If You Go Down, I Go Down With You

Warehouse

We arrive at the warehouse and James walks in first. I follow behind him. When we walk in, it's stacked with drugs and weapons. There are several built men in there and when I walk in, all eyes go to me.

"Eyes off. Load the trucks." James says simply and the three men start moving. They'll be on the list of James's people I take in. They're good listeners.

They load the trucks up with all the gear as James and I talk. "This all of it?" He hands me a chart. Inventory. "Yea it is. I keep inventory of all of it."

"How do I know this is all?" He smirks as I flip through the pages. A serious look on my face. Concentrating hard on the papers in my hands.

"You're just gonna have to trust me." I scoff. "Yea I know. But if we're gonna work together we have to figure out how to trust each other. I trust you."

"No you don't." He scrunches his eyebrows and tilts his head. "Yea I do. You don't lie. You don't need to. You either take the deal or you kill me and take all my shit, you have no reason to lie."

He wasn't wrong. And my "spider senses" were telling me he wasn't lying. "Fair enough. If I do find out you're lying you're a dead man Barnes."

"I believe you." He chuckles. "Hey boss. Trucks are loaded. Where too?" James looks at me. They're going to my warehouse. He trusted me.

Now was time I trusted him. I had to give him the location of my warehouse to merge his stuff with mine. He trusted me enough to give me all of his product.

Now was time I did the same. We had to work together now. I either kill him and his three men now. Or I make the deal. There was no going back.

"Behind the gas station and the grocery on 10th avenue. There's a dirt road, two miles back there's a warehouse. James and I will drive ahead. My men will kill you if they see you first."

"They don't fuck around do they Ridley?" James's men get into their vehicles and James and I get into his, but I drive. "Neither do i Barnes."

We pull up to my warehouse almost thirty minutes later. James and I get out of the car. His men stay until I talked to mine first.

We don't want anyone getting shot for no reason today. That would spoil the deal. My guys shoot first ask questions later. Something they learned from me, but I'm working on it.

I already informed most of my staff of the deal, there was a small amount of people who knew what my business really was about. And it would stay that way.

I had about 20 people on my staff, the majority had been on my dads too. They were loyal and I trusted all of them with my life. James had 20 people on his staff as well. Which means I'm going to have to get rid of some of them.

I explained everything to my four men working in the warehouse. They brought in all the gear and I sent them home. Now James and I had to redo the inventory and combine our stock.