I clenched my teeth, fists, and every fucking part of my body because it all strained to lash out and punch the motherfucker. Or choke the life out of him. His memories were clearly distorted. I’d never lived an overdramatic moment in my life. He made sure of that.
King’s face wrinkled with confusion. His gaze swung to me. “I didn’t know you had any other family.”
I turned to Joseph and shot a hate-filled glare his way. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t.”
Before anyone could speak again, Joseph cut in. “This has got nothing to do with family. This is purely business, gentlemen. I have the weapons you need and, as discussed, I’m happy to lower my price for the first six months’ worth of shipments if we agree to a twelve-month term to begin with.”
Hyde whistled as scepticism filled his expression. “That’s a sweet deal. What do you get out of it?”
“I’m looking to do more business in Sydney. You’d be my first client.”
Hyde crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, but what do you really get out of it, because us being your first client isn’t much to gain in exchange for six months of cheap guns.”
Joseph’s vein ticked in his temple. No one in the room besides me understood that tick, though. Probably didn’t even see it either. He was pissed, and I guessed it was because Hyde had hit the nail on the fucking head. “You can bet your ass he’s got an ulterior motive,” I threw out.
All eyes came to me.
Joseph’s features darkened, but he held his shit together. He always had been good at doing that. Except when I pushed him too far and he showed me just what us Lockwood’s were capable of. “I do have an ulterior motive. I own Melbourne when it comes to guns and have done so for fifteen years. New players are coming into the market, and while I’d prefer not to have the competition, I can’t stop it. So, I’ve chosen to expand to keep my business running. And I see Storm as a potential ally. This deal is my way of fostering that relationship.”
I watched in disbelief as King and Hyde seemed to buy that crock of shit. But I held my tongue. Better to wait for him to leave to have this out with them.
“Okay, Joseph, leave it with us. We’ll discuss this and get back to you soon,” King said.
As Joseph left, he handed me a business card. “My phone number, son, for when you come to your senses.”
I took the card, but only because he thrust it upon me before I registered what he said. He was delusional if he thought I’d use it.
Once he left the office, I turned to King and Hyde. “We can’t use him.”
King settled against the desk and crossed his feet in front of him. “Why not?”
“That bullshit about expanding in Sydney to save his business is a lie. If a deal with him seems too good to be true, it is.”
“I take it you’re not close to him?” King said.
I shook my head. “Haven’t been for nineteen years and don’t intend to be ever again.”
“What happened?” Hyde asked.
This was a story I never wanted to revisit. However, I had to give them something, a piece of it at least, to make them understand how evil Joseph was. “You know much about him and his business?”
“I know that he’s built a fucking empire from nothing,” King said. “And that he’s known to be a ruthless motherfucker.”
“Yeah, well, that empire he built from nothing? It came from building an army of soldiers willing to do his dirty work at his beck and call. And those soldiers? He finds them on the street and in the gutters, cleans them up and then brainwashes them into robots who have no fucking clue what they’re doing. He uses them to pimp drugs, women, guns…. You name it, he sells it. And if someone gets in the way of all that? His soldiers are trained to take care of problems.”
King pushed off from the desk. “Nitro, I just want guns and I want them cheap, and I want to buy them from someone who won’t fuck us over. I don’t really give a fuck what Joseph’s business is. So long as he has what we need, that’s all that matters.”
My shoulders tensed. “So you’ll consider this?”
“Yeah, I will.”
My vision blurred with red rage. The urge to punch shit took over my body and I knew I had to get out of King’s office before I did something I’d regret. Jabbing my finger at him, I said, “I’m telling you both now, if you do this, you’ll live to regret it.”
I turned and ripped the door open.
The thing that pissed me off the most wasn’t that Joseph had wormed his way into Storm or that he was in Sydney. It was that I’d taken my eye off the ball with him. I’d kept track of his movements for fucking years, always making sure I knew what he was up to. I hadn’t checked up on him for a couple of months and now there he fucking was.
Motherfucker.