Chapter 5

Bennett

Elise walked me back to the private room where Richie and his pals were still having a good time. Thankfully, Richie no longer had a blonde head between his legs, working him over. Instead, he had a cigar in his hand and was puffing away, shooting the shit with a couple of his cronies and other members of the Sanderson clan. He glanced up as Elise and I entered the room and grinned.

"He wired?" he asked, his question directed at Elise. All heads turned toward us. She shook her head.

So, that was what that was all about. Dalton sent me to go fuck some random chick just to make sure I wasn't wearing a wire. Well, damn, that was certainly one way of doing it.

Richie dismissed Elise with a jerk of his chin and then turned his gaze back on me. He grinned. "Did you show Elise a good time?"

Elise squeezed my arm before running off. I watched her disappear out a side door before I crossed over to sit on the couch opposite Richie. Cinnamin appeared with a fresh bourbon and handed it to me with a smile.

"Well, I know she sure showed me a good time."

Richie laughed, and his guys joined in a beat later. He leveled his cigar at me. "You know what, Mr. Starr, I like you. But we got a problem?—"

Everything inside me went stiff. My heart stopped beating, and it hurt to force air into my seized lungs. "A problem?"

Problems with a guy like Richie Dalton usually ended with a bloody body, the trunk of a car, and a shallow grave somewhere out of town.

"None of these guys have ever heard of you," he said, gesturing at the two men who flanked him on the long, leather couch.

I glanced at each of them before returning my eyes to Richie. "Well, that's to be expected, Mr. Dalton?—"

"Richie."

I nodded. "Okay. Richie." I took a drink and then set the glass on the table in front of us. "We come from two different worlds, Mr. Dal—uhm—Richie. See, I'm more of an international businessman, and you—from what I've gathered—are more of a local businessman."

Richie squared his shoulders and narrowed his eyes. After a long stare, he flicked his hand to his left, then his right, dismissing his two men in turn. They exchanged a dark look and then rose from their places, buttoned their jackets, and filtered out of the room, leaving Richie and me alone. He leaned forward.

"All right, Starr, let's talk. What is it that you're looking for here?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I leaned back, looking as casual as possible. Like everything wasn't riding on the next ten minutes of my life.

"I'm going to shoot straight with you, Richie. I have a warehouse full of weapons. They've been sitting for months in need of a new home. I won't bore you with too many details, but it's enough shit to equip a small African nation. The problem is that my original customer was killed by a drone strike that was intended for the opposition and not my guy. Fuckin' mess. In any case, the whole thing leaves me in a bad position. I"m stuck with a bunch of weapons I don"t need. All of my assets are tied up in this horseshit, and I need a new customer. Someone who can move this product quietly here in the States and replenish my bank account."

Richie leveled me with a stone-cold stare that would probably make a lesser man shit his pants. "I'm only going to ask you this one time, Starr. Are you working with the fuckin' feds? Cause this reeks like a setup. You got snipers and SWAT out front, waiting to bust my ass the minute I shake on this deal?"

I chuckled, thankful I wasn't holding my glass, as the bourbon inside would have gone swirling with the shaking of my hand. "Not anymore."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Richie fired back, not letting up.

"Like I said, I'll shoot straight with you. I'm an ex-Navy SEAL. I got burned out with politics getting in the way of doing my job. After the Navy, I did some contractingwork with the CIA, but they're even more fucked up than the military thugs. Anyway, I made a few contacts along the way, and one of them made me a tempting offer. So now I'm left holding the bag, and I need to liquidate these items quickly and quietly."

Talking to a man like Richie was like a carefully choreographed dance. One misstep and the entire thing looked sloppy, unpolished. And Richie was definitely the kind of man who required polish.

He took another slow drag from the butt of his cigar and then leaned over to drop it in the ashtray on the table next to my drink. "So, this is legit?"

I nodded. "You heard me right." From the look in his eye, I'd piqued his interest.

Richie considered me for a moment. "All right, Starr. I'm a straight shooter too. I don't fuck around. I"m also a careful man, and I don't do business with people I don"t know and trust. But I do enjoy a good story, and yours seems interesting, so please continue."

I nodded. In truth, I knew Richie was a bad motherfucker. I knew he'd chopped off his cousin's head two years ago when he flipped and started feeding the feds info on the family business. His Uncle Paul was the official head of the family, but he was taken down in a raid in Vegas due to that snitching. So Richie was the number two man—but he still ran the whole show.

Over the last two years, and for the rest of his natural life…plus thirty years, Uncle Paul had taken up residence in a Federal Max Security prison designed to make it impossible for him to pull strings on anything. And now, for all practical purposes, he was nonexistent.

"Like I said, Richie, I have a warehouse full of weapons. I"ve got 3000 AR-15 assault rifles, all fully automatic with every size clip and accessory you could dream of with enough rounds to take out everybody in California."

I tossed down the last of my drink and continued, "I also have 12 dozen RPG launchers with enough grenades to blow up half of Manhattan. 2000 Glock 9"s with oversized clips. Fuck, I even have a few dozen shoulder-fired rocket launchers that can shoot down a helicopter or take out a tank. Mr. Dalton, what I have is war power. What I don"t seem to currently have is the whole war part."

Richie rubbed a hand over his jaw again. He was usually clean-cut. The day and a half worth of stubble was clearly driving him crazy. After a moment, he nodded. "I'll need to think about your…predicament a bit and talk to some people. No promises on whether or not I"ll be able to help you. "

I grinned. "Understood."

"Tomorrow night, here at the club. Like I told you before, we handle a lot of business here. Be here at ten-thirty. Bring me something to look at, and I"ll hear you out."

"I'll be here," I replied. I threw back the fresh bourbon that some half-naked bartender with fake tits had set down in front of me. No point in letting good shit like this get dumped down the drain.

I pushed up from the couch and extended a hand to the still-seated Richie. "Thank you for the opportunity. I'm sure we will have a long and prosperous future."

Richie shook my hand, then held it tightly for a moment longer than necessary. His dark eyes trained on me. "I hope you're right, Starr. I don't like to waste my time. But, if you show up and make an idiot out of me, I'll make sure Elise was the last piece of ass you'll ever have."

Richie'sominous parting words echoed through my head on the drive back to my hotel. I'd moved to a cheap hotel just off the Hollywood tourist area, but I took the scenic route to ensure no one was following me. The place was a far cry from The Beverly Hills Hotel, but I didn't care. It was clean, had decent in-room coffee, and a soft bed. That was all I really needed.

Couldn't complain.

But as I entered my room, the silence was deafening. I'd spent the last three nights with Harlowe, letting the blonde keep me from thinking…about anything. Before that, it was Phoebe, a busty brunette I met in the beer aisle of the local corner store. We'd spent two nights banging on every flat surface in her apartment a few blocks from my hotel.

Tonight, though, I was alone. I slipped out of my suit jacket and went to the mini-fridge, pulled a beer from the cardboard sleeve of the six-pack, and cracked it open on my way to the bed. I flipped through the dozen or so channels when I found some deep-sea fishing show. I didn't care about the show. But the calm voices helped take the edge off my shot nerves.

The meeting with Richie had been more intense than I'd expected. I could only imagine what tomorrow would be like. Of course, I knew I'd have to show the goods at some point—but the thought of what was ahead had me re-thinking the entire plan.

"Damn," I sighed, raking my hands through my hair.

I knew what I was getting into. At least, I thought I did—but now that I was hurling myself into the middle of the Sanderson syndicate affairs—I realized I had no fuckin' clue.

Things could go upside down, sideways, or just plain fucked up.

I blew out another long sigh and followed it up with a long pull of my beer.

This was why I shacked up with random women from bars and corner stores. Buried between a pair of lush thighs, I didn't have time to think about all the unpleasant things the Sandersons would do to me if they knew who I really was. What I was really doing. What I really wanted…

I pulled my phone from my pocket and saw half a dozen messages from a local number. It didn't take more than half a second to realize they were from Harlowe. The texts started out friendly, then progressed to worried, and eventually ended in impassioned disgust.

"So much for a quick lay," I said, tossing the phone onto the bedside table once I checked to make sure there weren't any other messages.

Elise, from the club, was a good fuck. I should've gotten her number. Maybe she'd be up for a second round. Then again, she obviously knew Richie since he'd asked her about a wire. Did she work for him? Or did he pay her to check?

Either way, I couldn't ride that ass again. Too risky.

The fishing show bored me. So I flipped around a little more and then turned the damn thing off altogether.

I polished off the beer, dragged my ass to the shower, and rubbed one out while washing away the remnants of my encounter with Elise. Fantasizing about her rose-scented hair, cherry red lips, and peachy round ass.

Perhaps my favorite thing about her was that she looked nothing like my ex, Tori Barnes. The love of my life.

At the realization, I growled and flicked off the water. I stepped out of the shower, dried off, and then went to bed and hoped the beer would be enough to knock me out.

Instead, Tori was waiting for me as soon as I closed my eyes.

I hadn't seen her for months. Almost a year, in fact. But it didn't seem to matter. Her memory was just as clear as if I'd just had coffee with her hours before.

She was a natural-born redhead, auburn and copper, with little strands of gold in the summer when the sunlight lightened her long hair she always wore loose, air-dried half the time—untamed and wild, just like the girl herself. A heart-shaped face with bee-stung lips, a wicked smile, and blue eyes so clear they rivaled the perfect waters off the coast of Fiji.

She was impossible to forget. Believe me, I'd been trying forever.