A. Arthur - Passion's Prey

General Pierson had lots of sponsors, as he liked to call them. These were people in very high places with very deep pockets, who needed favors only the general could grant. It was his father who had introduced Sidney to Bob Slakeman and it was Sidney who through his father had been brokering international deals for Slakeman. It was Ralph Kensington’s job to keep said dealings off the radar. So far, the overweight senator-elect had held up his end of the bargain.

But this time, this deal, had Sidney and his father a little shaky.

“He’s going to show,” Kensington said for the third time since they’d been holed up in this office.

Sidney was lighting his third cigarette in the last hour. On his left arm was a nicotine patch and in his back pocket were gum chunks that tasted like stale paste. And in his fingers on its way to his lips was a newly lit Newport—bad habit, too damn hard to quit, so he figured to hell with it.

“He’d better show,” he said after his first puff. “And he’d better have the money. We don’t have room for mistakes. Not tonight.” He was shaking his head, thinking of all that was riding on this deal.

His father had something else going on, something big with the government—or covertly with the government since anything on the up-and-up, the general couldn’t be involved with. The country was still at war, which meant the Piersons were still in business.

Standing to Kensington’s left was a new player, one he’d met tonight for the first time. Palmero Greer was from somewhere on the West Coast. He’d been introduced as a regional facilitator, which to Sidney meant he was a mole sent by the bigwig to make sure everything went as planned. Since he knew Bob Slakeman personally, Sidney was more than a little peeved at the man’s need to oversee one of his buys by sending Kensington and this thinly built guy wearing the shiny-ass tight suit.

He puffed on his cigarette again, long and hard.

“So where is he?” he asked, shifting from one foot to the other. He’d never liked the waiting game. Besides, most of his buyers seemed anxious to get the deal over with, showing up at least ten to fifteen minutes early, ready to rock and roll. Lifting his arm, he looked at the clear face of his watch and frowned. Five minutes after twelve.

“He’ll be here,” Kensington said. “I got a text from him about twenty minutes ago saying he was on his way and not far from the building. Just calm down. You look like you’re about to have a fucking baby over there. Sucking on those sticks like a dick.”

Sidney had been just about to put said stick to his lips. He looked over at Kensington with a fuck-you glare and proceeded with his next puff.

“We’re too open here,” Greer said quietly. “We should have done this somewhere more secure.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, more secure? We’re in a secluded warehouse, dammit. What’s more secure?” Sidney asked with disgust.

Greer didn’t frown, didn’t do more than give him a tired glance. “A secluded warehouse that belongs to Slakeman. You might as well have put out an APB letting every law official in the city know what’s going down.”

Sidney felt like he was getting sick. His nose kept running and he’d been swallowing some nasal crap all damn day long. He choked up something, leaning over to cough and spit on the floor. When he returned upright he saw the two bozos sent to watch him both giving him a look of thorough disgust. He almost laughed at how comical their faces were.

“Nobody cares what we’re doing out here. This is private property; they can’t just come in here whenever they feel like it. So this is the safest place in the city to move the amount of steel we’re moving tonight.”

Greer shook his head. “Amateur.”

“Who are you talking to? Man, I’m no stranger to this game. I’ve been doing it for years.” Sidney talked to the back of the guy’s head since Greer had started walking toward one of the large windows on the other side of the office.

“And that’s why he called me in,” Greer mumbled.

“Look, Sidney, just calm down,” Kensington said. “We’ll be done with this deal in a few minutes, then you can go get yourself more drugs or more smokes or whatever the hell’s got you so strung out tonight.”

“I don’t do drugs,” Sidney said adamantly. He was telling the truth. Drugs would hamper his thinking and that would fuck up his money, which was not an option. He’d smoke on these cancer sticks until hell froze over but he wasn’t snorting shit or sticking no goddamn needles in his arm to get high. He didn’t even want to move that shit, which was why he’d become Slakeman’s buyer instead of taking on other financially lucrative ventures through his father’s connections.

“Whatever you say, just be the fuck quiet and we’ll get this over with.” Kensington had now joined in with the yelling.

“Shhhhh,” Greer hissed.

He extended a hand toward them, pointing a finger as if they needed to know he was specifically telling them to shut the hell up.

“Someone’s coming,” he continued and moved toward the door. He plastered his back to the wall so that when the door swung open he’d be standing right behind it. Digging into the waistband of his pants he pulled out a gun, clicked the safety off.

“Whoa, wait a minute. This is not how my deals go down,” Sidney was saying, taking a step toward Greer and the door.

He stopped when Greer lifted his gun hand, pointing the fucker right at him.

“Get in position,” Greer said, his face twisting in a lethal sneer.

“Who is this guy, Miami Vice?” Sidney asked.

Kensington pulled on his arm, saying in a hushed tone, “Just get back here.”

“No!” Sidney yelled. “This is not how I work. It’s not how Slakeman wants business conducted.”

His words died in the next instant as the door was nearly kicked off its hinges and Greer—or he should probably call him look-alike Detective Ricardo Tubbs—pointed his gun, finger on the trigger.

Saturday, 12 AM

“Something’s going down,” Eric said into his cell phone as he drove his Acura through the city streets like a man on a mission. “All available officers have been called down to this warehouse in Woodland.”

“Drugs?” Dorian asked, already getting out of his bed, grabbing the pants he’d thrown over the chair and stepping into them.

“Weapons and drugs I hear. SWAT’s even coming in. This is big. You should come down just in case,” he said.

“Yeah, text me the address and I’ll be there,” Dorian said, disconnecting the call. If SWAT was being called in, it was big. Besides, the only warehouse Dorian knew of in Woodland belonged to Robert Slakeman Enterprises, the arms dealer suspected of making deals with the devil to accommodate his lavish lifestyle. Hell yeah, he was going out there to see what was going on.

The moment their SUV pulled up, X scented Rogues. He looked to his right where Caprise was sitting and frowned.

“I can do this,” she told him, patting his knee reassuringly.

In the seat in front of them Nick shook his head and X knew he’d heard Caprise’s words. Nick had already given X the nastiest case of stink eye the moment he saw Caprise heading for the vehicle. She’d told her brother to kick rocks, or something along those lines. Rome had wisely kept his opinions to himself.

“You stay behind me,” he told her.

“X—” she started to say.

He put his hand over her mouth to silence her. “You’d better be on my back like flies on shit, you hear me, Caprise? This is not negotiable or I swear you’ll never see sunlight again.”