Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
“Who the fuck are you?” Steve seems more curious than put out, and again I have that urge to knock his teeth down his throat.
“I’ve seen you around.” Brandon’s eyes are wide. You’ve been at the college. “Mr… Stern?”
“Max,” Cyn corrects. “He…he likes to be called Max.”
“W—what are you doing here?” Keryn sounds confused and terrified, and I don’t want to hear that tone in her voice ever again.
“Let them go,” I demand.
Steve actually laughs, even with a gun pointed at him. “Max. Mind if I call you Max? Look, this isn’t your fight, but I guess you’re making it yours anyway, so I’ll explain my predicament. I don’t know who the fuck you are, but Brandon here works for me. Usually, he’s pretty reliable, I have to admit. Degenerate gamblers always are, in my experience. They’re not like other addicts, in between fixes they work hard. I know he uses girls like Cynthia to move our product, but the thing is nobody looks twice at them. It’s a good arrangement. Distribution can be a nightmare, and these college girls make it run like a dream. Easy on the eye, too. Anyway, last week he picks up two pounds of good quality cocaine. I pride myself on that, you know? The quality, I mean. It’s kind of my thing. I’m a wholesaler and my customers like to cut it themselves. But when Cynthia delivered the package, it wasn’t good quality anymore. It’s been cut so it’s barely forty percent pure. So somewhere between pick up and drop off, someone’s stolen half my product. I just want it back, that’s all, then we can all go back to our lives.”
“Cocaine?” Cyn almost spits the word at Brandon. “I thought I was delivering marijuana. Fuck. I could go to prison, Brandon, you little…”
She falls silent as Steve fixes his eyes on her. And I have to agree, we need to move this along. At any moment cop guy or broken nose could regain their senses and have me surrounded. The only reason Steve’s even talking to me right now is he knows a firefight could go either way.
“Cute story,” I mutter, thinking on my feet. “But right now we’re at an impasse. I haven’t called the cops, but you can be sure someone in the building heard all that.” I nod at the doorway where cop guy is still unconscious. “I don’t know what happened to your drugs, and I don’t much care. It has nothing to do with me, or Keryn, and Cyn didn’t even know what she was delivering.”
“So she says,” Joe murmurs.
I glare at him, but continue speaking to Steve. No point talking to the trained monkey. “Get out of here, take your friends with you, and I’ll make sure all this is cleaned up. We all just go our separate ways.”
“Steve, you can’t seriously—”
“Shut the fuck up, Joe. He’s right. This whole thing is a shit show. These girls have no idea what the fuck we’re talking about. We’ll take Brandon, and get the truth out of him.”
I nod. Steve has the kind of face you want to throw darts at, but he’s not unreasonable.
Brandon starts to struggle as I lower my gun. “No! Please. I don’t know anything! Mr. Stern—Max!”
“Let him go!” Cyn starts around the table, heading for Brandon, but I put an arm out to stop her. “They’ll kill him! No matter what he’s done, he doesn’t deserve that!”
She’s wrong though. For putting the two of them in danger, he deserves everything he gets. If he stayed here, I’d probably torture him myself just for bringing Keryn into all this.
But when she speaks, I’m done.
“Max, please…”
Fuck. I can’t help myself. My eyes fall on hers, those azure-blue gems sparkling even in her fear. Those perfect lips that my mind immediately imagines glossy with spit as she wraps her mouth around my shaft. Jesus. My whole body betrays me, wanting her, wanting to do anything for her. No matter what she asks of me, I’ll do it.
“Stop!” I grunt, a little growl of frustration as I tear my eyes away from hers. “Let him go.”
I raise my gun, even as Steve does the same, confusion in his eyes.
“You don’t want to do this, Max. We’re out of here. Right now, I have no beef with you. The ladies are out of it. Brandon is going with us.”
I shake my head. “No he isn’t.”
“Are you absolutely sure this is what you want, man?”
“Try to take him and I’ll kill you.”
Steve huffs, then turns to Joe and nods. Joe is glaring, but Steve has his people under control. It’s barely a fraction of a second before he lets Brandon go, and the two of them back away, helping broken nose to his feet and lifting cop guy between them.