The F King:A Bad Boy Romance(10)

     



 

I did my best to give them every reason to believe that was true. I  developed new products, and never missed my quota, but they screwed the  pooch with that initial strong-arm shit. They threatened my fucking  mother, and I was going to piss on their corpses because of it.

Giovanni twitched his head to the side and Johnny put his gun away. I rubbed my ear.

"Well, long live Alberico," I said.

"What gave you the idea you could be late for a meeting with me?" Giovanni asked.

"Hell of a night."

"I don't care if-"

"Had some problems with the Cannibals."

"What the fuck do you have to do with them?"

"Ordinarily? Nothing," I said. "I was hoping you could tell me. I  thought you were supplying them, so why would they track me down?"

"We cut them off. They played their part, they got it out to the people,  helped with early distribution and getting the word out, but we don't  need them anymore. They want it, they can pay end-user prices now. What I  wanna know is why, for a guy who's supposed to be so fuckin' smart,  they knew about you at all? So what did you give ‘em?"

"Nothing. Kicked their asses."

"You?" Giovanni laughed, and his puppets around the room chuckled on  cue. "Well, whatever, what …  actually, you know what? I don't give a  fuck. This blind-eye shit stops now. There is no "spare" product  anymore. It ain't fuckin' yours. You make it, you don't distribute it,  you piece of shit. I hear about you supplyin' anything and I'll  force-feed five pounds of the shit down your mother's throat until she's  fuckin' fizzin' from her eyeballs, you hear me?"

Maybe I had some buttons of my own, because there was nothing I wanted  more in that moment than to feel his face pulping under my fists. I  could feel this red-hot rage rising, and I gripped the sides of my chair  as I fought to keep it down.

Not now, Ryan. Soon. All of them.

I had planned on dialing my own personal sales back anyway after my  wake-up call last night, but it was a kick in the teeth for it to look  like I was complying with Giovanni's demands with my tail between my  legs. He saw that he'd got under my skin, and it was only his smug  fucking expression that helped me bring myself under control again.

"I hear you," I said through clenched teeth. "But you're going to have  to do something about them, keep them off my back. Here's what I need  for the next delivery."

I reached into my pocket and slid the folded piece of paper across his desk. He picked it up and started unfolding it.

"For fuck sake. We'll have to send some guys to give them a message.  It's going to cost us, and it's coming out of your pay. What the fuck do  you need all this extra shit for?"

"Research and development."

"Fuck that, we're not buying all this. Phosphorus? What the fuck is cyclo …  cyclohex-"

"Cyclohexane. Pay me my money and buy what the fuck I have listed there,  or tell Alberico that you decided it wasn't worth my time working on  what might be the next F-Pro."

I could see Giovanni mulling over how that conversation would go, given  how my new product aimed at the sports market had given them an income  boost in direct sales, as well as affecting their sports fixing income. A  brain like mine was too good an opportunity for them to waste.

"Fuck it. Fine. Here."

Giovanni pulled a briefcase out from behind his desk and spun it so the  latches faced me before sliding it across. I stood and opened it and  made a little "Mmmm" of appreciation. This was a sight that would never  get old.

Out of all the crime families in the country, the Acardis were the  newest. They were still old as shit, but because they'd started their  existence as the most modern of them all, they had a kind of acceptance  of new technology and methodology that that the other families were  slower to adopt.

The Acardis focused on a different set of schemes than the others. They  were involved with cyber-fraud, and I even heard they had a team devoted  to online dating scams, where they not only extorted cash from lonely  men and women, but if they hooked a person in any kind of position of  power, they blackmailed them too. Politicians, business men and women,  you name it.

This technological slant they had was why I always transferred the cash  into my own backpack, and took the money to the lab before I took it  anywhere else. I had the equipment there to check it for anything they  might do to trace it. So far they hadn't, but the last thing I wanted  was for them to know where my stash was.

"Anything else?" I asked.         

     



 

"Yeah. Don't forget your fuckin' place again. You're gettin' paid more  than some of the fuckin' Italian guys and you're on thin ice."

"Right. Have a fuckin' nice day, and take care of the Cannibals."

I shouldered my backpack and headed to the door, noticing Johnny  watching Giovanni for any signal that I should be reprimanded for my  less than respectful exit. Apparently no signal came, as I didn't have a  gun shoved in my face again.

Daydreams of dropping Giovanni in a vat of acid comforted me as I took  the elevator down. By the time I reached the ground floor, I was over  it. He'd get exactly what he deserved in the end.

In the meantime, life was rolling along pretty well. Especially last night.

That girl. Sarina. Her virginity was mine, and she'd been the best lay of my life. Incredible.

Ordinarily, I would have been over the moon if I woke up and found the  girl gone instead of hanging around asking me for some free F or wanting  a gift or some shit. I actually wanted to taste her again, listen to  her screaming as she came. So good.

And not only sexy as fuck, but feisty …  and so innocent-looking too. From  what little I'd spoken to her …  she seemed smart and even nice.

Mom said she wanted to see you with a nice girl before she-

I cut the thought off before it could finish. None of that was going to  happen. I didn't see myself with a nice girl, and Mom wasn't going to  die. Not on my watch.

I didn't have Sarina's number …  but she did say she was staying at  Cumberland. It wouldn't be that hard to track her down. Maybe I'd drop  by in a few days, once she'd had a chance to recover and could handle  another session.





Sarina





I'd woken up that morning after only a couple hours of sleep when my  common sense burst through the front door of my mind like, "Honey I'm  hooome …  aaaahhhhhhh!" and found me in bed with a drug dealer. This was  what it felt like to be the worst undercover cop in the history of the  job.

The cherry on the cake was how I couldn't find my panties while trying  to get dressed like a ninja. They were still there somewhere, and I had  to return home with no underwear on. After the physical exertion of the  previous night, my thighs almost cramped up in the taxi, I was clamping  them together that tightly.

Since then, I'd been drifting through a couple days like a zombie. The  little group I'd taken out to use as my cover couldn't stop talking  about what I'd done to the gang member, but I had no way to match their  enthusiasm, and didn't accept their invites to hit the town again.

"Cumberland toga party tomorrow, Badass," Millie said as we returned to  the dorm after our Intro to Human Resources lecture, using the nickname  the girls had bestowed upon me. "It's in the dorm and you've definitely  had long enough to recover."

"Hmmm. I don't know, I'm not feeling too great."

"What did that guy do to you? I'm gonna get the details eventually, you should just tell me now. Hi!"

Millie waved and smiled at one of the guys from our dorm as he passed  us, heading in the other direction. Her fresh looks and bubbly  personality in a petite package were pretty popular with the opposite  sex, but it was like water off a duck's back with her.

Not so much for me. On top of the obvious self-chastising I was doing,  because what happened between Ryan and I never should have happened, I  was worrying about what he thought about me, my body, my …  performance.  Why hadn't he called? I hadn't given him my phone number, but why hadn't  he called? Did he like me? Was I somebody that deserved to be liked?

"Nothing. We just talked."

Millie laughed. "Yeah, I heard you the first time and I believe you just  as much now as I did then. Was he really that good? Or that bad?"

"At talking?"

"Yes, talking." Millie held up her fingers in exaggerated quote marks.

I stumbled over my words for a second and just ended up blushing, much  to Millie's amusement. In the end, I supposed it didn't really matter  anyway, because I had a meeting scheduled with my CO tomorrow and I was  going to formally resign.

There was a badge sitting in my locker at the police station, ready and  waiting for me to put it back on after this assignment, but I didn't  deserve it. The all-encompassing failure of my first undercover  assignment was tough to deal with.