With all of us settled into the room, Bones kicked the meeting off, “Unfortunately, we still have to deal with the cartel. They are asking for an increase on the last three payments.”
“Huh? An increase, what the hell for?” Bear asked.
“They are calling in interest payments for being late. Which we weren’t,” Gunner chimed in. “I’m calling you all in here to confirm the agreement we all made at the last meeting about the cartel. Are we still on the same page?”
“Yep. We hold ground,” Numbers claimed. “Keep the same payments. Nothing needs to change. The cartel shouldn’t be able to weasel that money out of us in the first place.”
Bones slapped the table. “Any objections?”
All of us looked at one another, and I was proud to see not a single one of us moved.
Bones nodded. “Good. We hold ground. Start packing heat from now on.”
Low chatter drifted around the room as the brothers went into speculation mode. I had to get a few things done, so I let myself out of the meeting and headed out.
Paranoia kicked in again, as I scouted out both sides of the street when I got outside. How am I going to tell Lucy about the cartel threat? We promised to have no secrets, but I feared it might send her back into a health crisis.
Later on, I checked the pool roster when I came back to Wheelz. I checked every single name. I looked everyone in the eye. Most were regular players with a couple of new people that I’d never seen before. My eyes were open and so were my ears. As a club, we were now on high alert and I’d personally been on high alert for the last few weeks.
It was eating away at me. How long could we live like this?