out of line. Jerry had always run his business in the way he saw fit. I’ve never heard of him bending to others wishes.
“Since the vampires said they’d put a kill order on any of my couriers running a job.”
I was quiet. Yeah, that might do it.
I mentally bumped this selection thing they were talking about to a higher priority level.
“They have to be bluffing.”
“That may be, but I wasn’t willing to risk it. I’ll go to war if necessary but not when it can be easily avoided by doing what we would do anyway.”
Made sense. It was the same reason I hadn’t pushed back on Liam when he threatened Jerry and Hermes. They might be bluffing, but it wasn’t worth testing that assumption. Yet.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Shit.”
I had to do the job or at least give the appearance of doing the job.
