For swoop77 on Tapas for asking for an update. I hope you like it.

Jem’s POV

I forced down my nerves as I sat down at the table, watching as the men around me filled the room and took seats wherever they wished. Dev sat on my right side while Barrett sat on the left, effectively caging me between them. 

There were only four of them, none of which should have been armed after being checked at the door, but I wasn’t stupid enough to believe they couldn’t harm me just because they didn’t have guns. 

Dev, Barrett, and I were the only ones in the room who were still armed but I wasn’t allowing room for any error tonight. There were small, barely noticeable cameras in every corner of the room, all of them being monitored from a security room filled with as many armed men as I could safely fit in there. 

“Never thought I would get the chance to meet you unless my barrel was against your forehead,” one of the men spoke as he sat down in a chair far away from me. Dev tensed at the comment but said nothing. 

The man who spoke was Ezekiel Rand. He was rather tall but skinny with brown hair and eyes, somehow more pale than me but was killer with a pistol. 

His territory was bumped up close against mine to the north and while he and I had never had an issue with each other, he was a power-hungry son of a bitch. He had killed the last leader in cold blood just so he could take over the gang and as much as I hated to say it, he was doing a damn good job at it. In the past few years, they had almost doubled their territory with few left dead on their side.

“The day is still young,” I sighed, leaning farther back into my chair. He smirked but said nothing else as he looked around the room. 

We were in the same restaurant I had bought Patrick and Andrew too. I had done plenty of business meetings here since I bought the place, given it was far away from the house and the room only had one way in, along with the added security. Still, no matter how many times I used it, I couldn’t help but think of the night we had sat here playing childish games and eating our weight in high-end food and wine.

“You want to tell me what I’m doing here,” another spoke. “I have better shit to be doing.” This was Ryland Webb, short but packed with muscle like Barrett. Blonde hair and blue eyes, the sort of thing you wouldn’t expect in a life like this. 

I had never figured out how he had risen to power. There were rumors but of course, there were rumors about all of us. Some said he had been given it, others said he killed the last leader like Ezekiel. Personally I think he had woken up one morning and just decided he was going to start a gang one day. It would explain why his gang was so much smaller than the rest of ours but he was gaining ground quickly. 

“Yet you’re here anyway,” I said with an easy shrug. “Clearly I managed to interest you in some way.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” he said with a pointed glare. 

“But satisfaction bought it back,” I answered. “I promise I won’t disappoint.” His blue eyes lit up for half a second before he began glaring again. 

“As much as I would love to hear this banter, it’s been a long drive and I need to be back home by nightfall.” Farren Kail seemed rather skittish as he pressed himself into a ball in his chair. 

He had a right to be scared. About a month ago, Patrick’s officer had caught him in a major weapons deal. He was able to get the charges dropped but many of his suppliers and customers had been too scared to work with him again. Not just in weapons but also with drugs. He had been having a record-breaking month before the incident but only a few weeks later, he was left with warehouses full of products he couldn’t move and his men were becoming aggregated. If he wasn’t careful there would be a mutiny of people wanting to get paid and going to any length possible to make that happen. 

Out of everyone here, he was by far doing the worst and was the farthest away from home. I was honestly surprised to see that he had come. 

“I’ve called you all here to call a temporary truce,” I said as I looked around them. 

Alexi tensed as he glared at me. He was the only man in the room I genuinely feared. He looked like Drake made over in every way. From the dark black hair to the green eyes, and perfectly tailored suit. He was tall and built like a tank. His tan skin was littered with scars and war wounds I didn’t want to think about. He was also the oldest in the room, not by much but still. He had risen to power after his dad passed it onto him, only a few years before I put a bullet through Drake’s skull. 

He and Drake were never on the best of terms, there had been minor fights but nothing like an all-out war to worry about. I had thought his hate for Drake would fall onto me but in the years I’ve been in charge there had never been any issues, despite his territory all but surrounding me. There was an unsaid agreement that if you didn’t mess with me, I wouldn’t mess with you.

“Why,” was all Alexi asked, his voice dripping with his thick Italian accent. 

“There’s something I want your help with.”

“And what makes you think we’d be willing to help you, let alone have a truce with each other,” Ryland asked before cutting a glare to Ezekiel. “Especially considering some people in this room think it’s fun to kill people for no reason.”

“You’re men crossed onto my side of town,” Ezekiel defended boredly. “Try telling me you wouldn’t have done the same to my men.” 

“They were barely a few feet into your side,” Ryland scoffed as he stood up and placed his hands on the table, a deep glare on his face. “You could have given them a warning.” 

“The best warning is fear. Now no one else will be that stupid. If anything I did you a favor.” Ryland went red in the face but I spoke before he had the chance to. 

“Do you care for your men,” I asked abruptly. They all turned to look at me and that nervousness threatened to make my carefully practiced mask slip. 

“Most of them,” Ezekiel said with a shrug. Everyone else answered with a firm yes with another glare thrown at Ezekiel. 

“Would you do anything to keep them safe?”

“What is this about,” Alexi asked as he stared at me. 

“I’m looking into something,” I said carefully. I wouldn’t allow them to know anything until I was promised their alliance. The last thing I needed was to be double-crossed over this. “Something that has the power to kill every person in our gangs and leave us with nothing to show for all the hard work we’ve done.” 

No one spoke for a moment but Ryland sat back down.

“I would die for them,” Farren said solemnly and I couldn’t tell if he always felt that way or if his recent hardship was pulling him close to a ledge he might be willing to jump off of soon. 

“If I can avoid it, I’d like to not have to replace anyone,” Ezekiel agreed. 

“You mess with one of my men then you mess with me,” Alexi said firmly. “And there will be hell to pay for messing with me.”
“I wouldn’t die for them,” Ryland said sadly. “But I won’t send them to slaughter.” 

“And if I told you that I knew something that put all of us in danger and you could help me make sure nothing ever came of it, would you be willing to into a truce for just long enough to get this settled?”

Each of them agreed, and seconds later, words were spilling out of my mouth. I told them about Kerp, what it did, how addictive it was, what withdrawal looked like with it, and how I had seen the effects of it up close. 

None of them seemed all that convinced at first. Claiming one drug wasn’t something to be afraid of and that I was wasting their time. 

So I told them about the text I got. How I was simply working late one night when nothing but coordinates with Dev’s location lay on my screen. I told them about the call I had gotten only a few seconds later. I told them about what I had seen when I hunted the fucker down. I told them about the man who had screamed himself to death, how most of them overdosed in only a few weeks. 

Their faces had turned pale when I planted the idea of their friends and family getting their hands on this drug and dying because they refused to help. They had all agreed to help shortly after that. 

“What all do you know,” Alexi asked after a tense silence took hold of us. From what I was told, he never was one for wasting time. 

“You know everything that I do ask of now and the second I learn new information, you will be updated. I ask that you do the same for me.”

“What do we do then,” Ryland asked as he leaned farther into his seat and stared up at the ceiling. “We have no leads. All we can really do is wait until someone is stupid enough to get hooked and ask them where they got it, hoping it might lead us in the right direction.” 

“Tell me you have a plan,” Farren asked with a light glare. “Tell me you didn’t call me all the way up here, when your cop fuck buddy is sniffing around my shit, just to tell me that I should keep my eyes open for this shit.” I couldn’t help but tense at that. If it hadn’t been for Dev catching me by the knee and forcing me to sit back down, I would have Farren pressed against the wall.