“You should go back to the big office,” he said, ignoring my question. “The other one, the one where you auditioned for me. Wait for me back there until the end of the night, watch TV until it’s time to go home.”
“Okay.” I swallowed. “But what are you going to do?”
“Nothing. I’m going to let him finish his beer, and then once he leaves I’ll instruct security not to let him in here again.”
I nodded.
“I have to go check on the kitchen delivery,” Colt said, and the teasing tone he was using on me just a few minutes ago in the office was completely gone. Now his voice was tense and controlled. “I’ll come check on you in an hour or so.”
“Okay.”
He pushed through the curtain and turned left down the corridor and back toward the kitchen.
Suddenly, I realized I didn’t want to go back to the office and watch TV.
Something inside of me was telling me that I needed to stay out here. I wasn’t sure why – it was like some kind of weird premonition.
So instead of going back to the office, I took a seat in the back. I ordered a diet coke from a passing cocktail waitress, then sat back and waited.
Uncle Mick didn’t leave after one beer, like he’d promised.
Instead, he ordered drink after drink, getting more and more drunk. I watched as shot after shot was served to him, each waitress looking more and more disturbed as she gave him more alcohol, none of them wanting to be the one who had to tell him that he was cut off.
I was just about to go to the back and get Colt, to tell him that Uncle Mick hadn’t left yet, that he was still drinking, when all hell broke loose.
Mick called one of the girls over, one of the waitresses. Loose Cannons had a strict don’t-touch policy when it came to waitresses, but apparently Uncle Mick didn’t think that applied to him, because before I knew what was happening, he’d grabbed the girl’s breast through her uniform.
I gasped and was immediately out of my chair, moving toward the hallway to get Colt.
But the bartender must have already radioed back to Colt and told him what was happening, because before I could get out of my chair, he was walking out from the back, striding over to his uncle with a determined look on his face.
“Come on,” Colt said, his eyes blazing. “You’re done.”
“No, I’m not.” Mick stood up, and if the drinking had done anything to dull his reflexes or his body language, it wasn’t apparent. If anything, it seemed to have only emboldened him, to have made him meaner somehow, to have given him courage.
I shivered as I had a flashback to one of my foster fathers, who was a mean drunk.
“Yes,” Colt said. “You are.” He reached down and picked up his uncle’s beer glass and moved it to another table. “Out.” He pointed toward the door.
This infuriated Mick. He stood up and pressed his finger into Colt’s chest. “You little shit,” he said. “I built his fucking club.” He grabbed another drink off a waitress’s passing tray, drained it in one gulp and then threw it to the floor, where it smashed into a million pieces.
I gasped and my hand flew to my mouth.
I looked around for security, but Colt had lost a lot of his security team once he’d cleaned the place out, and now… now there was no one around to help.
The music was still going, but the girl on stage had stopped, and now a crowd was starting to gather around Colt and his uncle, and I got out of my chair and tried to fight my way through.
When I finally got up toward the front, Mick was holding his hands up in surrender.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine. I’ll leave. I just need to get my delivery from the back.”
“The delivery’s been dealt with,” Colt said, his voice steely, his eyes never leaving his uncle’s face.
“What the fuck does that mean?” his uncle sneered.
“It means it’s gone.” Colt said it simply, and I could tell from his tone that he wasn’t scared of his uncle, in fact, he was relishing this. Which made me even more scared, because I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next.
“You little shit,” Mick roared, and he grabbed Colt by his shirt and pulled him close to him, shaking him. “You fucking little shit. I built this fucking place.”
“My father built this place,” Colt said.
“Your father built a shitty little restaurant that no one cared about,” Mick spat. “I’m the one who made this place! I’m the one who moved thousands of pounds of drugs through here, I’m the one who made money off all these little sluts spreading their legs. I’m the one who’s special! Not your pussy ass father or his pussy ass son.”
I watched as Colt smiled, a cold hard smile, and then before I knew it, he escaped from his uncle’s grasp, then hauled back and punched his uncle in the face.