“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I glared at them, but mostly at Brent, who should’ve known better. The rest of the men present bowed their heads or were avoiding my gaze.

“All of you, get back to what you were doing, and I don’t want to see this happening ever again. Do you understand?” I said, and they murmured a yes, ma’am, then scurried away, some of them limping, and I wondered if they’d all jumped on James together, or if Brent had sent them to fight James one on one, but they hadn’t been all that successful at beating him up.

“He started it,” Brent said, then spat out blood. Our carpet was going to need some serious cleaning because there was blood all over it.

“What are you? Twelve?” I ran my hand over my face. “James, wait here. Brent, with me.” I headed for the nearest of the empty rooms where we could talk in private.

“That asshole shouldn’t be here. I told you that already, but you insist on keeping him.” Brent wiped the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Look, if I deem that James is a threat for us, I’ll eliminate him. But so far, the only thing he has done was help us. Or do you think we could’ve somehow predicted which one of our stash houses was about to be attacked? We could’ve sent men everywhere, but then we wouldn’t have enough to fight them off as effectively and without any losses on our side.”

“He said he was going to turn you against me,” he said. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s going to get you to trust him and like him, and then he’ll manipulate you into doing whatever he wants you to.”

“Ah, so now he’s not somehow reading my mind and talking telepathically with our enemy, but he’s actually influencing me against you.” What was next? James would turn out to be a spy, or an imposter, or something? “I know you don’t like him and that’s fine, but even if he’s baiting you, don’t let him.”

“You see?” He extended his arm toward me. “It’s already working. He has you on his side.”

“I’m on no one’s side, but getting into a fist fight with him and goading other people into it will definitely not make me get on yours. I don’t want this to ever happen again.” This was one of the times when I wished Brent were more like his father. Hugo had always been calm and levelheaded, and he’d known just the right thing to do.

“And what was I supposed to do? Let that son of a bitch laugh in my face? In my own territory?” He glanced at me. “Our territory.”