by B. B. Hamel
But maybe I was. At least for Wyatt. Maybe I could be whatever he wanted me to be.
He was standing in the lobby of the hotel, a drink in his hand, a small smile on his face as I walked across the room toward him. I thought for a second that all conversation around us had stopped, and all eyes were on the two of us, but that wasn’t right. It just felt like we were the center of the world.
“You look incredible,” he said. “Better than I remembered.”
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment.”
He took my hand and kissed my cheek. “It’s a compliment,” he said. “Truth is, all I ever think about is you without clothes. The dress is distracting me.”
I smiled. I was wearing a formal dress, slightly revealing but not too much. I wanted to tease him, but I didn’t want to draw attention. Clearly I made the right decision.
“So where is this benefit?”
“Here, actually,” he said.
“And what’s it for?”
“Does that matter?” He smirked. “I just wanted an excuse to see you.”
“I know.”
He turned toward the bartender and ordered me a gin and tonic. I took my drink, smiling, and sipped it.
“All these people,” he said softly, “they have no idea who you are. Doesn’t that excite you?”
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
“You could destroy them all if you wanted.”
“Does that excite you?” I asked him, smiling slightly.
“It absolutely does.”
“I’m starting to think you like me just for my power.”
“I like you for your body,” he said, whispering into my ear. “The power is jut secondary.”
I blushed slightly then he took my hand. We walked together through the lobby, down a back hall, and found the ballroom.
It was just like every other charity fundraiser that I’d been to. Rich people were milling about, sitting and talking, drinking too much, and generally acting like nothing in the world mattered. Which, to them it probably didn’t. They had no real problems to speak of, and these little charity things were more like social events than anything else. It was an excuse to flaunt their checkbooks.
Wyatt worked the room like a professional. We went from table to table, and he introduced me as his friend and colleague every time, though I was sure nobody was buying that. Still, he was masterful, always flattering people and never making any promises while always seeming to promise the world. He was a true politician, and I instantly understood why he rose to such a prominent position so quickly.
“Michelle,” he said, using my fake name, “this is Roger Waters.”
I took the older gentleman’s hand, shaking firmly. He smiled at me.
“Pleasure,” I said.
“Pleasure is all mine.” He looked back at Wyatt. “Where’d you find this one?”
“We work together.”
“I’m sure you do,” he murmured. “Michelle, what do you do?”
“I’m a lawyer specializing in constitutional law,” I said.
“Impressive.”
“What do you do, Roger?”
“Oh, nothing much,” he said.
“Roger is being modest. He owns the largest construction business in the world.”
“Used to,” he corrected. “These days I’m just one board member among many.”
“I’m sure you’re more important than they are.”
“Of course,” he beamed. Wyatt gave me a smile.
“Excuse us, Roger,” Wyatt said. “We have some pressing business to attend to,”
“Be careful, you two young people,” he said. “There are a lot of important people in here.”
“Of course.” Wyatt smiled and led me off.
We went over to the bar together. “Is this what you do all day?” I asked him. “Shake hands with old men and flatter them?”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s a lot easier with a beautiful woman on my arm.”
“I hate it,” I said. “I really do.”
“I know. I hate it too.”
“These people. They don’t understand anything.”
“Of course not. Would you?”
“Yes,” I said seriously. “I would. I am one of these people, remember.”
“So you are.” He shrugged. “Most people when they get that rich are living in a bubble. They can’t understand the common person’s plight because they’re so far removed from them. They live on a completely different planet.”
“It’s grotesque.”
“It is,” he said, getting us both a glass of wine. “But we’re going to change that.”
I nodded and sipped my drink, but something wasn’t sitting right.
I had hoped that this was going to be fun. I hoped we would shake hands and laugh and joke, and we were. Wyatt was being as attentive as he possibly could, and yet I still felt like I was having an awful time.
I couldn’t quite figure it out. We moved back into the fray, talking to person after person. Dinner was starting soon, and so people were slowly filtering back to their seats, and I had this rock in my stomach.
What the hell were we doing here? Why would I leave the city for this? There was too much at stake back home for me to mess around with Wyatt, and yet I had left everything to Kasia and run off to be with him.
“This is absurd,” I said softly as we headed back to our table for dinner.
“What?” he asked.
“This. It’s absurd. Why are we here?”
“Securing donors.”
I suddenly stopped walking as it hit me. “I can’t be here,” I said.
“Louisa. We talked about this.”
“No, it’s not that. I can’t be around these people, Wyatt. I despise them. I despise myself for shaking their hands and smiling and nodding at their idiotic comments when all I want to do is strangle them, steal their cash, and run off with it.”
He blinked at me, and then nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“Really?”
“Let’s go. Fuck this place. Come on.”
He walked off toward the exit. On our way, he swiped a bottle of wine that a waitress was carrying on a tray. She went to say something but we were already moving off. We got to the doors, pushed them open, and then left.
“This way,” he said. We followed a back hallway and eventually went out a back door. A small wooded area stretched out ahead of us, and I could hear a major road on the other side of that.
Wyatt leaned up against the wall and took a pull from the bottle before handing it to me. I took a long drink.
We stood there in silence for a moment, enjoying the night. I was glad to be out of there.
“I have to go back in,” he said finally.
I frowned at him. “Why?”
“Because as gross as it is, it’s part of my job. We need me back in there. We need me to shake hands and kiss ass, because that’s the role I play in all this. You should go back to the city.”
“Wyatt—“
“It’s okay,” he said, shaking his head. “You run the mafia. I run the politics.”
“Okay,” I said softly.
He took the bottle from me, took a drink, and then threw it into the parking lot. It shattered on the ground. I couldn’t help but laugh.
He took my hips and pulled me against him, his hand on the small of my back. “I just wanted to see you,” he admitted.
“I know. I wanted that, too.”
“I know.”
He kissed me hard, and I returned his kiss. For a second, the whole trip seemed worth it, even if it was ending in a disaster.
Finally he broke off and sighed, letting me go. “I’ll see you again soon.”
“When are you coming back?”
“Next week. Hopefully I’ll have something for you by then.”
“What?”
“Money,” he said. “Lots and lots of money.”
“How?”
He smiled. “You�
��ll see.” He kissed me again then turned to the door. “See you soon.”
“Bye.”
He opened the door, stepped inside, and was gone.
I sighed, leaning against the wall again. I felt like an idiot teenager, and that almost made me angry. But really, it felt damn good to want him this way.
I couldn’t stop myself even if I wanted to.
23
Wyatt
Being a public servant does not pay well. If I wanted to follow the rules and be a good little boy, I’d be poor as fuck and weak.
Which was why I made my money taking bribes.
After seeing Louisa that night, I went on an aggressive bribery campaign. Starting that night after she left, I courted bribes for everything from getting men out of jail to unpaid parking tickets. The rich were always smart enough not to ask questions and not to press too hard, and they always paid well.
Which was how I ended up bringing Louisa a few duffel bags filled with half a million dollars when I finally returned to the city.
She was staying in the same safe house, though I had to wonder if that was really safe. She assured me it was, and so I didn’t argue. Still, I worried about that, and her.
The war was heating up. Her mercenaries were working out well, and she was paying them as well as she could. She seemed stressed though, and if I pressed she always just said things were fine. I knew she was the type to shoulder her own burdens. I understood that. But I could help her if she let me.
Her guys were doing their jobs. They were dealing serious damage to Arturo and the mafia, though they had lost a few men. The other mercenaries didn’t seem to mind that, though, since that meant one less guy to split the earnings with.
It was a cool, clear day. Kasia let me inside, and although she was still distant, she wasn’t outright hostile to me. I carried the bags slung over my shoulders up into Louisa’s room. She smiled as I dumped them onto the bed.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A present for you.”
“You shouldn’t have.” She kissed me on the cheek. “How much?”
“A lot.”
“What ever am I going to do with all this cash?”
“We’re going to buy guns.”
She paused. “Really?”
“I already set it up.”
“We do need more equipment,” she mused.
“We’re getting you serious shit. Grenades, sniper rifles, the damn works. Plus a couple extra guys as well.”
“Wyatt,” she said, smiling and pressing herself against me. “Nothing gets me more excited than the prospect of buying a lot of guns.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I haven’t seen you in a while, and I haven’t tasted you in longer.”
“Well then. I guess I’ll have to indulge you.”
“I wish. But we don’t have time.”
She looked surprised. “You set the sale for the middle of the day?”
I nodded. “I did.”
“Wyatt.”
“Grab a few people.” I checked my watch. “We have an hour.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Springing an illegal gun buy on a girl might be considered rude to some people.”
“You’re not one of those people. Besides, I know you’re up for it.”
“I’m always up for it.”
She kissed me and then left the room. I watched her ass go, grinning to myself.
Louisa readied a few girls, opting to leave the mercenaries behind. I had to admit, they looked pretty fucking intimidating in their full battle outfits. It was easy to forget that underneath all that black tactical gear and gas masks, they were just small, scared women that had no real training, or at least no official training.
“He goes by the Swede,” I told Kasia and Louisa on the drive over. We were in one large tactical armored truck. It was hot as hell, but I was betting that we could survive a direct hit with a rocket launcher.
“Let me guess. He’s Swedish?” Kasia asked.
“German, actually,” I said. “But he likes to pretend that he’s Swedish.”
Louisa laughed and I grinned at her. Kasia did not seem amused.
“Anyway,” I continued, “he’s really paranoid. You’ll have to keep your girls back.”
“Is that why he only meets during the day?” Louisa asked.
“Exactly. He’s an odd guy. But just follow my lead.”
“How do you know an arms dealer?” Kasia asked me. “You’re a lawyer.”
“I wasn’t always a lawyer,” I said. “Plus, I meet some very interested people in my line of work. The Swede needed a little legal help a few years back, and we became good friends.”
“Good friends with an arms dealer,” Louisa said, smiling. “My kind of man.”
“I do what I can.”
The armored truck trundled around a corner. We were about an hour outside of the city in a less populated area of Illinois. Most of the state was hit hard when American manufacturing jobs left the country and went abroad, and there were a lot of little towns all over the state that were essentially empty or close to empty.
We were meeting in one of those towns. Not in the center of it, of course, but in a field adjacent to it. The truck pulled up and parked just off the gravel road, about a five-minute walk from the meeting site. We were early, and everyone climbed out.
“You two, skirt left, watch from the trees. You and you, down low, stay north,” Kasia said, instantly issuing orders. She gave everyone their tactical plans smoothly and crisply.
Louisa smiled at me. “This is why she runs these missions,” she said softly to me.
“I can see that. She’s intense.”
“I like that about her.”
“I do too. I just wish she weren’t so damn suspicious of me.”
“If this goes well, I think she’ll come around.”
I smiled at her. Once Kasia was finished, the three of us began to walk out to the field while the other girls spread out to give us protection and cover from the tree line.
We arrived just on time. The Swede was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t surprise me. We stood around waiting for him for ten minutes before I heard the sound of a helicopter overhead.
We stared up as it got closer and closer and slowly descended into the field. We were forced to back up as the chopper’s blades whipped the air all around us.
The Swede climbed off the helicopter along with two men. The helicopter took off once they were clear, heading up into the sky.
“Hello, Wyatt!” the Swede said.
“Swede,” I responded, grinning. “You like to make an entrance.”
“I truly do.”
“Probably drew everyone’s attention in a two-mile radius,” Kasia complained.
“Who’s this lovely girl?”
“This is Kasia,” I said, “and this is Louisa Barone. They’re the buyers.”
“Lovely to meet you both.”
The Swede was an older man in his sixties. He was thin and grizzled with scars on his arms and face. He clearly had been through some things, though I had never asked him about any of it. He had a dangerous reputation, though he was known as a solid businessman if you didn’t try to mess with him.
“So,” he said. “Wyatt here gave me a list of what you need. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Louisa said.
“And the price we agreed on is half a million dollars, yes?”
“Correct,” she confirmed.
“Good.”
Louisa looked around. “Half a million dollars buys a lot of guns, Mr. Swede. But I don’t see any.”
“Of course not. I didn’t bring them right away.” He pulled out a radio and said something into it in German. He smiled at me. “Well, Wyatt, may I see the money? Just to ensure we’re all in good faith, of course.”
“Guns first,” Kasia said quickly.
He shrugged. “Very well.” He gestured and nothing happened.
We stood there awkwardly
for a minute, the Swede smiling benignly, his friends standing there with no expressions on their faces. I looked at Louisa and shrugged. Kasia was clearly on edge.
Then suddenly we heard an engine in the distance. It got closer and closer until an enormous armored truck with a huge gun on the back came rolling into the clearing.
“Holy shit,” Kasia said softly. “Is that an M1117?”
“Sure is,” the Swede said proudly.
The thing looked like a tank mixed with a truck. It slowly rolled toward us, the guns heavy on its top. It stopped and a man climbed out, holding a case. He carried it over and opened it.
“Rifles,” the Swede said. “Plus grenades, body armor, armor piercing rounds, explosive rounds, normal rounds, incendiary grenades, and basically anything else you can use.”
“I want the truck,” Louisa said.
He smiled. “But of course. That’s compliments of me.”
Kasia looked like she was going to pass out from joy.
Louisa nodded. “Good. Wyatt?”
I tossed the Swede over the duffels. His friends took them and opened them, quickly thumbing through the bills. They nodded. The Swede came over and shook my hand, then Louisa’s hand, and finally Kasia’s. He lingered with Kasia for a moment. “If you ever want to see more beautiful toys, come find me,” he said.
Kasia nodded, and for the first time since I met her, she actually looked impressed.
“I will,” she said.
“Enjoy,” the Swede said. His men gathered the bags and they began to walk back toward the tree line.
“Wait,” Louisa called. “Where are the guns?”
“Inside,” the Swede said.
Louisa walked over to the truck and I followed her. She threw open the back door, and sure enough, the thing was packed top to bottom with boxes. Kasia pried a couple open and nodded.
“It’s here,” she said.
I couldn’t help but laugh. I threw my head back, laughing loudly. I’d never bought a huge shipment of weapons before, let alone a military-style assault truck. The girls laughed along with me.
I was excited. Desire pulsed through me as I pulled Louisa against me, kissing her deeply.