Chapter Thirty-One

Everything had gone according to plan.

Brick had kicked back in his leather chair and gone through reports on his laptop while he waited for his men to arrive.

The warehouse was drafty, but it would do for what he had planned. It helped that he wore his leather jacket, thick jeans, and black work boots.

When a sharp rap sounded at the door, he exchanged a look with Syn, who was kicking back on a brown leather sofa that sat against one wall of the room.

“Oh, who could that be?” Syn grinned with a shrug and Brick gave his brother an annoyed glare.

“Get the door.”

“Yes, sir!” Syn swung his legs from the arm of the sofa and strode to the door. “Oh, hello,” his brother said as if he were surprised.

All Brick could hope for was that Syn kept his mouth shut while he took care of business.

Allen Cook entered the room and it wasn’t by choice, he was shoved through the doorway. Both Rock and Jenkins followed his cousin inside. Rock and Jenkins were the only ones that Brick would allow in this particular facility for tonight.

“No!” Allen took one look at Brick and frantically shook his head before trying to get through Rock and Jenkins and out of the room. Of course, the tall and well-built muscular men stopped his forward propulsion.

“Sit your ass down,” Jenkins snapped and shoved Allen toward a hard metal folding chair that sat in front of Brick’s desk.

Rock shut the door to the room and locked the dead bolt. Jenkins shoved Allen into the chair and when the man popped back up, Rock was already there with a hand on Allen’s shoulder, forcing him back into the seat.

“You want me to zip-tie your feet to the chair’s legs?” Rock snarled.

Allen wisely stayed seated.

Brick steepled his fingers at his chin and studied his cousin for several long moments. Allen glanced away, then back, then dipped his head down.

“Where did you get the money to loan Fighter?”

The man’s eyes snapped up to his, wide with fear.

“That’s right, you motherfucker, we know the whole story,” Syn said from the sofa.

When Allen’s silence went on, Brick squinted. “I can make you answer me,” he said smoothly.

When Rock squeezed his cousin’s shoulder, the man gasped and winced.

“F, from my mom.” Allen wheezed out the words.

“Oh, oh, oh.” Syn’s laughter filled the room.

“So let me get this straight.” Brick ignored his brother. “You borrowed from my aunt to give to Fighter and now you’re asking for payment, but not money? Is that correct?”

“No, no. No, Brick. I wanted the money back, but he didn’t have it so I needed a date…” Allen’s voice trailed off.

“And you thought you’d get your money’s worth through dates?” Brick folded his hands slowly on top of the desk.

Allen wiped at his mouth and huddled in the chair. “No, yes, I don’t,” the man mumbled.

“How did Fighter get on your radar?” That one had baffled Brick until he got Jenkins’ report.

Allen clamped his mouth shut and emphatically shook his head. Brick reached for a file on the desk top and flipped it open.

“Let’s see.” Brick tapped a finger on the page. “You and Carl Withers, who happens to be Fighter’s lawyer, have met several times.”

The man’s eyes went wide and his face turned from pale to a pasty white.

“Where did you get the men you hired to break into Fighter’s place?”

“I didn’t—”

Rock slapped his hand back on Allen’s shoulder and squeezed.

“I called Withers! He, he, was the one. He ordered the men.”

Brick tapped his fingers on the desk. “If you were going to let Fighter pay off the debt through dates, how were you going to pay your mother back?”

Allen swallowed and bowed his head.

“You weren’t,” Syn interjected. “You were going to stiff my favorite aunt, weren’t you? You prick.” The words ladened with disgust dripped from Syn’s pretty mouth.

“How did you stop Fighter from gaining investors?” Brick asked while Syn glared.

Allen blanched. His cousin was too scared to move, but his whole body was shaking. Brick pulled at his cropped beard and nodded to Rock. The big bodyguard yanked Allen up and bent him over Brick’s desk. Rock then slammed Allen’s hand down flat on the wooden surface. The man fought like a wild thing for a man of forty-five years old until Jenkins stepped forward and pressed the fucker’s cheek to the desk.

“How did you stop the investors?”

“Fucker,” Allen spat, spit dripping from his mouth onto the desk. Pinned, he couldn’t move.

Brick lifted the iron paperweight and cracked it down on top of Allen’s outstretched hand, catching all four fingers. The man screamed with pain and Syn covered his ears, but kept staring intently at the scene.

Brick didn’t even ask his question for a third time, he just lifted the iron weight and smashed it down again just as hard as he had the first time. Allen’s fingers crunched and his screams cut in and out. Snot dripped onto the large wooden desk mixing with the blood from his hand.

Brick lifted the paperweight again.

“Okay! Okay!” the man howled. “It was emails. I paid to hack his emails.”

When Brick’s chin jerked, Rock lifted Allen and slammed him back into the chair. Blood covered the man’s right cheek and snot dripped down his face. Allen doubled over, holding his broken hand to his chest. It was the guy’s left hand and Brick had a reason for breaking only that one. Jenkins stepped forward and wiped the top of Brick’s desk before returning to where Rock stood on guard.

“Where did you get the money to hire a hacker?” Brick said.

When Allen paused, Brick fingered the top of the paperweight.

“From my mom,” Allen screamed through his teeth—rage on his face, but more than that was terror.

“You lousy piece of shit!” Syn started again with the name calling.

“Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen,” Brick said and waited until he had Allen’s complete attention.

“You’re going to turn in the hacker. You can do it anonymously. Then I’m going to pay back the money you owe my aunt.”

Allen stared at him in shock and blinked before stumbling over his words. “Thank you, Brick, thank you, thank you. I’ll never do this again.”

“Oh, I won’t bet on that. Once a scum sucking bottom feeder, always a scum sucking bottom feeder,” Syn hissed, jumping up from his spot on the sofa.

His brother stalked over and crowded between Rock and Jenkins. Syn was much shorter than the other men, but they immediately parted for him. Syn smacked their cousin up side his head. Allen yelped and ducked, but Syn did it again and then a third time before he stopped and walked over to stand next to Brick behind the desk.

“Feel better?” Brick gaze up from his chair at Syn.

“Much. Continue.” Syn rubbed at his reddened palm.

“Allen, are you listening?” Brick ordered when his cousin’s head stayed bowed.

Rock gripped the man’s hair and yanked his head up, pointing Allen’s face toward Brick.

“Y, yes.”

“I recently purchased a hotel in Antarctica.”

“Of all places?” Syn teased and Brick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Couldn’t think of anything else?” Syn kept at it.

“It seemed the farthest and coldest I could come up with on short notice.”

“When did you purchase it?” Syn asked.

“Tonight.” Brick gave a pained sigh before returning to their cousin.

“You, Allen, are going to run it for me.”

Allen swallowed. “For how long?”

“Indefinitely, but don’t think for one second that I’ll have forgotten you or what you did to Fighter and your mother,” Brick advised. “I already have a few men who are going to travel with you. You have one year to make the hotel profitable. If you don’t, I’ll come visit you in person. You won’t like that, will you?”

“No. I won’t,” Allen agreed.

“If you dodge your responsibility or try to run and hide, I’ll break every fucking bone in your body next time,” Brick promised, and Allen shuddered hard.

“And I will dump you into Deadman’s lake,” Syn added.

“That’s in South Dakota,” Brick reminded his brother.

“I’ll make the trip,” Syn said with venom.

Allen rocked slightly, his broken hand lying limp in his other hand. The blood had started to dry a bit, but Brick was sure his cousin had pissed himself.

Brick glanced at his watch. He had thirty minutes remaining of the two hours he’d promised Fighter, and he was not going to be late.

“Jenkins? Bring in Carl Withers. Rock, dump Allen at the nearest urgent care.”

Rock yanked Allen up and Jenkins went out the door.

“And Allen?” Brick waited until Rock spun the man around to face him. “I haven’t forgotten that you threatened Fighter’s kids. Don’t disappoint me, you won’t live to regret it. Take this as a chance to turn over a new leaf.”

“I will, I promise.”

Syn made a sound of disgust and fired off a text on his phone. “You can pick up your ticket at the airport counter. I just texted you the details.”

“Now, get out,” Brick ordered and Allen ran out the door with Rock following the man’s flight.

A few minutes later, Jenkins reappeared with Carl Withers in tow. The pudgy lawyer was sweating beneath his cheap suit and bad toupee. Withers’ hands were cuffed in front of him and after Jenkins shut the door, he snipped the zip-tie off.

Carl Withers hadn’t moved once he’d stepped further inside and got a look at Tyler Brick III and his brother Synclair Brick. He didn’t know what this was about, but he could hazard a guess that it involved Fighter Suwan. What he didn’t want and he’d never be willing to do was get on the Brick family’s bad side.

Brick pointed to a fold out chair and Carl glanced over. He noticed that beneath the metal legs blood pooled and he was positive there was also piss by the smell. Without a word, he walked over and took a seat. His whole career depended on cooperating with these two men. Or maybe his life depended on it. Either way, he would give them what they wanted.

He may do some underhanded dealings, but he wasn’t a fool when faced with two of the most powerful men in the Western mountain states. He flicked his eyes from one brother to the other and then settled on the bigger threat—Brick. It wasn’t only Brick’s size that made him more deadly, he had heard things about Brick and remembering had his throat closing tight.

Brick waited until Carl scoped out the place before the man calmly walked over to gaze at the chair Allen had vacated.

“I’m going to ask you a few questions so answer me quickly, I’m in a hurry,” Brick said and he eyed the heavy metal paperweight that he was caressing with his fingertips. Jenkins had failed to wipe the bottom of it. Blood pooled beneath the base, but it was so slight that it wasn’t noticeable.

“Allen Cook just left here in bad shape,” Syn said. Dropping gracefully onto the sofa and crossing one leg over the other, he draped his arms along the back. Syn still wore his tux.

Withers glanced back and forth between them and then returned his attention to him.

“Who was your contact in Fighter’s organization?” Brick said.

“Mark Johnson,” Carl Wither’s said. “He contacted Allen Cook. The men that broke into Fighter’s place work for Cook.”

“Cook told me that the men worked for you,” Brick countered.

“He’s lying. I wouldn’t know where to find men like that.” Withers held his gaze. “That’s the truth.”

Brick wouldn’t put it past his cousin to shift the blame so perhaps, Withers was not lying.

“What part did you play with potential investors?” Brick changed the direction of the questioning.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to know how you kept investors from backing Fighter,” Brick said slowly.

Withers blinked and then swallowed. “I contacted the names Cook gave me and called the people, institutions, or banks, whatever it was, and told them it wasn’t a good business decision to partner with Suwan Guardians.”

“Well, aren’t you clever?” Syn sneered.

Brick steepled his fingers at his chin again, his cold gaze on Withers. Where Allen was family and his aunt would be devastated if he disappeared, Carl Withers didn’t have that luxury.

“Get out,” Brick told Withers

Startled, the man wiped at his mouth and stood, holding his gaze. “I can do whatever you need me to do.”

“What?” Syn said, sarcasm dripping. “Extort someone for money? No thanks.”

Withers jerked at his suit jacket with nervous hands. “I can disappear.”

“That’s exactly what you’re going to do,” Brick promised, his voice like granite filled ice.

“Now go,” Syn added, and when Carl Withers looked at him blankly, Syn took a step toward the guy. “Boo!” he said, and Withers rushed out the door.

Syn turned to Brick with a grin. “So, what do you want to bet he goes home, packs his bags, and leaves the country?”

Brick shook his head and shot a look at Jenkins.

“Did you locate Mark?”

“No.”

“Shit. I need to head home.”

“Home?” Syn waggled his eye brows.

“Clean up in here,” Brick ordered and headed toward the door.

“Hey! That’s what we have Jenkins for!” Syn yelled at his back.

“Just do what I said.”

“Sorry, Jenkins, I was just joking.” Syn’s voice floated through the door and Brick smiled.

He’d finished fifteen minutes early and he’d be back at Fighter’s place in less than five.