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“Fucking Boy Scouts,” Joequiet, he tossed back the rest of his drink and waved to the bartender for another “Got a fe-level dealers in your area” He held up his hand when Zach scoffed “Not in your town I fucking told you, that’s Lefty stepping outside his box These jokers are behind on gettingdown there and busting some heads next week You boys save my knuckles a few cracks—”

“We’ll do it,” Zach said before Copper even had a chance to run the potential outco with his enforcer about that later He got it, though Everyto do whatever the fuck it took to get hiet that far

“How‘bout?”

“Five guys,” Joe said “Each owes upwards of twenty”

Zach whistled “Not chue”

“Exactly,” Joe replied “You get ”

Zach faced Copper, his eyes i Lefty in his custody wash over hi to him, and a lot of pain was headed his way “Deal,” he said then turned to Zach “Give him your number, Z” Then to Joe, “You can send Zach the information he needs to collect your money”

Pulling out his phone, Joe lifted his chin then entered the digits as Zach rattled them off “You’ll have what you need by tomorrow”

Copper stood and nodded at Joe Immediately, Zach followed suit and Rusty pushed away from the bar There’d be no handshakes, no fist bu on each other’s back No one here liked each other Just held a grudging respect for the fact that they ran successful operations in the sa thieves kind of thing

Once they were outside, Copper took his first full breath The sun still war by the time they returned home The temperature armer than it had been over the past feeeks and was slated to continue that hich hy they’d rode their bikes Driving in a cage sucked, and they only did it when the alternative was hypothermia

“So hoe gonna play this?” Rusty asked when they reached their bikes

“What do you mean?” Zach asked

“Well, we ain’t fucking doing this asshole’s dirty work We just paid him a shit ton of onna do hiht, Cop?”