Page 82 of Burn Bag

Fox stiffened, standing up straight as he faced down the man. “Excuse me, but I was trying to give the lady a lesson. Don’t you know it’s rude to interrupt?”

“I’m in the middle of a deal!”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” Fox laughed.

The man started to move and I cursed under my breath, already knowing what was going to happen. It took exactly one second for Fox to snatch his throwing knife and launch it at the man, embedding it in his foot. The man screamed for mercy as he fell to his knees, his hands cupping his foot as blood pooled under his shoe.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand down my face.

“Well, that’s one way to end the standoff,” Red chuckled.

“He’s teaching my wife bad habits.”

“Better yours than mine,” he grunted. “He actually gave my firstborn a set of throwing knives this year.”

“Now, how about we deal with this like gentlemen,” Fox said, turning to the seller. He twirled his knives in his hand and faced off with both men. “I can see that coming to an agreement is going to be rather difficult. Therefore, I propose you both walk away and leave me to deal with the cats.”

“Are you fucking insane?” the seller shouted. “Those are my cats!”

Fox stalked over to him, the knife between his fingers suddenly pressed against the man’s cheek. “Did you just ask if I was insane?”

“I—Those are my cats,” he answered with a wobbly voice.

“Yourcats, and you were going to sell them for fighting. What kind of psycho does that?”

That was amusing at best—Fox calling someone else a psycho. He suddenly turned, slicing the knife across the man’s cheek in one swift movement.

“Well, this job went to shit fast,” Eli grumbled.

“Lock is gonna be pissed,” I agreed.

“Not nearly as pissed as when we show up with a million dollars worth of cats.”

“Look,” the seller stuttered, his eyes shifty as he stumbled back a step. “I—I was just trying to make a buck. Those cats are worth a lot of money!”

“So much money, you were willing to sell them to enter a fighting ring where they might die,” Fox retorted. “No, I see this going only one way.” He slowly trailed the knife down the man’s body until it hovered just above the waistline of his pants. “We’re going to pack up those cats and take them home with us. You’re going to go on your merry way and never speak a word of this.”

The man’s eyes widened in surprise. “But all that money?—”

Fox flicked his wrist, pressing the knife right to his cock.

“Do you think we should stop this?” Eli asked, rocking back on his heels.

Sighing, I stepped forward and pressed myself as much as I could between Fox and the seller. “We’ll compensate you for the cats.”

“What?” Fox barked. “He doesn’t deserve a fucking dime!”

I grabbed his wrist and jerked the knife away from the man, pushing Fox back a step. “And Lock will have a conniption if we get sued.”

With a roll of his eyes, Fox holstered his knife. “Sure, if you want to worry about legalities. You could just let me boil him, and then we wouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

“Boil?” the man shouted.

“Oh, hush up. I would make it relatively painful,” Fox jeered.

The man stumbled back a step, and then another until he was retreating to his vehicle. Eli followed to make sure that first, he’d keep his mouth shut, and second, we had somewhere to send the fucking money so this didn’t end up in court. There was no possible way to explain to a judge the eccentricities of Fox.

“I had him right where I wanted him,” Fox grumbled.

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