Her eyes widened, and then she stood and walked into Gambarro’s office. A minute later, they both came out, and Jonathon Gambarro glared at me. I eyed him and took in one of the most feared men in Sydney. He’d had his hand in dirty shit for over twenty years, and at only forty-one I figured he had many more years of it left in him.

“Who the fuck are you?” he barked.

“I’m here to settle Peter Bishop’s debt.”

He scowled. “Why isn’t Peter here to take care of that?”

I walked towards him and threw out the one weapon I had in my arsenal. “I’ve actually come to talk more about Michael than about Peter.”

The asshole knew exactly who I was talking about by the look that flitted across his face.

I’d brought fear to Jonathon Gambarro. A feat not many managed to do. And I hoped like hell it would be enough to save Peter.

He motioned for me to enter his office.

Time to negotiate.

Shutting the door behind him, a more subdued Gambarro took a seat at this desk while I stood on the other side. “What about Michael?” he asked as his gaze swept over me with distaste.

“What do you think, asshole?”

“I’m not sure what to think unless you lay it all out for me.” His voice remained calm but the sweat beading on his forehead gave him away.

I slowly placed my hands on the edge of his desk and bent slightly towards him. “It seems you’ve got a thing for young boys, Jonathon, and I happen to know one of them didn’t make it out of your home alive. That information remains with me, and me only, as long as you wipe Peter’s debt and forget you ever met him. And before your brain starts to tick over and contemplate ways to take me or Peter out for this, you need to know I’ve made arrangements for this information to be passed onto the cops if either of us end up dead.”

He weighed my words, and I watched the hatred form in his eyes. “How the fuck do you know about this?” he sneered.

“Knowing shit that no one else knows is my specialty.”

“That shit is likely to get you killed one day. You do realise that, don’t you?”

“I’m not concerned about that. I’ve lasted seventeen years in this shithole city with the knowledge I have. I don’t think anything’s about to change just because I’ve got something on you.”

His brows shot up. “Well, then you’ve got no fucking idea how I work.”

I bent lower to look him right in the eyes. “No, motherfucker, you’ve got no idea how I fuckin’ work. You don’t want to take me on because I’ve got reach in this city that you can only fuckin’ dream of.”

“I don’t even fucking know who you are, so excuse me if I don’t buy a word of what you’re saying.”

Time to pull out the big guns. I started rattling off names he would know. “Justin Sutherland, Billy Jones, Max James, Eric Bones, Calvin Ryan, Stu Davy... you know any of those names? And I promise you that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You wanna fuck with me, you’ll be fucking with them, too.” I intentionally left out King’s name just like I’d intentionally not worn my cut this morning.

He sat back in his chair and I knew I had him.

Silence filled the room as we glared at each other, and while he contemplated his next move.

I should have felt anxiety, worry, concern ... anything.

I felt nothing.

Years of doing this shit for King had numbed me.

My job was to get the shit on people, throw that shit at them and sit back and watch them crap their pants. It was to bend them to our way of thinking, and I was the fuckin’ best at it. It was why King kept me so close. He knew I had good contacts, and he knew the cold heart beating in my chest meant nothing was off the table when it came to getting what we wanted.

If Gambarro didn’t come to the party now, I had other options to force him. But it seemed the first option I’d gone with would be enough.

He pushed his chair back and stood. When he spoke, his voice was low. Cold and calm. “Consider the debt wiped.”

I nodded once but didn’t say anything. He had more to get off his chest and I knew it.

“Also consider this a warning. I don’t like the way you conduct business and I intend on showing you just how much it displeases me. And I don’t care how long it takes me to do that, be it months or years, I will see it through. Now get the fuck out of my office,” he said in a low, menacing voice.

With my goal achieved and nothing else left to say, I turned and walked out of his office. I knew he’d make good on his threat so my next stop was the clubhouse. It wouldn’t take Gambarro long to figure out I was Storm, so I had to let King know what had just gone down.

While I figured Hyde would be pissed, I suspected King would rally the boys. The crazy motherfucker lived for shit like this.

***

It took me nearly an hour in traffic to get to the clubhouse and, in that time, word had travelled. Gambarro was on the warpath. He hadn’t worked out my connection to Storm yet but Hyde had already heard about what had gone down.

Hyde found me before I found King. Anger rolled off him. I’d never seen him this fired up. “What the fuck did you do?”

“I sorted some family shit out,” I threw back at him. “Just like you would have done if it was your family on the line.”

“No, what you did was create club shit and that’s something I sure as fuck wouldn’t have done. When Gambarro figures out who you are and that you’re with Storm, he’ll come, gunning for us, and he won’t fucking hold back. I can promise you that.”