Armed & Dangerous (Book 2 Soldiers Series)

8

LA California…

Coming out of the terminal Desman spotted the white limo twenty feet away. The driver was holding up a sign with his name. The boys carried their luggage over to the limo. The driver opened the back door. Leaving their luggage on the curb, they climbed in one after the other leaving Desman for last. The driver would put their bags in the trunk.

Settling onto his seat, the door shutting behind him, Desman saw his mother welcoming him home. His mother was intimidating like his father. She was stunningly beautiful, ruthless, relentless, and influential — the first ever legacy. Her parents were both Veterans resulting in her being born into the Soldiers. Essentially, she was a mafia princess, and she acted accordingly.

If she ever had any reservations about her place in this world she had long gotten past it. She wasn’t the typical mafia bride one saw in movies, always looking the other way, never asking where the money came from. She was an active participant. She and his father shared the responsibilities of running Desman’s grandfather’s empire. While his father managed the shipping yards in LA, New York, and Miami plus the casino in Vegas; his mother ran the nightclubs, restaurants, and massage parlours in all four cities. They were all profitable fronts for laundering vast amounts of dirty money.

Both his parents were shrewd business minds. Though these businesses were criminal fronts, they also did enough legit business to be profitable in their own right. They were known to the authorities as fronts, but thanks to the Soldiers and an amazing bookkeeper and accountant on the payroll, all their books were in order at all times. Every penny accounted for and easily explained. It was incredible what a little creative accounting could do.

His mother had just turned fifty, but she could easily pass for forty. Her dark hair was still midnight black. Her dark eyes free of lines and crow’s feet. Her cinnamon complexion and high cheekbones were characteristic of her native heritage.

She smiled at the boys, and the boys smiled back respectfully. They didn’t usually deal directly with the top dogs. Desman was usually the go-between. If his mother was picking him up, there was a reason. “How was the cruise?” She asked one leg crossed over the other, the hem of her black skirt sliding up her thigh. Desman looked over to see that dirty smirk on Lamont’s face as he allowed his eyes to wander. Desman smacked his buddy in the chest. He disliked it when they checked out his mom.

“It was fine.” He replied nonchalantly.

She lifted a dark brow. “Just fine? A whole week away from the world and it was just fine?”

Desman grinned. “Ok, it was great?” He wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear. It was a good trip. Not as good as it could have been but all in all it had been fine.

“Are you asking me?”

“It was great.” He said with more conviction. “Not that I don’t love to see you; but why are you picking me up in person, the driver would have done just fine?”

She opened the brown leather briefcase on the seat next to her. Desman watched as she turned it to show him what was inside. Inside were various ledger books and address books — everything one would need to run any of their various businesses successfully. “It’s for you. Your dad and I have been talking, and we have decided it is time for you to step up and run some things. Lighten our load if you will. With Shank’s passing our holds have doubled. Our stocks went up, and there is just too much to run ourselves. So, we are going to trust you with LA.”

Desman looked at her astonished. She wanted him to run the whole city? “Everything in LA?”

“Everything.” She confirmed. “Of course, your father will oversee things when in town but it will be you running it.”

“I don’t have a place in LA. My apartment is in Vegas.” He reminded her.

“You’re moving.” She said flatly as she reached into her purse and removed a number of tagged keys. “We are giving you Shank’s estate.” She held up one brass key. “The house in Malibu.” She held up the next key which was clearly a car key. “The Ferrari Enzo.”

Desman grabbed the keys with a huge smile. “Mine?”

“All yours. We had the title and deed signed over to you last night. Now with this promotion, we expect you to run things well — no half-ass efforts. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link. You don’t want to be the weak link.” He understood exactly what she meant. If he screwed up people would go to jail. He didn’t want to be the downfall of the Soldiers. His mother shut the briefcase and handed it to him, Desman reached out to accept it, but his mother did not immediately release it. Their eyes locked and Desman could see the seriousness behind those dark pools. “We are trusting you Desman. I have faith in you. Don’t let me down.”

Letting her down was the last thing he would ever want to do. Not that he feared her wrath, but he couldn’t stand the look of disappointment in her eyes. When he was fourteen, he had been caught lying to his mother. He had snuck out at night, and he and his friends had been roaming the streets acting like little street punks. Soldiers were so much more than the averaged crack head on the street pinching wallets for easy money, but he had so desperately wanted to be like his friends. He had gotten caught mugging a woman. It was his friend that mugged the woman, but Desman had been an accessory.

He was tossed in lockup, and he used his one phone call to call his father. Only it was his mother who had showed up with their high-priced criminal lawyer in tow. The attorney got him off, but the way she had looked at him behind those bars had hurt more than anything the cops could have done to him. She had been disappointed that he had lowered himself to a common street thug. “You’re better than this.” She had told him. “You can be so much more than this.” It was then that he realized how much his parents expected from him. It was then that his father decided to induct him officially and teach him what it was to be a Soldier.

“I got this. I can do it.” He said taking the briefcase.

She simply smiled and relaxed back in her seat. “Are you boys hungry? I’ll have the driver swing by the Trend.” The Trend was a new acquisition bestowed upon them in Shank’s estate. It was a trendy upscale restaurant near the Pier. Desman enjoyed eating there when in town but he was jet-lagged, and he wanted to get back to what was now his house and get some sleep.

“I’d rather head back to the house. I’m beat.” He said rejecting his mother’s request for dinner.

“Very well. I took the liberty of having your things shipped in from Vegas. The house should by now be unpacked and put away for you ready to move in.”

“Thank you.” His mother was always ten steps ahead of everyone. At times he was glad she was.

They drove Lamont and Cedric home then the driver dropped his mother off at the house his parents kept in LA for when they were in town on business. Finally, he was dropped off at the house in Malibu. Desman brought his luggage and briefcase into the house. He locked the door, looked around, then headed for his bed. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

***

The movers had just brought in the last box. Morgan wrote a cheque to pay for their services. She saw the men out and shutting the door she turned and looked at her new apartment — a one-bedroom suite on the fourth floor of a ten-floor high-rise in downtown LA.

She had hired long haul movers to move her things from New York City to LA. She had driven down right behind the moving truck. Stopping at the same truck stops and sleeping in the same motor inns. The movers were nice enough to put up with her. She shared drinks with them when they stopped for the night.

Morgan got the feeling two of the four of them were sweet on her, but she knew how to avoid passes. She could deal with most men easily. Some were more determined than others. When she encountered such men, she would usually lie and claim to be a lesbian. More men were willing to accept no as an answer when they thought she was competition instead of a target.

It was getting late, but Morgan was far from tired. She hated leaving things undone. It drove her right up the wall, so she started to unpack; first things first… her computer. She located the electronic boxes and began to set up her laptop. She found the charger and the wireless broadband modem. She cleared the boxes off her desk and set up her system.

Morgan sat down and booted up her laptop. She piggybacked off a neighbour’s wireless signal at least until she had the time to call the phone company and set up service of her own. She often used her laptop for business as well as personal use. Since her transfer, she had downloaded all her business files to a portable hard drive and placed them in storage. She wasn’t going to need them anymore, but she couldn’t get rid of them. Some were still unsolved, and Morgan couldn’t let it go. She loved a puzzle. Something that made her think.

Since she had the files stored elsewhere, Morgan wiped the files from her laptop’s hard drive. She cleaned it out and then defragmented the memory. When she was finished Morgan checked her watch. It was three in the morning. Which meant it was nearly six in Ohio. There was a good chance her father was up.

Morgan brought up her Skype and called her father. She waited a few minutes, but there was no answer. He must have been sleeping. She was about to end the call when the view box popped up, and her father was staring back at her. His dark hair was tousled, and he was topless. He looked like he had been asleep.

He yawned and rubbed his hands over his face to rouse himself. “Hey, Peanut. You all moved in?” He asked turning on his desk lamp so she could better see him.

“Yeah. I got a few hours of unpacking ahead of me.”

“How’s LA?”

She shrugged her shoulders. She hadn’t had the chance to explore as of yet but from what she’d seen so far it was very nice. “Beautiful.”

“When do you start?”

“Tomorrow.” She said.

“You don’t look excited.”

She was trying to be excited, but for the last week, she’d felt unenthusiastic. Ever since she’d left that ship, she’d been withdrawn. She told herself she wasn’t going to think of that infernal man, but the truth was Desman Reynolds had been all she could think of since she left him in that bar on the cruise liner. The sight of him flirting with that woman still annoyed her. How could he go so easily from her to that woman?

Morgan understood how Pat had felt when she caught Lamont with that other woman. Though she didn’t scream and rant like her friend the wound was still deep. She had liked him. “What’s wrong Peanut?”

“I just miss New York.” She lied.

“That’s not the truth. You can’t lie to me. You were never good it.” She could lie to almost anyone, but she never could fool her father.

“There was this guy on the ship.” She confessed. She looked away, unable to look at her father. She felt stupid and weak. “Let’s just say it didn’t go well.” She was getting so tired of saying that. It was the same with every man she became involved with. It was good at first, and it always ended with her heart broken. Her father had always been her confidant. Her best friend. The only man in the world to have ever loved her.

He sighed, having heard it a million times. “I know how hard it is to be different. Believe me, I do. One day you’re going to find someone, just like I found your mom, and he’s going to see you the way I see you, and he’s going to love you. You don’t need to settle for some jerk that doesn’t appreciate you. Remember you’re beautiful, you’re smart, and you’re unique; never settle.”

Morgan smiled, talking to her father always made her feel better. “I’m going to go to bed now.”

He smiled back. “Good-night Peanut.”

“Good-night Daddy.” She shut down the program and got to her feet. Morgan found the box with the linen and made her bed. Then she changed and crawled in between the sheets. That night she finally had a peaceful sleep.