From Bullets To Billions

Chapter 391: Jett The Enforcer (Part 2)

The Stabels moved fast. Ever since they’d signed the deal with the Billion Bloodline group, everything had accelerated, schedules tightened, contractors answered at odd hours, and promises that had once sounded like bravado began to look like plans. They had done what they said they would. They’d secured a prime position in a shopping mall that hugged the city’s richest stretch of seafront: wide glass walls, marble floors, and a view that glittered with yachts and late-afternoon light. For a family like the Stabels, it was more than a shop. It was a statement.

Anton stood in the middle of the nearly finished showroom, the smell of polish and fresh leather thick in the air. He’d come straight from surgery only a few days earlier and was still raw around the edges, his face stubbornly achy whenever he tried to smile, but his voice carried easily enough as he directed the workers. Men and women in logoed uniforms moved like parts of a single machine, setting lights, angling display cars, and arranging branding cards so each vehicle would look like an object of worship behind the floor-to-ceiling glass.

Several cars had already been rolled into position. Their silhouettes reflected in the panes, like trophies lined up to be admired. The mall itself was technically open, but it felt like a rehearsal: corridors were taped, a temporary railing blocked one entrance, and a security guard lingered at the threshold, clipboard in hand as if waiting for instructions that would never come.

Anton watched his people work and tried to keep his face neutral. The stitches at his jaw tugged whenever he smiled; the effort turned the edges of his mouth into a thin, painful crescent. He forced the motion anyway, because the show must go on, because that was how they kept the illusion of strength intact even when ribs ached and the body demanded rest.

A thought flickered through him and he could not help the crooked smile that almost formed despite the pain. It was childish, petty, and exquisitely satisfying. He imagined the redhead, the one they had spoken about in clipped, careful tones, getting what was coming, beaten and humiliated. “Ah, it’s a shame I won’t be there when they beat that redhead to a pulp,” Anton thought, the image making his chest tighten. The idea of photographs being sent afterward made a different part of him feel steady. Maybe they would send a picture to prove the job was done. Maybe he should have someone follow them, film everything. That would be thorough. That would be him in control.

He hadn’t given Jett a deadline. He knew better than to bind men like that with dates. Still, Anton trusted incentives: a nice car, a fat envelope, a promise that bent reality just enough, people moved fast when a prize dangled in front of them. He expected the work to be done, soonish. Not necessarily today. Not necessarily in person.

Then Jett arrived.

A tall, solid presence filled the doorway before the guard could finish his rehearsed line. “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re not open today, so I have to ask you to step back,” the guard insisted, voice practised and firm.

It was a request that evaporated when Jett simply stepped forward. He moved like an engine, deliberately massive and impossible to stop: a shoulder against the guard, a casual push, and the man let him pass as if accepting a force of nature. For a second, it looked like the showroom had taken a breath and everything continued around this central motion, the crates were opened, a lamp was adjusted, and someone laughed quietly at a joke Anton didn’t hear.

“If you want to stop me, you’re going to have to call every person in the store,” Jett said coolly to the guard who had already reached for his radio.

Anton raised an arm. “It’s okay,” he called out, half to reassure and half because it felt better to control the moment. “He’s here to see me.”

The truth was, Anton hadn’t expected Jett to come by himself. There had been no appointment. Yet the idea that Jett might be here to deliver the final details in person, to hand over proof, money, or both, was pleasant. He watched Jett pause by a car and felt time settle into a thin, electric thread. People worked around them and pretended not to notice; this was Stabel business, and everything significant felt both public and private.

“I wasn’t expecting a visit,” Anton admitted, easing the tension from his voice. “So I don’t have your car exactly ready yet.”

Jett’s reply did not land where Anton had expected. “Ah, well. I’m here to talk about a few things, because I think I’m going to need more payment.” The words were simple, but they hit like a flat hand. For a moment Anton’s mouth went dry; the room felt too bright.

Jett told him what had happened. The men he’d sent to handle the redhead were now in the slammer. They couldn’t do anything more from inside a cell. Worse, Jett said, it appeared the very target Anton had wanted dealt with had been responsible for putting the men away. What had promised to be an easy job had become complicated, sticky, and dangerous. Jett wasn’t the kind of man to get involved for sentiment; he wanted his costs covered, his risks paid for.

Anton listened, his mind skittering between pieces of the story. Was it the Billion Bloodlien group that had taken out Jett’s men? Had the target been cleverer than they’d assumed? The possibilities tasted like ash. If Anton pulled the plug now, if he ordered the cancellation, would he become the one punished for pulling a job? If he could not pay more, what would Jett do? The thought sat heavy and ugly in his stomach.

Rationally, Anton argued with himself. Why should he pay twice for something that had already failed? Why throw more resources at a mess that might be their own making? But he was also a man who measured outcomes, and this situation, messy as it was, offered a different path. The idea arrived without warning, slipping into the cracks of his worry and fitting itself there as neatly as a key.

“I think there might be a way for all of us to be happy,” Anton said, slow and careful. He watched Jett’s eyes narrow. “In the same company your men went to, there’s a woman who works at reception.”

He didn’t invent the woman. He already knew of her: her family, her position, the way gossip clustered around certain names. She was connected, wealthy, visible, someone whose absence would ring loudly in the right rooms. “She’s not just any person,” Anton said. “She’s a member of a quite wealthy family, and she’s linked to the first target as well.”

They could take her, Anton suggested. The man would come for her. His family would move heaven and earth to get her back. It would be the simplest job and the biggest payday. If anything went wrong, if blame needed to be absorbed, Anton said he would take it. “If it all goes wrong for you, you can say that I was the one behind it and it all falls on me,” he offered flatly. “The only thing I ask is that if you manage to get the redhead, you let me deal with him personally.”

A kidnapping. Jett had seen worse. For him, this was business: a transaction, a risk, a potential windfall. He was not entirely remotely opposed. Money had a way of clarifying moral fog. And he had a debt to settle, his men were in prison. He needed to be made whole.

Besides, Anton argued quietly in the space between them, Vivian could probably get him out if anything exploded. The thought was not an admission of safety so much as an insurance policy, one more shade of confidence layered over risk.

“I’m only doing this because I like to finish what I started,” Jett said finally, and the words felt like a promise and a warning all at once.

“It looks like we have a plan,” Anton replied. He pictured the operation in cold geometric lines: who would be where, cameras and getaways, timing aligned like a countdown. “I would take a few people with you. There seems to be some tough security at that place.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be going myself,” Jett said, turning to leave as if the conversation were already settled.