Billionaire's Trust (Standalone Book) (Billionaire Bad Boy Romance) (2 page)

CHAPTER
THREE

Dax

"
Sir
, you're going to need to leave your weapon
at the door," Dozer said as I watched on the club's closed circuit
security system. This was the monthly meeting of all Southern California
kingpins, and we had a strict rule about no weapons in the meetings.

"Man, that's
fucked up!" Mario yelled at the camera. He was new to the game, so he'd
have to learn. I watched as Dozer bent his 6'7" frame so that his face was
level with Mario's.

"That might
be true, my friend, but that's the rule," Dozer said as he held out a
plastic box for Mario to deposit his weapon. "You want to argue with
me?"

"Nah, homie,
we cool," Mario said as he dropped his gun in the box and leaned back from
Dozer's intimidating stare. Not many people were foolish enough to try and
tangle with a Samoan man the size of a refrigerator. Dozer smiled, tagged the
box with Mario's information, and then put a lid on it and added it to the
stack of weapons he'd already collected.

"Welcome to
the meeting." Dozer smiled as he turned and allowed Mario to enter the
main floor of the club. "Please help yourself to food and drinks at the
bar. Mr. Malone will be starting the meeting in fifteen minutes."

I smiled at the
nice touch of hospitality that Dozer always added to the proceedings. It wasn't
necessary, but it helped soothe bruised egos and made the meetings feel more
professional.

Five minutes
before we were scheduled to start,
Riza
came rushing
through the door, pushing Dozer out of her way as she tried to head for the
office. He held his ground and held out a box for her weapon. She shot him a
look of immense irritation and muttered something I couldn't hear before she
pulled her pistol out of its holder and dropped it in the box. She quickly
covered the floor and barged into my office without knocking.

"Boss, we
have a major problem," she began.

"You know I'm
about to start this meeting, right?"

"Oh fuck
that, this is major," she said as she began to pace the floor. "
Dax
, Lydia's missing."

"What?"

"Fuckin'
Lydia is missing. She's been gone for three days and no one's said a word until
now," she said as she ran a hand through her long black hair.

"How do you
know she's missing?" I asked. Lydia Banks had been my lawyer for ten
years. I'd found her just after she'd finished a year as a low-level defense
attorney for the state and was disillusioned with the system. We'd met in my
club, had a one-night stand, and the next morning, I'd hired her on the spot.
It turned out to be the best decision I'd ever made. Lydia was the person who
dealt with the police, the courts, and the prison system. They were all hazards
of the trade. She filed the paperwork that kept my hotel and club legitimate
and she got bail for the low-level dealers in the organization. Most of all,
Lydia kept me out of the fray.

"She didn't
show up in court for the bail hearing this morning,"
Riza
said. "I asked around and no one's seen her since she left Dooley's on
Saturday night after closing."

"You tried to
track her down in all the usual places?"

"Of course I
did,"
Riza
said as she turned and planted her
hands on her hips. "How fuckin' stupid do you think I am?"

"Don't get an
attitude with me,
Ri
,"
I warned. "I don't have time for that bullshit today. First, Beck fucks up
and now Lydia disappears, this is just fuckin' great. I have a meeting to
run!"

"What do you
want me to do about it?" she asked.

"Get your ass
out there and find my fucking lawyer!" I yelled.

"You want me
to stay for the meeting?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah,
yeah," I waved her off. "Stay and listen to what's going on. Maybe
you'll get some information on where Lydia is, who the hell knows."

I wasn't pissed at
Riza
and she knew me well enough to know that, but I
was pissed at Lydia. She was a good lawyer, but I knew she had a problem. I'd
known about it for a long time. I'd tried to get her to go to a clinic and dry
out. I even offered to pay for it, but she was hardheaded and refused to
acknowledge that her drinking was starting to affect her work. I'd warned her
about that. It was one thing to fuck up her personal life, but it was an
entirely different thing to fuck up my business, and I wouldn't have it. We had
come to an understanding, but it had been touch and go for the past few months
and
Riza
had had to bail Lydia out on more than one
occasion.

I'd seriously
considered replacing her, but the problem was that I didn't know any other
lawyers who would skirt the boundaries of the law the way she did. Until I
found someone as equally trustworthy, I couldn't afford to cut her loose. Despite
her drinking problem, she was still an incredibly good lawyer who was willing
to work around the clock to get what she wanted.

Besides, she knew
all my secrets.

CHAPTER
FOUR

Brooke

"
Good
morning, Ms. Raines," said the gray-haired
woman at the front desk. "Your messages are on your desk and the memo you
asked me to type up is in a file folder in your inbox."

"Good
morning, Alma," I said with a smile as I set a small, limp potted violet
on her desk. "I found this at the open market over the weekend and
wondered if you could nurse it back to health?"

"I will do my
best, Ms. Raines," she replied as she picked up the pot and gave it a once
over. Her disapproving “tsk, tsk, tsk” let me know that there was definitely
something wrong with the way the plant had been kept, but when she murmured,
"Now, don't you worry, I'll have you back in tiptop shape in no time",
I knew I'd made the right decision.

We had hired Alma
Granger a few weeks after we'd opened the firm. She was the only secretary that
the three of us could agree upon. Roger and
Jordie
had voted for secretaries who resembled Hooters servers and whose nail
appointments and spin classes made them unavailable during business hours. I,
on the other hand, wanted someone who was familiar with the law, could work
with design programs, and could write like a novelist while answering phones
and keeping track of my schedule.

Alma answered our
ad in the
Times
and was the only
candidate all three of us could agree upon. She was in her early sixties and
had run the front office of a small law firm in San Diego for thirty years
before the lawyer (her husband) had dropped dead of a heart attack while
meeting with a client about a murder charge. She'd moved to Los Angeles to be
closer to her grandchildren and wasn't ready to retire quite yet. She ran our
office with an iron fist and idiosyncrasies that ranged from having everything
on her desk placed at a ninety-degree angle to calling the three of us by our
surnames, and while we'd tried to get her to call us by our first names, Alma
was old school and refused to budge.

"Alma, have
you seen Roger or
Jordie
this morning?" I asked
as I walked toward my office.

"Not yet, Ms.
Raines, but I'm anticipating their arrival in just a few minutes."

"Very well.
When they get here, will you please have them stop by my office?"

"Indeed, I
will," she replied, making a note on the pad she kept sitting on the far
right edge of her desk. Alma was nothing if not extremely organized, and she
kept a running list of every single thing that needed to be done on the
notepad, which she tucked into a locked drawer every night before she left
work.

I walked into my
office and stood in the middle of the room contemplating the situation.
Jordie
, Roger, and I had gone to law school together and
then spent two years working as public defenders. By the time we'd hit the
two-year mark, we were all burned out and ready for something that would give
us a chance to actually practice law rather than play games with the justice
system. We were naive, but we had the best of intentions as we set out on our
own.

As a young law
firm, we dealt with a variety of clients, mostly people looking to beat DWIs
and petty crime, and occasionally taking on some contract and tax law cases. We
weren't experienced enough to pick and choose, so we took everything that came
our way and hoped that at some point we'd attract a case that would bring us a
lot of attention – and clients. But we were going on two years in business and
things were still depressingly slow.

We were barely
scraping by, and now we were facing a crisis of funds that would threaten to
shutter the practice if we didn't do something to turn the ship around.

"Morning
Brooke,"
Jordie
said as he stuck his head in the
door and waved at me.

"Hey,
Jordie
!" I called as I got up from my desk and walked
out into the hallway. "Where's Rog?"

"He's on his
way in," he said as he started to go through his mail. "Texted
me
something about getting caught on the 101."

"He was with
a new girl again?" I laughed.

"Yeah, I
don't know what that's about," he said shaking his head. "But then
again, I never have."

"
Jordie
, we need to talk about the firm and how we're going
to make this work past the summer," I said, changing the trajectory of the
conversation.

"I
know," he said. "I've been thinking about it a lot and I think I
might have a solution, but we need to talk about the positives and
negatives."

"Hey
guys," Roger called as he walked past my open door on his way to the
coffee pot. "How's it hanging?"

"Late night,
Rog?" I asked in a knowing tone.

"Hell
yeah," he said. "She was
super hot
, and I
think I'm in love!"

Jordie
and I exchanged a grin and a pair of eye rolls. Roger was in love, on average,
about three times a month. He'd meet a new girl, fall head over heels, and then
before he knew it, she'd dump him and move on to greener pastures. Roger didn't
blame them, but he couldn't see that their initial interest in him was always
as a lawyer with great earning potential. Once they found out the reality of
his situation, they were less enamored.

"We need to
have a sit down," I called after him.

"Okay, but
let me make this quick call," he said as he disappeared into his office.

"We've lost
him again,"
Jordie
sighed.

"Nah, he's
just on the upswing of the female roller coaster," I said. "He'll be
on his way back down in no time."

CHAPTER
FIVE

Dax

"
Welcome
to the monthly meeting, everyone," I said as I
walked into the room and stood at the head of the table. Around the table sat
fifteen members of the Southern California Sales Alliance. We'd agreed upon the
name several years ago when the Feds started cracking down on dealers. The name
added legitimacy to our organization and, more importantly, kept us somewhat
under the radar.

"How's
everyone doing?" I asked as I looked around the table and noted who was
there and who was missing. I made a mental note to tell
Riza
to check out the missing members and their connection to Lydia.

"The first
order of business is the issue of respecting boundaries," I said and the
room erupted in a cacophony of voices all trying to get the first word. I held
up my hand to silence the group and then continued, "Look, I don't care
who is doing what to whom, what I want is for everyone to respect the
boundaries we've drawn and stop trying to sneak over the lines. I know business
is rough, but if we start fighting each other, we're all
gonna
go down hard."

"I'm not
gonna
lie,
Dax
," said
Southside Rudy. "We're hustling to make a stack and sometimes my people
cross over the line, but that's customer service, man. If we respect the
customers, we're all
gonna
win."

"Bullshit,
Rudy," said Reverend. "You're crossing the lines knowing full well
that it starts a skirmish with my people every damn time!"

"Gentlemen,"
I said quietly. "I don't care what the reason is for the crossing of
boundaries, no one is going to do it again. Am I understood?"

"Yeah,"
they all grumbled as they eyed each other suspiciously.

"If I hear of
anyone failing to stay within their own boundaries, I'm
gonna
come down hard," I warned. "I'm not fucking with you. Stay in your
own territory or pay the price."

The room went
silent as the message sunk in. They knew I wasn't kidding, and they also knew
that my definition of consequences was swift and merciless. I'd learned the
hard way from
Papi
to keep a lid on the business or
pay the ultimate price.

We quickly covered
our new business and wrapped up the meeting. I had been watching
Riza
out of the corner of my eye and knew that she had
something to report. I shook hands with everyone and told them they were
welcome to stay and enjoy a night at the club, but we all knew it was just a
courtesy. None of the members of
SoCSA
wanted to be
caught in my club after dark. Still, manners are what separate us from the
animals.

"What's
up?" I asked as I gestured for
Riza
to follow
me.

"I think I've
got a line on what happened to Lydia," she said checking her phone for the
hundredth time. "I got a tip from one of the corner boys over on the west
side. I'm
gonna
go check it out."

"You want to
take Dozer with you?" I asked.

"Nah, better
if I just go in casual and not act like we're ready to start a war," she
grinned.

"You sure you
can handle it?"

"Don't be an
asshole,
Dax
," she said seriously. "Of
course I can handle it. You should know that by now."

"I do, but I
don't like sending you in blind, that's all," I said, studying her
carefully. Something was bothering
Riza
, but until
she decided to tell me what it was, I wasn't going to know a thing. She'd also
grown up with
Papi
, so at times, we were like two
brick walls facing one another.

"I know, I
know," she waved me off with no hard feelings and then turned to head out
to the meet.

"
Riza
," I called. "Be careful."

"I always am,
boss." She smiled. "I always am."