Ruckus (Sinners of Saint #2)(96)

"We're not asking. We're giving you time to wrap your head around it and pack a bag."

Maybe I was too forward, but there were special circumstances in this case. I was talking full-blown, fucked-up situation, and Trent needed to be here more than Vicious did. That, we all agreed on.

"Jesus fuck, Cole. Don't you have a bottle of liquor to drown yourself in? There are actual grown-ups having a conversation here." Vicious's words were venom spreading through the room as he chuckled.

"One more comment like that, and a bottle of something will be shoved in your ass," Trent said, jumping to my defense.

"Listen to the guys, Vic." Jaime pursed his lips. "I think you know Trent has the right to be here."

"I have just as much right, Jaime. Trent has a baby. I have a baby on the way. We both need to be next to our families."

"You have Millie. She can take care of the baby."

"And be away from her family? After all the time she has already spent away from them? Yeah, not doing this to her. No matter your motivational speech, which, by the way, is horribly lacking."

"You were the one who did this to her, fucker." I laughed. It wasn't even hostile. I was just wondering what the fuck went on in that sick head of his. His backward logic fascinated me. Vicious yawned as he took out a fat blunt and lit it, inhaling deeply. I didn't smoke all that much these days-blame Rosie, the number one party pooper in America-and was dying for a few hits, but kept mum.

"Doesn't matter what happened. I'm not moving away. You all knew that before you came here. But Trent is welcome to come back."

"Who is going to manage Chicago?" Jaime frowned. "The tooth fairy?"



       
         
       
        

"We can hire an outsider," Vicious suggested.

"Fuck that. I work seventy-hour weeks breaking my back so that some stranger can step into what we created and rule it?" I snorted out. "This is our empire. We reign it. We lead it. No outsiders. That was the rule when we incorporated it."

"It was going to happen sooner or later, Dean." Vicious sounded so calm, which was difficult for me to comprehend. "How much longer do you think you can keep going the way you do? Rosie is bound to get sick," he said, and Jaime stood up, ready to yell at his sorry ass, and Trent took a step toward Vicious, too, but I held my hand up, still bracing myself against the glass desk. He continued. "It's true. Why the fuck are you guys trying to sugarcoat it for him? Rosie will get sick eventually. I saw what state she was in last year. And Millie told me she always gets worse in the winters. Or even if she doesn't get sick, you'll still want kids, right? A family? A wedding? All the fancy shit. I know you do, Dean. I fucking see you with her, man. You're going down, hard. Think you can put the same amount of hours in at work a year from now? Two years from now? You're fucking tripping, man. Here, maybe this will make you think straight." He got up and passed me the blunt, and I took it, closing my eyes as I let the rancorous smoke crawl into my throat.

Fuck, I missed it.

"And, Jaime." Vicious continued, pacing across the office now. He planned it all along. Knew that we were going to corner him. Sly bastard. "Don't you want to move back to Todos Santos? Have Daria grow up with Luna and my kid and Dean's kid and her grandparents? Don't you want that?"

Jaime growled. "Are you going somewhere with this speech, Martin Luther King, Jr., or are you just rubbing it in our fucking faces?"

"Going somewhere," Vicious assured, sauntering over behind me to his desk and flipping his laptop open. "So the last six months had me thinking. Between the wedding, my future kid, what happened to Trent, Jaime living on the other side of the world, and Dean dating a girl with enough health issues to last a fucking lifetime," he said casually, typing on his keyboard. "Why the fuck are we working our asses off? We've already made a sick amount of money on top of what we were born with. More than we can ever spend. I feel like we're making something truly straightforward extremely complex. I, for one, don't care for this lifestyle. I want to spend time with my wife, I want to fuck her three times a day like I used to, I want to work out more, to stress less, to go on longer vacations, and to live. Unlike the majority of the world, I actually can. So why am I here? Why are we all here?"

He was starting to make sense, but the concept he was offering was insane. Fiscal Heights Holdings was our baby. We got very far very quickly with our hedge fund company. Mainly because we worked twenty-four seven. The idea of not working, or working less hours, taking less responsibility, never crossed my mind.