Chapter8
1060 Words
Cole
My brain stalled, then kicked back to life in one violent jolt.
What the hell did he just say?
What the actual, flaming, unbelievable hell did Ambrose just say?!
But Ambrose just went on, his voice too cheerful for what he was describing. “They pay a fortune for it and they always come back for more. It’s the kind of trade that never dries up.”
I stared at him, trying to figure if I had heard right. Did I even want to ask further questions?
“Don’t look so shocked, Vice President!" Ambrose puffed on his pipe and gave me a playful nudge with his elbow. "The world is changing and we’re just stepping into what it’s offering us.”
My pulse rocketed and my thoughts scattered and slammed into each other, forming one loud, panicked roar in my head.
We’re doing WHAT?! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND, AMBROSE? HUMAN TRAFF— NO. NO. NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT.
“Ambrose,” I managed to say in what I hoped was a calm voice. “We… we swore off anything like that. You remember that, right? We talked about this from day one. No touching the dark stuff. No dragging people into... into that. We’re not built like that. We don’t do that. You know that!”
Ambrose threw his head back and let out a booming laugh that echoed across the empty field. But I didn’t join in the laugh. I couldn’t. My stomach had turned to molten iron.
Ambrose wiped at his good eye and grinned wide. “Cole, Cole, Cole. Relax. You look like you swallowed a live grenade.”
“Relax?” I repeated, and I stepped forward, jabbing a finger at the man. “Ambrose, you can’t be serious about this. This isn’t like selling a few crates of ammo. This is.... this is something we promised we’d never touch. You remember why Revenant started in the first place? You remember the rules we wrote? I wrote half of those rules with you! You...”
Ambrose’s grin froze and then it dropped all at once. It was like someone had flicked a switch inside him.
His entire face turned hard, dark, cold, scary. The shift was so fast that I felt the words die on my lips.
Ambrose didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t even need to. His tone dropped to a menacing growl.
“You’re getting real bold today,” he muttered, eye locked on me. “Real bold. Maybe bold enough to forget your place. Drop the topic right now, Cole. Before you lose more than your temper.”
My entire body tensed up, waiting for a hit or something. Then Ambrose leaned in and whispered. “I like you, Cole. I really do. You’re my right hand man. But don’t push me to do what you will regret and I won't.”
Then just as suddenly as the darkness entered Ambrose's eyes, it vanished.
The straightened, clapped me lightly on the shoulder and flashed a wide, cheerful grin that made my teeth grind together.
“Good talk,” Ambrose chimed brightly, turning away as if nothing had happened. “We’ll continue this later. Boys, let’s go.”
The men around him followed, boots crunching through the dry grass as they moved across the field. I was rooted to the spot there, watching Ambrose’s back disappear into the distance. My thoughts were racing again.
This is bad. This is so goddamn bad.
I rushed back into the building with my pulse in my throat. I felt so much fear like I had never felt before, and terrible case scenarios kept on replying, over and over and over again in my head.
What if the police caught us? We'd had brushes with the NOPD in the past, but I wasn't sure we would get out of this as easily as the former ones. How exactly was Ambrose planning to control whatever this was before it spiralled out of control?
The club room was the same as before, loud and hazy and stinking of cheap liquor. None of these men knew their president had just pitched a nightmare straight into my skull.
I spotted Ronn leaning over a snooker table, lining up a shot. I marched straight to him, grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him away.
“Hey! What the hell, Cole?” he barked, stumbling after me as I dragged him down the hallway. “You better be pulling me away to apologize, because I swear to God I—”
“Take me to where the goods are.” I interrupted him, stopping only long enough to stare him dead in the eye.
His forehead creased in confusion. “What goods?”
“Ronn,” I lowered my voice, “take me to the goods.”
His face changed. Not all at once, but slowly, as if it was sinking into the truth. Ronn rubbed a hand over his jaw, sighing under his breath.
“You’re out of your damn mind.” I muttered. “Ambrose will stick a knife in my eye if he finds out I brought you down there.”
“Then good thing he won’t find out,” I snapped back. “Move.”
Ronn hesitated, shaking his head, but he finally walked ahead of me as he grumbled curses. We went down a narrow hallway, then approached a door I had never bothered to notice before. Ronn dug through the mess of keys on his chain, muttering something about how he hoped I choked on whatever I was about to see.
Meanwhile my mind was chewing itself inside-out. I didn’t know what I was about to face. I only knew I needed to know. And also very much did not want to know.
Ronn found the key and paused to look at me.
“Are you sure you want to know, Cole?” he asked.
“No, actually." I breathed. “But open it.”
Ronn sighed and unlocked the door with a click. Then he pushed the door open and stepped aside. He gestured inside without looking, so I walked in.
The sight that met my eyes made him freeze in horror.
About three dozen women and teenage girls were huddled inside the basement, staring at me with fear in their eyes.
- Writer
