Duke (28 page)

“
It true you didn’t know how to give a blow job?”

“
Yeah, and my guess is he enjoyed the one he had to teach me to give him a whole helluva lot more than any of the hundreds you’ve probably given him.”

Gen was operating on a guess, but the look in Veronica’s eyes told her she’d hit bullseye.

Veronica’s hand flew out to slap her, but Gen caught her wrist. The other woman was much stronger than Gen had prepared for, though, so she had to go to her knees to avoid the slap even with her hand around the other woman’s wrist. Someone else came forward, grabbed Veronica around the waist, and dragged her back as Duke came storming into the kitchen.

“
You raised a hand towards my woman, Vee?”

“
She disrespected me, Duke.” Gen noted Veronica looked at Duke’s feet when she talked, and now that she knew what to look for, was certain Veronica must be a werewolf, too.

“
You disrespected her first and you know it. Leave the grounds. Brain will let you know if the club votes that you can come back, and how long it’ll be,
if
you’re allowed.”

“
My purse is in the back,” she sounded like she was about to burst into tears.

“
Duke,” Gen said. “It sounds like she’s sorry, maybe she should get another —”

“
No, Gen,” Duke interrupted. “This is club business. Remember what I said about club business and dangerous situations?”

“
Yeah.” She sighed, started to argue, but closed her mouth and went back to washing the dishes someone had used to make the homemade biscuits. Gen paid someone to do this at her house and wasn’t a fan of doing it here.

When Veronica was gone and Duke was back in the clubhouse, one of the other skinny blondes said, “You ain’t just an old lady. You’re more. Not just the gun, but takin’ Duke down? Handlin’ Veronica? You’re right, they have respect for you, and they don’t for us.”

Gen looked at Sheila. Duke had used the term once, too, but they’d gone onto another topic before she’d asked about it. “Old lady? I’m only twenty-nine, not even close to old yet.”

Sheila smiled. “No, it’s a title, a position.”

The skinny blonde looked sad. “Position, yeah. Means you matter. Ain’t just a piece a meat no more.”

Gen turned to the way too thin girl and said, “No woman should ever let themselves be turned into a piece of meat. We all matter. We all have worth, and if we don’t see the value in ourselves, no one else will, either.”

“
Easy for you to say, with all your money and everything handed to you. Not everyone drives fancy cars and wears fancy clothes, gets an education that lets them buy whatever they want.”

Gen took a breath and tried to keep her voice kind and gentle. “I have three sisters and one brother. I never met my father. My grandmother lived with us, to help my mom out. We lived in a tiny three bedroom apartment. My mom and grandmother shared a room, my room had two sets of bunk beds so there was room for all four girls to sleep, and my jerk of a brother had a room all to himself. I remember my mother buying me new clothes exactly four times my entire life, everything else was a hand-me-down from my sisters. From the time I can remember, the school bus dropped me off at my mom’s restaurant after school, and I did my homework, got something to eat, and then washed and dried silverware and rolled it into napkins until it was time for the kids to go home and go to bed. As I got older, I had better jobs — cook for a while, and eventually waitress, but my mom had to wait to put me out in the public so she wouldn’t get in trouble with the child labor people.”

Sheila opened her mouth to speak, but Gen kept going before she had a chance. “I went to a public school, and there was no money for me to go to college. I waitressed to put myself through the Realtor courses, and I took some legal and accounting classes at Chatt State, though not enough for any kind of degree. I also took some photography classes so I could learn to take the best pictures of the land and houses possible, and some negotiating and mediation classes. I spent several years learning what I needed to know to make the jump from residential to commercial, so I’d be ready to take on the big boys when I did. No one handed me anything. I worked my ass off to get where I am.”

Diana seemed to be the woman in charge of the kitchen, and at this she declared, “Breakfast is ready. Enough drama for one morning. Let’s eat!”

* * * *

Two hours later Gen was stretched out in a very comfortable — if incredibly ugly — recliner, with a laptop on her thighs, engrossed in research. She followed the corporations back a ways, realized she’d taken it as far as she could, and called Chance, her guy at Drake. Without thinking about her audience, she told him she’d followed the corporations through a well-constructed labyrinth and come up against a brick wall in Switzerland. “Can I send you what I’ve found, see if you can figure out who actually owns this land? I really need to know who I’m negotiating with before I walk into the room, and I’m willing to pay extra if you can do it now? Pretty please?”

She hit send on her email, knowing he’d be looking for it before he even told her he would. “Yeah, I got it,” he said. “I’ll let you know when I have something.”

“
Well,” Gonzo said as she disconnected, “why didn’t I ever think of that when dealing with a private detective?”

Gen looked up and asked, “What?”

Bash answered for him. “Pretty please? Does that really work for you?”

Rolling her eyes, she grinned and told them, “Just offering extra money can come off high-handed. It’s about respect, right? I’m asking nicely, not ordering him to. If he can run it down in fifteen or twenty minutes he’ll charge me one-fifty, and I’ll pay him two-hundred or maybe even two-fifty. But we all know it isn’t just about the money. Everyone responds better to being asked than to being ordered around.”

“
They’re just picking on you, Beautiful. Ignore them.” Duke was looking through news articles on his tablet and seemed to be pretty engrossed as well.

She started organizing her notes for the meeting, and jumped a little when her phone rang. She’d asked her assistant to hold all calls unless something important came up, so she answered in her most professional voice possible.

“
I just sent you an encrypted file,” Chance said, his voice serious. She noted almost every man in the room looked up, and realized they could hear Chance through the phone. She looked away, determined to ignore them.

“
When you saw me a few weeks ago you made a comment on my outfit, and I made fun of a word you used. That word is the password to decrypt it. This is serious shit, Gen. I’ve already called Tyler and texted Nathan, they’re on the way to my office for a briefing. Not likely dangerous, but it’s a political minefield, and one our people may need to address.”

Gen punched in
carnivalesque
and hoped they both spelled it the same way, and was relieved when the file opened, but then her stomach flip-flopped as she realized the mayor’s wife owned the property the city was trying to buy from a corporation not willing to sell.

She sized the situation up, tapping her nails on the edge of the laptop a half-dozen times before saying, “Okay, Tyler’ll want to know my game plan. Before the meeting starts, I’ll ask their rep how the mayor and his wife are doing, and casually inquire as to how long they’ve been back from Switzerland. I’m guessing he’ll be a lot easier to negotiate with at that point, but if not then I’ll walk out of the meeting without a deal, and then probably jump into the center of the landmine. No game plan for Plan B yet, but I’m sure something will come to me.”

Duke walked to her as she ended the call, and she minimized her window as he looked at the screen. He looked to her and she said, “Remember how I’ve shut up and backed down a couple of times when you told me it was club business?” He nodded and she continued. “Well, this is my business, and I know how to handle it. There’s no physical danger, just professional, and I’m well equipped to handle it.”

“
The mayor owns the property?”

She shook her head.

“
You know,” he reminded her, “if it’s been on that laptop, Brain can pull it back up.”

Gen closed the program she’d been using to remotely access her office computer, pulled the USB out, and motioned for Duke to take the laptop. “Fine, then I won’t need to tell you anything.” She put the jump drive in her jeans pocket, physically handed him the laptop this time, and said, “This calls for an entirely different outfit. I need to go home and start getting ready.”

In truth, she wanted to talk to Tyler away from RTMC ears. He tended to be a little overprotective of everyone in Frisco’s group of friends, and she needed to be sure Tyler didn’t insert himself into the situation.

“
Yeah. I think I’ll follow you home,” Duke drawled, his gaze sharp. “See what kind of
outfit
this type of situation calls for.”

Gen rolled her eyes. “Fine. That lets me wear the boots home, and you can bring them back with you, so they’ll be here if we want to ride.”

She talked to Tyler on the drive home, with Duke on his motorcycle behind her. He’d emailed an app to her, told her to install it, and then use it to call him, insuring it would encrypt their conversation so no one could overhear.

When she had him on the phone via the app, his first words were, “I don’t know that tipping your hand is the way to go.”

She wasn’t entirely certain he was wrong, so she asked, “I’m assuming you have a better idea?”

“
How about calling the mayor’s office now, with a few hours to go before the meeting, and telling him there’s a potential problem with the land he’s been looking at, and suggesting another property that may work better for the city’s needs.”

“
I’m not aware of any problems.”

“
Easy to fix. I’ll get one of the archeologists working on the Moccasin Bend site to draft something and email it to you, so you’ll have it before you’re home.”

Gen laughed. “You’re brilliant. The whole area is riddled with Native American stuff. The city attorneys will run screaming to another plot of land if anyone even mentions an artifact within a quarter mile. Okay, work it up. I actually have another spot already picked, and I’ll get double commission if I sell it, so this works perfectly.”

“
Yes, and gets you out of the quagmire without making a political enemy.”

“
Thanks, Tyler. I’ll give you fifteen percent of my commission on the sale. You’ve more than earned it.”

“
That’s very generous, and I’ll accept, but only because I need to grease a few palms.”

“
Right, and I’m sure I don’t need to say it but I will anyway. No money trail going from me to the archeologist.”

“
Of course.”

“
Crisis averted,” she told Duke as he swung off his bike. “Original outfit will still work, if there’s going to be a meeting, though I’m not sure it’ll happen today. I have some phone calls to make, see what kind of damage and mayhem I can create.”

“
Can’t wait to see what you’ve cooked up, Beautiful. I love the way your mind works.”

He sat on her dainty little sofa in her home office, looking totally out of place, and she ignored him as she talked to several city attorneys, the city media liaison, and finally the mayor himself.

When she pushed way from her desk, still in jeans and motorcycle boots, Duke said, “Our version of mayhem is way different than yours, but I’m not sure which is worse.”

“
Bodily harm will always be worse than financial harm, Duke.”

“
Always? I dunno. I’d rather have a few black eyes and cracked ribs, if the alternative was losing a twelve million dollar deal.”

“
Yeah, well, you heal almost instantly, too.”

“
So, by my reckoning, you just negotiated a deal that’ll give you a sixty thousand dollar commission instead of the thirty-five thousand dollar commission you’d have received if the other plot had worked out?”

“
Yeah, but I’m gonna have to pay out nine thousand in expenses.” She shrugged. “I’m still way better off, and the mayor is hurting. The irony is, I only started digging for the true owner because they got too greedy and something didn’t feel right. If they’d accepted my fourth offer for just under ten mil, which was more than the land was worth, we’d be closing in about forty-five minutes and they’d be free and clear.”

“
Are you going to expose them? Let the media know the mayor bought land on the cheap when he knew the city wanted it, and then jacked the price up?”

She shook her head. “No. Aaron Drake asked me to keep it quiet, said he’ll owe me one for giving it to him to use on his chess board.” She narrowed her eyes. “This means you don’t use it, and none of your men ever speak of it to
anyone
.”

“
No worries.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose. “This mean you’re free the rest of the day?”

She shook her head. “No, I need another hour to go over the details of the new deal and make sure all my people jump into gear so we can close on it in a few days.”

He smiled. “You have people?”

“
Yeah. Appraisers, bank people, tax people, lawyers, closing people, escrow people, not to mention my assistant.” She shook her head, annoyed. “Since this involves a sale to the government, there are more lawyers than normal.”

“
So, there’s like an entire industry of people who make a living off of your sales?”

“
Oh, no. Not just me, they work for other agents, too. I’ve found people who are trustworthy, so I know they’ll take care of my clients and not let a sale fall through because they let the ball drop somewhere. So, I consider them my people, but,” she shrugged, “they’d survive if I stopped sending them business. May not be happy about it, but I’m not their only source of income.”