Rules of Bennett: The Complete Collection

by Ember Michaels

  “Aurora—”

  “Don’t,” she interrupted with a deep sigh. “Just don’t. I’ll find something to do tonight, and I’ll see you when I see you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Then I hope it’s something you can do at home.”

  “No, I’m going out. I’ll ask Carrie to look after Liam until I get back.”

  “Like hell you’re going out. I’ll be home in a few hours, Aurora.”

  “Then I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “I swear to god if you—”

  She hung up before I could finish my sentence, leaving me even more frustrated than I already was.

  “She must really want me to fuck her up,” I muttered, more so to myself as I stared at my home screen in slight disbelief.

  Saint looked over at me. “Everything good on the home front?” he asked.

  I put my phone in the inner pocket of my jacket and shook my head. “Aurora’s upset that I’m too busy these days.”

  “You’re overworking yourself, man. You might wanna consider delegating some shit to us so that you can spend more time with your family.”

  I shook my head. After what I’d gone through with my father, I wasn’t even sure if I could even trust anyone to do business on my behalf. Dealing with that kind of betrayal wasn’t something one could get over so easily. It wasn’t every day that your own father had your ex-girlfriend killed and tried to have you killed as well. After that, I didn’t know who I could fully trust anymore. The people that I logically knew I could trust with my life sometimes made me think twice, wondering if they’d turn on me one day, too. But I had to constantly remind myself that they weren’t like that. I had to remind myself that Bruce, Saint, Nyxin, and KC had been with me from the beginning and stuck by my side through everything thrown at us. Hell, Saint nearly lost his life defending me, so his loyalty shouldn’t have even been a question. But when betrayal cut as deep as it did with my father, it could seriously fuck with you mentally.

  “It’s just something she’ll have to deal with. When we’re better established and have more permanent members, shit should calm down,” I said.

  “Pretty sure your marriage problems are a situation that sex can fix,” Nyxin stated from the backseat. “She’s probably sexually frustrated and lonely.”

  “Yeah, I’m with Nyx on that. Pretty sure a good back-blowing session will take that attitude of hers down a few notches,” Saint said, nodding.

  I chuckled and shook my head. “Shut the fuck up, man.”

  “Seriously though. It’s not like we’re wrong. Hell, you probably even need it, too. You’ve been really high strung these last few weeks.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’d be high strung, too, if you’ve been doing nothing but putting out fucking fires for the past couple of months,” I mumbled. Because trying to find new men, going back and forth in disagreements with the fucking Russians, dealing with thieves, liars, and idiots who thought they could outsmart me, and now an unhappy wife, I was stressed the fuck out.

  “All work and no play makes for a sad dick, man,” Nyxin tsked. “The only thing you have tomorrow night is that meeting with that one lady about the new shipment of girls. Maybe you should fuck your wife afterwards before we all end up dickless.”

  “Speaking of girls,” Saint said, changing the subject. “Where’d the last shipment come from? The throats on some of those chicks are fucking immaculate.”

  “Really? I haven’t been down into the basement in a while. I may have to check out these ‘immaculate throats’ when we get back,” Nyxin said.

  I shook my head. “You guys are fucking nuts. Besides, the basement isn’t a fucking free-for-all just because you’re my main men,” I reminded them.

  Saint shook his head. “Nah, I paid for the girl I had. I know the rules,” he said. “She was a fucking gem. I mean she’s built like a T-Rex, which isn’t what I usually go for but—”

  Nyxin snorted. “Wait, what? How the fuck did you come up with that comparison?”

  “Because she has small tits and a big ass. Small top, big bottom, like a fucking T-Rex.”

  Nyxin and I laughed. I could always count on my men to make shitty situations less shitty. One of them always had a joke stashed somewhere to remind me to feel something else other than anger and frustration these days. “That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard in my life,” I said with a grin.

  “Call it what you want but it doesn’t take away from her amazing throat,” Saint said with a content sigh. “She literally has no gag reflex.”

  “Does she really not have a gag reflex or does your dick not have enough inches to even touch her uvula?” Nyxin asked, leaning forward in the seat until he was visible between us.

  “It can touch your mother’s uvula, bitch,” Saint threw back. “Anyway, this girl takes whatever you give her, so she’ll be a huge moneymaker with clients. In fact, her mouth was so good that I actually remembered her name.”

  “Then what is it?” I asked.

  “Katrina,” Saint answered confidently before frowning soon after. “Or was it Kennedy?”

  “Fucking idiot,” Nyxin snorted.

  He chuckled. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m gonna start calling her giraffe from now on, so her name won’t matter.”

  “Is she tall?” Nyxin asked.

  “Nah. But the way she can take a dick down her throat, you’d think she had the neck of a giraffe,” he replied.

  “Saint, if you wanna fuck animals, just say that, man,” I teased, laughing when he playfully pushed me.

  “Oh fuck you, man. You’re the one that’s gonna end up with blue balls for a long time unless you figure out how to juggle both business and family life,” he said.

  I frowned. “Can you believe she said she was gonna buy a guy just to have him fuck her? It’s like she wants me to come home and fuck her up.”

  “Or…she just wants you to come home and fuck her,” Saint said under his breath, chuckling when I glared at him.

  “If it were me, I’d postpone this meeting with these two dickheads for a couple of hours to put my wife in their place,” Nyxin said and tsked. “Then again, I wouldn’t have this problem to begin with because I’d be fucking my wife every night, especially if she looked like yours.”

  “Mind your tongue if you want to keep it in your mouth, asshole,” I growled.

  He held his hands up. “I’m just saying, man. You’re the boss; no one is saying that you have to take care of this situation tonight. You control that decision. So how about we go back to the house for a couple of hours so you can take care of business with your wife and then we can come up with a plan to deal with these assholes once they get to the club.”

  I looked back to the alley just as Garrett and Caleb walked out of it, both of them zipping up their pants. Nice to know everybody is getting laid but me. Even though the guys were right, I didn’t have the same luxury as everyone else. Business waited for no one and I knew I wouldn’t be able to fully relax until those fucks paid for what they’d done.

  I shook my head. “I’m going to deal with them tonight. Somebody text those two knuckleheads and tell them I want to meet them at Club Secrets. And tell them to bring me the product they haven’t sold yet as well as my fucking money. Now,” I finally said and glanced at my watch. “I want to try to have this shit done in less than three or four hours.”

  “You got it,” Saint said, retrieving his phone from his pocket.

  Nyxin clapped his hands together. “Well, since we’re gonna get off earlier than usual tonight, I think I’m gonna take a little time to experience these immaculate throats Saint boasted so highly about when we get back,” Nyxin said, rubbing his hands together.

  Saint shook his head. “It’ll be a waste of money for you considering that you won’t even be able to reach her throat from what I’ve heard from the other girls,” he teased, causing me to chuckle.

  “Oh, ha ha ha, you fuck,” he muttered.

  I sh
ook my head. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Time’s ticking.”

  The yellow lightbulb flickered above me as I sat on the corner of the rickety wooden desk. It’d been a while since I’d been down here, the last time being when I removed a few organs from the twins that worked for my father. I ground my teeth as the bitter memories from last year filled my head. It was always bittersweet walking into a property he used to own that I now took over. There were times when I wished I could get his advice on how to properly set things up instead of going through this trial and error phase right now, but the fact of the matter was that he was dead. Even if he were still alive, he’d still be my enemy and nothing would’ve changed that.

  I thought to my son, realizing that I was slowly turning into my father. Never at home, hardly seeing my son, putting the business over making sure to help my wife raise him right. I’d promised him the day he was born that I’d be a better father to him than mine was to me. And here I was already letting him down.

  “Boss?” Nyxin called, snapping his fingers in front of my face. I blinked and brought my gaze up to him, frowning as I waited for him to continue. “They’re here. Should we put the plastic down now?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. I don’t want them to see it as soon as they’re in the doorway and try to run. Let’s just play it cool right now,” I said as laughter filtered down the hallway. You fuckers won’t be laughing very soon.

  I motioned for the two of them to grab four chairs and to put them in in a semi-circle in front of me. No sooner than the chairs were in place, a rhythmic knock sounded on the heavy door.

  “It’s showtime, boys,” I said with a grin. “Get the door, will you?”

  Nyxin strolled across the room and unlocked the door before pulling it open to reveal Beavis and Butthead on the other side of it.

  “Nyx! My main man! What’s up, buddy?” Caleb exclaimed when he walked into the room. He waved when his eyes landed on me. “Boss! Looking sharp as always, my man! I’m trying to get on your level.”

  I gave him a small grin and gestured to one of the seats. “Good evening, fellas. Come join us,” I said.

  Garrett looked a little uncomfortable, his green eyes darting around the room as if he were looking for something. They both came over and had a seat as Nyxin closed the door, discreetly flipping the lock on it before joining us with Saint in tow.

  “Here’s everything you asked for,” Garrett said as he put the bag beside me on the desk.

  “Thanks.” I reached for the cigar box behind me. “Cigar?”

  “Oh shit, sure,” Caleb said with a big grin on my face.

  Garrett shook his head. “Nah, I’m good, Boss. Thanks though.”

  I tsked. “It’s almost rude, Garrett. I’m offering you a cigar from an $18,000 box of Cohiba Behikes and you don’t want to try one? I’ll be insulted if you don’t,” I said with a grin.

  He stared at me for a short moment before forcing a grin onto his lips. “Sorry. Sure, I’ll take one, Boss,” he finally said.

  “Good. I felt that we had a little to celebrate, so I thought a nice cigar would help with that,” I said as I passed everyone a cigar. Pulling the cigar cutter from the small pocket lining the lid of the box, I clipped everyone’s cigar and then lit my own, passing the lighter to Nyxin.

  “What are we celebrating?” Caleb finally asked, taking a long pull from his cigar and immediately coughing.

  I smirked at him. “Have a little finesse, kid. It’s a cigar, not a joint. But anyway, I wanted to thank you two for the work you’re both putting in. I know you’re new to this life, but I speak on behalf of the family when I say that you guys are doing pretty well for this to be a new venture for you.”

  Out the corner of my eye, I noticed Garrett’s tense position begin to relax at my words as he finally took a pull from his cigar. “Thanks for giving us a chance. I know we probably have a long way to go before we can advance to something higher than slinging drugs on the street, but we definitely appreciate the opportunity you’ve given us,” he said.

  I took a puff of the cigar and slowly exhaled the smoke. “Out of the two of you, who would you say is the smartest?” I asked. “For example, if I gave you guys…say…a kilo of cocaine and told you to sell it. Who would come up with the plan to get it done?”

  “I would,” Garrett answered confidently. The smug look he sported gave me the urge to slash his face, but I needed to pace myself.

  “So, you’re pretty much in charge of your little duo when you guys go out to sell on the street, yeah?”

  “Right.”

  “Interesting,” I said with a nod before puffing on my cigar again. I looked over at the bag and patted it. “How much am I to expect in here when I count it?”

  “I’m actually not 100% sure. We came straight here when we got the text, so I didn’t have time to count,” he said, his eyes darting between me and the bag.

  I looked to Saint. “Could you get the money counter for me, please?” I asked. He nodded and stood, walking across the room to retrieve the small machine. I pulled everything out of the bag, forcing myself to grin at the small amount of drugs. “Looks like you guys sold a good bit of it. Good job.”

  “The demand is high,” Garrett said with an uncomfortable smile. I fought the urge to scoff. From what I’d seen on the street earlier, I was very confident that he was paying for sex with drugs and that he’d given a lot of shit away. Just looking at the pile of money, I already knew it was short.

  “Good, good. That’s what I like to hear,” I said idly as Saint put the machine on the desk. I pulled the rubber bands off the stacks of money and put three of the stacks in the machine, turning it on. The money flipped through the machine for a few seconds before stopping, the counterfeit alarm beeping. “Looks like we already have a problem.”

  “Is the machine broken?” Garrett asked. “I can count it if—”

  “No, it’s not broken. It’s detecting counterfeits,” I interrupted and removed the money by hand. “So now I have to go through each bill and pull out the fake ones.”

  The entire room was silent as I went through stack after stack of money, pulling out counterfeit bill after counterfeit bill. By the time I was finished, the stack containing the real bills was a lot smaller than the fake ones, which filled me with irritation. I glanced at Garrett and Caleb, both of them shifting nervously in their chairs as they put their cigars out on the wooden leg of the chair they sat in. Their eyes watched the machine as it quickly counted the real bills before displaying the total on the small screen.

  “Out of all this money…only $5,000 of it was real,” I said and shook my head. “You can see how this is a major problem for me, right?”

  Garrett stood and moved toward the desk. “Are you sure? I made sure to check every single bill—”

  “I’m very aware of what a fake bill looks like. And considering how many times I’ve had to point that out to you two every time you bring money to me, I was sure that you knew what one looked and felt like by now, too.” I stroked my chin thoughtfully. “Let’s do a little math, yeah?”

  “Okay,” Garrett said cautiously.

  I looked down at everything next to me. “You were given two hundred 8-balls, right?”

  “Yeah, two hundred.”

  “And they’re going for what? About $250 on the street these days?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess? You don’t know how much your product is?” I asked with a raised brow.

  “Yeah, $250, Boss,” Caleb quipped, looking to Garrett with nervous eyes.

  I counted the remaining baggies of white powder. “There’s 32 baggies left here, so that means you’ve supposedly sold 168 baggies. That would mean there should be…” I calculated the total in my head, “…forty-two big ones in this bag.” I held up the stack of real bills. “But strangely enough, I only have $5,000.”

  “Yikes,” Nyxin mumbled under his breath before puffing on his cigar.

  “There’s no
point in counting the counterfeits because I can’t do shit with them. So…somebody better tell me where my drugs or $37,000 is and why it isn’t in this bag,” I said as I put out my cigar and narrowed my eyes at Garret and Caleb. Garrett held my gaze, wiping all emotion from his face, but I could see the panic lurking in his irises. Caleb looked to him nervously, as if he didn’t know what to say or if he was keeping his mouth shut before he said something that would put them in a fucked up situation.

  “I swear those bills felt real, Boss. I wouldn’t have intentionally given you that many fake bills if I was trying to cheat you,” Garrett said as sweat beaded along his forehead.

  I thumbed through the fake bills. “Yeah, you say that every time I find counterfeits in my money, so I’m going to ask you again. Where the fuck is my money or my drugs?”

  “I’m just gonna tell the truth,” Caleb blurted out.

  “Shut the fuck up, Caleb,” Garrett ground out.

  “The truth would be nice. Please, do tell,” I asked, folding my arms across my chest. Caleb glanced at Garrett, who slowly turned red before me as he became angry.

  “We…we were robbed. Yeah, we got jacked while we were on the streets. They took majority of our drugs and money and—”

  “Okay, stop, because now you’re both fucking pissing me off,” I interrupted, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’m not in the mood for bullshit stories. First, Garrett said that he swears they were real bills. Now you’re saying you were robbed. Did you two not properly rehearse the lie you were going to present to me or something?”