Another time

Cruel, Proud men

The next two months moved at a rapid pace. Summit after summit. Meeting after meeting. Agreement after agreement. Each day inching closer to the goal you’d set.

Gerritt had fully taken over his father’s operation, and with the goodwill he had for Alfie, and his utter hatred for how his father and brother had been running things, the Nash businesses had never been more hospitable partners than under his rule.

It had taken him and his crew less than three weeks to dismantle the upstarts that had attacked Aaron and you at the docks. Two weeks, four days, and they were gone. It was swift, and violent from what you’d seen, but the victory had spurred you on. You’d helped divvy up the spoils, what little they’d gotten on their short ascent, between the other operations to try and butter them up. Gerritt had dumped some of his father’s more riskier schemes into the pot as well, happy to have them taken off his books.

“I would not do well in prison. Can you imagine?” he asked, lounging all over your couch.

Alfie had lifted your curfew, scowling when you referred to it as such in the little pantomime you’d put on when he ‘released’ you, and so you were back at the club, in your office. The added support of the Nash crew, and the seeming peace that was tentatively holding between the families had relayed enough peace for him to do so. There were still petty skirmishes, still arguments over whether they’d said five or four or whatever when deliveries were made. But it was a better truce than they’d had in years, and the hope it allowed was probably going to kill you.

There were still extra guards’ downstairs, annoying you as they popped their heads in every twenty bloody minutes. But it was better. You felt free, like a weight had been taken off your shoulders. The progress you were making was elating, and though you were trying not to let any of it get to your head, the little burst of power and control you’d been given in your few successes was encouraging.

You scoffed at his question, the grimace on his face as he stared up at your ceiling.

“What happened to your eyebrow?” you questioned, shifting accounts around before you as you eyed the crack in the skin.

“I’m making big changes, fast, and not everyone is happy” he explained, lifting his arm to rest under his head. You frowned, eyeing your new-found friend, and leaning back in your chair.

“Are you ok?”

“Don’t worry about me, it’s upsetting” he scowled, acid in his tone, and you rolled your eyes. You settled back on your accounts.

“Oh, for crying out loud” you sighed to yourself, and he tipped his head to look at you.

“What?”

“Penmanship is sorely lacking in this establishment” you replied, and he smiled, rolling himself off the couch and coming to hover at your side.

“Is that eleven or twenty-one? Why are the lines so loopy? Why?” you asked, tapping at the column you couldn’t decipher.

“It’s a…43 I think?” he mumbled, leaning right over the paper.

“No. I cannot accept that” you deadpanned, and he smirked, pointing to a smudged copy at the bottom.

“Definitely a 43”