We find Malcolm in a glass-walled conference room in the middle of a telecall. He’s alone at the long conference table except for his nephew Karter, Simone’s favorite cousin. They’re facing a massive screen showing quarterly projections, investors’ faces boxed up in a teleconference grid.
I don’t knock. I push the door open, and the five of us enter.
You’d think I were a part of the meeting the way I stroll in.
Malcolm’s head snaps toward us, his jaw tightening. He’s mid-sentence, some rehearsed corporate speak about growth margins, when he sees us.
For a brief second, he’s thrown off. Surprise then anger flash in his dark eyes, and he stumbles over his words before catching himself.
“Uh… gentlemen, I apologize. We’ll have to reschedule. Something’s just come up. I’ll call you back within the hour.”
The investors all speak at once, each with varying levels of protest, but Malcolm’s already hit the disconnect button. The projector screen goes dark.
He slams his hands on the board table and rises to his feet. Despite his five-nine stature, it’s a power move.
A sign Malcolm Langston’s no pushover.
He might be a civilized suit-and-tie businessman who plays by the rules in the public eye, but he’s still an alpha male in his own right.
“What the fuck are you doing here!?” he barks.
Karter’s on his feet too, glaring at us like we’ve just spit in his face. “What are these jokers doing here? You think you can barge in here like?—”
“We just did,” Killian grunts like the cold enforcer he is.
I step forward, hands in my pockets, calm as anything. “Time to discuss business, Malcolm. All the finer details we didn’t go over when we struck the deal. You know, weapons shipments. Prices. Storage. That sorta thing.”
Malcolm’s nostrils flare. “You’ll get your weapons when I can work it into the LDS shipment schedule. It’s not as simple as loading crates of guns onto a truck and sendingthem to your doorstep. Months of planning go into our company’s manufacturing and delivery. We have clients across the globe,includingthe U.S. government and military.”
“Frankly? I don’t give a damn about all that,” I say, shrugging with my hands still in my pockets. “None of that concerns us. We’re here about our weapons and our weapons only. If you expect us to protect you from here on out, then we’re gonna need some hard details. Some solid numbers.”
The tension grows ’til it’s a suffocating presence in the room.
There’s no mistaking this interaction for anything close to pleasant. It’s adversarial and openly so.
“Fine,” he says through gritted teeth seconds later. “Sit.”
We take our seats at the table—me across from Malcolm and Karter to his right. Killian and the boys remain standing behind me, arms crossed, looking every bit the armed guard they are.
But Karter can’t bite his tongue. As we sit down, he snaps at his uncle in disbelief.
“Uncle Malcolm, you’re not seriously negotiating with these wannabe gangsters?—”
“Shut up,” Malcolm says, sparing him no glance.
Karter clamps his mouth shut, but the animosity in his glare lives on. He eyeballs us like he’d like to take one of the ballpoint pens on the table and jam it into our throats.
Mythroat.
It’s so fucking amusing the corner of my mouth twitches.
Malcolm takes another second to compose himself, flattening a hand on his tie and tugging on his suit blazer. He folds both hands on the table and speaks with the same businesslike tone he’d used on the telecall.
“We’re currently tied up manufacturing-wise. Our plant in Ghana is overburdened and understaffed. We recently signed a new contract with ACOM—the U.S. Army major command—and they take priority. The best we can do as far as weapons shipments is March.”
I scoff and lean back in the chair. “With all due respect, Mac, I’ve gotta be honest. Look, you’re Simone’s dad. My father-in-law. Which means you’re family. But March? That’s not good enough. We need you to do better.”
“We?” he challenges.