His eyes fell to my heels sitting on the table in front of me as I brushed the tips of my nails along the top of one of them.
“When I was out there, it was two or three of us covering a much larger area. I don’t care how you do it, make it happen.” He didn’t like my advice, and it burned him up that I didn’t care what he thought of it.
Two more complaints was all I could tolerate. The next subjects delved into supply, distribution, and production. I didn’t lie about our supply issue, but I didn’t disclose the full truth either, since I was actively working on finding a solution.
A deep exhale relieved some of the tension build up when I was met with more complaints and opposition from Marshawn. He was testing me. He hadn’t seen me murder anyone in a while, and it appeared he was angling for next in line.
The rest of the crew continued to stare at Arjen. Was he going to say anything? I had offered him the platform twice, but he had declined, content with allowing the mystery of his deadly reputation to keep the group in suspense. There were things about him that I hadn’t figured out yet either.
“Are we a part of the Ferali Syndicate now? Are we going to start selling guns?” Timothy ‘Tims’ asked the questions that was likely on all their minds.
“We are in an alliance with them. Therefore, we are more of a collection of powers, than one being absorbed into the other. We fall under the syndicate’s umbrella, which means if we fuck up, it looks bad on them. It also means that we have an army standing behind us that we didn’t have before.”
With that bit of information, frowns turned into smiles, and eyes were now blazing with interest. I gave the guys shit, but they were smart enough that they would eventually find inventive ways to make the syndicate work in our favor. For now, I was content to stay on their asses until they turned something up that I could be proud of.
They wanted to know what was in it for them now that we had allied with the Vallins and the syndicate. They continued to go back to the question, like I hadn’t heard it the first three or four times.
“We’ll discuss the specifics of this alliance once we work out a few more details and guidelines. For now, it’s business as usual for us.”
Once I adjourned the meeting, the men came up and shook Arjen’s hand. Marshawn asked for a few minutes with me away from the table. We walked a whole ten steps to the back of the room away from the crowd that had gathered around Arjen, asking him about guns.
If Marshawn wanted to catch a bullet by continuing to fuck with me, I was in the right frame of mind to throw him one. I glared at him, my strong gaze raking him up and down as his words went in one ear and pinged off the other. He was being way more persistent than he usually was.
Why was this man continuing to test me when he knew how short my fuse could be?