Page 96 of Five Mountain Daddies

We move off toward the gap between buildings. There’s nobody around but the two of us, and I’m tempted to beat him senseless right here and now in retribution for what he did to me. But I know I can’t do it. This is about more than just me, and that would just be petty revenge. It wouldn’t help our cause atall.

It would feel fucking good though, smashing that grinning snake face ofhis.

“I heard some things,” he says, turning tome.

“What’d youhear?”

“You’re planning a little strike.” His smile gets wider as he says those words. He must see the surprise on my face. “You thought you could keep itsecret?”

“Guess not,” I say. “You have people everywhere, looks like. Did you get your cops to find this outtoo?”

He laughs, shaking his head. “Now why would I do that, Samuel? No, I use them for more… physicalapplications.”

The fucker has the gall to wink at me, but I know he’s just trying to push my buttons. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, it’s not going to work. You tried that oncealready.”

“I know, and yet here you are. It seems that my tactics only pissed you off.” He laughs, shaking his head. “You have more balls than your predecessor, I’ll tell youthat.”

“This isn’t about me,” I say to him. “This is about our working conditions and our contract. You want us to keep working? Then make the contract that I gave to Amelia signed andofficial.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Ingram says, still smiling. “But we do have a little problem. See, we just got a big order in this morning, the sort of order we can’t risk losing. Your little walkout stunt is going to have towait.”

I blink at him. “Why the fuck would we dothat?”

“Because I’m going to break the knees of one miner every hour until you givein.”

That grin drives me fucking crazy, and I practically growl at him. “You touch my people and I’ll killyou.”

“Now, now, Samuel. Don’t lose your temper.” He’s still smiling, nice and cool. “You want to fuck with me, then I’m going to try and fuck you right back. That’s how thisworks.”

“This isn’t agame.”

“You’re right.” He gets serious suddenly. “This isn’t a game. There’s a lot of money at stake, and if you fuck this up for me, I will kill you. And I’ll follow through with my littlethreat.”

I stare him down and he finally smiles again, stepping away from me, back toward his aides. “Think about what I said, Mr. Carter,” he calls to me. “Have a wonderfulday.”

I watch the three of them walk off and I stand there, fuming, anger rolling throughme.

I can’t risk the health of my guys. I know Ingram’s going to attack them, and there are guys that can’t afford to miss any time. Disability would ruin them, assuming they could even get that much. I can’t risk it, but I also can’t just give in to Ingram. If I do that, we’ll neverwin.

I don’t know what to do. I need to protect my guys, but I also need to beat Ingram. This order clearly is important to him and the company, and it’s a great opportunity to walk out and cause a lot of damage. That could get them to standdown.

I walk away from him, angry and trying to puzzle this out. I don’t know what I can risk and what I can’t, or how far he’ll really go. It was one thing for him to attack me, but I can’t let him hurt myguys.

I head back to the showers, forgetting about the mail, trying to figure out what the fuck todo.

17

Amelia

The conference room is tense, and I have no clue how to break thetension.

Samuel and Roy sit across the table, looking grim. Ingram is to my right, with a smile on his face, along with two of his lawyer aides whose names I don’t know, and to my left is Laura Shane, the PRhead.

“We saw your updated contract suggestions,” I start off the meeting. I have a copy of the contract that Samuel gave me the other day on the table. “I think there are some promising things inhere.”

“From my perspective, it’s a good balance,” Laurasays.

Samuel frowns at me. “Far as I’m concerned, we already came up with thecontract.”

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