This issue with Ray was no different.
Evan withdrew more papers from his magic folder and flicked them across the table.
Ray missed and it slid to the carpet. His chair was so low, he disappeared for a moment to retrieve it from beneath the table. The only sound was the rustle of paper and his harsh breathing.
His face was even redder when he popped back up like a buoy in the water. “What’s this?” But he already knew.
Matt stared the man down. The kid he’d been at ten was a distant memory. At thirty-four, Matt was formidable. “Drucker gave it to us.”
A drop of sweat rolled down from Ray’s sideburns. “He couldn’t have.”
“Did you really think you had the only copy?” Will asked.
Ray’s eyes flitted back and forth as if searching for a way out. Then, suddenly, he crushed the two-page contract in his hand. “This is standard operating procedure. I bring in the leads. I teach them the ropes. In fact, I’m devoting all my time to them rather than following the leads myself, which I could very well do. I’m actually the one sharing with them, not the other way around.”
Will leaned forward. “One—” He tapped his index finger on the table. “—we give you the leads. Two—” He tapped his middle finger. “—it isn’t our standard operating procedure to let anyone skim off half of someone else’s commission unless they actually do half the work. Which brings me to three.” He brought his hand down on the table. “You’re fired.”
“But I’ve got debts!”
Ah, so it was debts that had turned him away from being hardworking and honest? Even so, Will didn’t give a damn why Ray had turned rotten. He still wanted to grind the man down for taking advantage of kids fresh out of college who didn’t know better.
Will had seen it over and over again with his father and with the Road Warriors as they picked on the weak. It wasn’t just a way of life for them, it was sport—and how they made themselves feel bigger than they were. And Will had been one of them until he was sixteen and had tried to leave all that behind.
Now, faced with a bully like Ray Passal, Will felt the anger boil up all over again, the need to use his fists. “Get your things, Ray, and get the hell out. Now.”
Before Will let anything else boil over.
“But what am I supposed to do?” Ray whined.
Will stared him down. “How about thanking your lucky stars that we’re not asking you to pay back the commissions you stole?”
Ray blinked, swallowed, looked at the floor. Then, as if he saw it written down there how much worse things could get, he looked up and said two very simple words, “Thank you.”
It was only after the door closed behind the now shrunken and sweaty man that Will thought again of Harper. Finally, his fists relaxed. He hadn’t pounded on the guy. He hadn’t even humiliated him. He’d simply pointed out the facts.
It was a far cry from the boy he’d once been.
Sebastian slapped him on the back as he rose to pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot no one had touched yet. “Something tells me that’s the last we’ll ever hear from Ray. He won’t want to have to slink back around any of us with his tail between his legs. Good job, guys. We were brilliant.”
“Right,” Evan said. “Brilliant like all the crap we used to pull when we were teenagers.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sebastian shot back. But Evan was right; they’d all had their less than stellar moments back then. Though Will’s were worse than the rest.
“And you—” Sebastian nodded at Will. “—didn’t even tear him to pieces with your bare hands.”
It was meant as a joke, but Will felt the truth of it. That was how he used to do things. Talked with his fists. Back when he was a kid, he’d thought that was how he’d always be. But he’d held it together today—kept things above board rather than dragging his ex-employee into the back alley and teaching him a lesson street-style.
“No Road Warrior justice today, I guess.” Even from the video screen, Daniel’s smile was wide, as he put into words what Will had just been thinking.
“Come to think of it,” Matt said, as the one who knew best what Will was capable of, “I can’t actually remember you knocking anyone’s block off in twenty years.”
For all his fears, Will was surprised to realize Matt was right. Even though fighting had once been all Will knew, he hadn’t resorted to violence in two decades. He’d actually kept his cool with Ray today. And while that had felt pretty damn good—if something ever happened to Harper or Jeremy, Will couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to keep from tearing apart the people who had hurt them…