“Your girl not running money like normal. Why everyone tense tonight?”
I held my position firm, not giving off any sign of trouble, only irritation.
“We are not expecting trouble tonight, Ivan. Anything else that may or may not be going on is of no consequence to you. This is my business, not yours. You and your men can stay and bet, enjoy the fights. Or you can head up to the club and enjoy some good music, liquor, and a little company. It’s your choice. But stay out of my business or you may not be as free to roam around as you are now.”
Ivan frowned, catching my not-so-subtle threat. He wasn’t fond of the reminder that he did not control me. The Russians did not have a dog in the fights tonight. He had no need to be here, or in my business. He looked at his men, and around the room again at all of my men.
“We will not be involved with anything tonight. Or for a while. Give you time to clean up mess. When you realize you in over head, come see me.” With a nod, he and his goons headed for the back entrance to the club.
My entrance to the club.
They were refused admittance however - much to Ivan’s displeasure. Good. He needed to remember who really ran this place. I carefully watched as they left through the actual exit. I was sure they would still find their way into the club.
I made my way over to BoBo. “Message Bunny, tell her to keep Ivan company tonight. He’s having a rough night.”
BoBo laughed and pulled out his phone. We both knew I would be getting money out of Ivan, one way or the other.
The night went smoothly, thankfully. We had a few close calls, ones that kept us on our toes. But my security detail only had to step up to the men arguing with each other, and they quickly shut their mouths.
Only one man seemed to be paying attention to the lockboxes. BoBo spotted him though and stepped into his line of sight.
The man nearly peed his pants.
I didn’t want to push our luck though. So, I canceled any other fights until our little problem was solved.
Monday morning, Keith and I collected all the money from the lockboxes and went to the bank to deposit them. Looking at the way he was holding the canvas bag to his chest, I couldn’t help but flash back to Friday night, when Fiona arrived. I chuckled, and he raised a questioning eyebrow at me. I just shook my head.
We walked into the bank, and I wrote my name on a clipboard so I could speak to one of their bankers one-on-one. Then we waited. And waited. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who had been waiting for the bank to open again to handle sensitive matters.
After a two hour-long wait, with the bank security eyeing Keith with increasing intensity, we finally got called back.
“Good morning, Mr. Murphy.” The man with the nameplate Maxwell Carpenter on his desk shook my hand and waved at a chair, inviting us to sit. “What can I help you gentlemen with this morning?”
“A couple things.” I lifted a hand to Keith, who lifted the bag. “We have a fairly large cash deposit to make. Unfortunately, we have had some computer issues over the weekend and had to stick to mostly cash at our club.”
“Ee. That must have made for one long weekend.”
I nodded with a forced smile. “Yes, it’s been very stressful. Thankfully, between personal accounts, and people desperate for a break from reality enough to go to the ATM, we were able to stay open. Now we just need to deposit all this stress and regain access to our business account. Which I am hoping you can also help me with.”
He raised his hand for the bag. “Let’s see what we can do, starting with getting all that cash put away somewhere safe.”
