Thor leaned forward, planting his scarred and tattooed forearms into the wooden table. “That isn’t what I asked, Range.”
Dutch leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Now’s the time where you’ve usually got a plan to let us in on.”
I slowly turned my gaze toward him. “And when I’ve got a plan, I’ll fill you in.”
Trooper stuck his hand into the air, and it made me roll my eyes. “This isn’t grade school, Troop. Just talk.”
His hand fell back down into his lap. “We all know this is the client’s fault. Had they met us where we originally intended, this would’ve all been fine. So, I say we use that.”
A sly smirk spread across my face. “Tell them that we’re willing to still do the transaction, but now it’ll require a ten percent--.”
“Twenty percent,” Thor growled.
I pointed at him. “—twenty percent surcharge for being an absolute asshole, and they’ll still have to meet us where we want before the trail on us gets any hotter than it already is.”
Bury scoffed. “And if they don’t agree?”
Dutch grinned. “Then, we’ll blacklist them with every weapons dealer on the West Coast. You know, since they wanted to act all high and mighty instead of playing it smart.”
“Actions, meet consequences,” Trooper said.
“All in favor of guilting these assholes into more money, raise your hands,” I said.
And as every single hand from every single one of my men shot into the air, I stood to my feet.
“One thing,” Bury said as he wiggled his fingers in the air.
Troop groaned. “No, you guys don’t have to give up your fucking hotel rooms for the week. Unless they’re more than ten minutes away.”
“Fuck,” Bury groaned.
“You can bunk with me, my hotel’s got room service,” Thor said as he slapped his hand against the man’s chest.
“Everyone done belly-aching about how they’re not gonna get laid at Hell Week?” I snarled.
“We’ll all be within ten minutes of this place in case shit pops off,” Doc said.
I didn’t like how disagreeable they were being. In fact, I wanted to wring their fucking necks. But, they had a point. We’d all been looking forward to Hell Week ever since it was announced that it would be in our neck of the woods. A whole ass week of rubbing elbows with family, friends, and good fucks. I, myself, was disappointed that I had to miss it, but this deal came with too much money to justify a week off. That’s why the three of us tackled the job. Dutch, Troop, and I. We were the core of the crew, which meant we had a duty to our brothers to see money like this through. It’s how we took care of our own, even if it meant giving up our first vacation in years together. The guys, however? We’d all run our asses so ragged these past couple of years that they deserved a week off. And I sure as hell didn’t want to take it away from them for something as trivial as this shit.
So, I settled my gut on the compromise and clapped my hands three times in succession.
“Plan agreed upon. Church is dismissed.”
After all, I had a very important phone call to make.
4
NAOMI
“Hello? Can anyone hear me!?”
I had no more tears to cry. I had no more life left in me to fight. Even my voice started giving out, cracking and fraying out with every other exclamation that fell from my lips. I heard so many footsteps above my head. So many lumbering, echoing, heavy steps. How many people were in the house? Where the hell was I?
Were they going to kill me?
I flopped down onto the edge of the bed, one of the only pieces of furniture that kept me company in that basement. The lights above my head were bright, illuminating every single corner that seemed impeccably clean for a prison. There was a wall that cornered off a bathroom that sat diagonally from the bed, and outside of the dresser and bedside tables that were afforded to me, there wasn’t anything else in the room.
“Gordon, god damn it, where are you!?” I yelped.
