Page 56 of By Blade, I Love
“Is there going to be a wedding or…?”
“Or.”
He turned to look at me this time.
“Gonna get hitched. Just the two of us at her church.”
“Oh.”
I stared at the truck in front of us and sighed when we slowed to a crawl, like there was traffic up ahead as we made it into the city. I loved my job and getting shit done, but all the mundane things in between irritated me.
We were delayed by twenty minutes before we arrived at the warehouse. The doors opened, and the truck and the SUVs parked inside so we could make the deal in private.
I got out of the SUV, while my guys and Leo grabbed their guns and prepared to do the handoff.
Carl’s men immediately opened the back of the truck and began to unload.
Carl stood there with a cigar in his mouth, a nasty scar across one side of his face as if a butcher’s hook had lodged under his flesh and ripped the skin off from temple to jawline. Must have pissed off someone pretty fucking bad.
I walked up to him. “The money?” I wasn’t a big conversationalist on the job. Just did the work, got the money, and didn’t make small talk.
He took a final puff of his cigar and let the smoke leave his mouth before he tossed it onto the pavement and stomped out the flames with his boot. Then he gave a whistle.
One of the guys behind him grabbed a briefcase off the table and carried it over to me.
Normally, the payment was in two briefcases, so I knew that wasn’t nearly enough.
The guy held it out for me to take.
I ignored him. “That’s only half.”
Carl watched his men unload the truck for a moment before he looked at me. “Well, the shipment was two weeks late.”
Ohh, I was already pissed. “And Donna Mancini gave you a ten percent discount as a gesture.”
“And ten percent isn’t enough. Fifty percent?—”
“You don’t get to decide the terms—only the boss does.”
Once Leo and the others knew this was about to go south, they changed their positions in preparation for a shootout.
I kept my eyes on Carl and trusted them to watch my back.
Carl pivoted to look directly at me. “If that little cunt wants to do business?—”
I punched him hard in the face and instantly broke his nose. I looped my arm around his neck and got my knife right up against his jugular before any of his men could take me down with a shot.
Carl tried to kick out of my hold, but when he felt the knife tip move farther into his flesh, he went still.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
He gripped my arms and tried to pull me off, but one of my arms was stronger than both of his together.
“What did you say?” I thrashed him like a shark with prey in its mouth. “Tell everyone here what the fuck you just said about Donna Mancini, so they know exactly why I’m going to kill you in thirty seconds.”
He tried to fight harder, tried to break free of my hold. “Shoot him!”
I dragged him toward the wall and slammed him hard into it, but I pulled back, returning the knife to its position. Then I screamed so loudly, my words echoed multiple times against the concrete walls. “Tell them.”
