Honor

“We got an anonymous tip that you received a delivery of cocaine and that you were sitting on it for one of your suppliers. The source sounded credible, so the lieutenant in charge of the drug unit decided a surprise takedown was in order.”

“Why are you here, then?”

Titus grunted and I saw his black-gloved finger twitch where it was resting on the trigger guard of the gun he was holding.

“I’m here because it’s no secret my very pregnant girlfriend works for you, and for some odd reason actually likes you and her job. I told the sergeant in charge of the tactical team that I wanted in just in case there was dope stashed here. I told him I would like nothing more than to lock you up and keep you away from my family.” He glared at me even harder and a tic started working in his cheek. “I also told him that you’re a sadistic bastard and if we did find anything illegal here, you wouldn’t be above using innocent patrons as leverage in order to escape a drug bust.” He snorted. “You’re welcome.”

If he thought I was going to thank him while my club was being ripped apart, he had another thing coming. I lifted my eyebrows at him and gave him a speculative smirk. “Does Reeve know you’re here?”

He grunted his answer, which clearly meant he hadn’t told her that he was coming to raid her boss’s club. I bet that was going to go over really well when he got home from work. Reeve was a spitfire and she also carefully kept one foot on the right side of the law and the other hovering just enough over the edge of the wrong side to keep things interesting. She was an asset to me and my enterprise. She was also not going to like her man messing in my business, but more than that, she wasn’t going to like that he kept her out of the loop because he knew she did have threads of loyalty attached to me even though Titus had tried to snip them time and time again.

“There are no drugs here. I don’t have my hands in that stuff. The guys that move it and sell it answer to people in other countries, and I don’t like the lack of control that gives an operation. I also let Keelyn and Race sink a ridiculous amount of money into this place to get it up and running. I wouldn’t play around with their investment like that. I’m a businessman first and foremost, cop. I don’t do things that endanger my money or my partners.” I could get my hands on any illegal substance I wanted at any time, but that didn’t mean I needed to have my fingers in the honeypot. Drugs were a hard line for me. When I first came to the States I’d dabbled here and there, testing the boundaries of my newly minted freedom. I realized very quickly how easy it would be to find myself tied to another kind of owner and I refused to risk it. I didn’t want my business anywhere near people who so effortlessly corrupted and owned the weak and the desperate. I stayed away from the lure of narcotics, but the people I often found myself dealing with didn’t. In order to keep my finger on the pulse, I had to know who dealt what, who imported what, and how they all managed their business, but I didn’t consider them my colleagues.

“The source said that you keep the stash in a private room in the basement that is only accessible by private elevator.”

The lightbulb went off and I swore in Arabic as I shoved my hands through my hair. “Was the source a woman?”

Titus’s own dark eyebrows shot up until they almost touched the band of the black, knit cap covering his forehead.

“Why?”

I sighed and moved around my desk. I walked past him without saying anything but heard Chuck tell him to follow me.

“I had some problems with a woman and her husband. She didn’t want to play by the rules, so I kicked her out.” I punched the code in for the basement of the building once we were all in the elevator. I shook my head a little. “First I kicked her out of the club, then I kicked her out of the Point. She’s mouthy and unstable. I should’ve known she would pull something like this.”

I was regretting getting soft and letting her have an out. Being a real boy was bad for busniness.

“The basement is the security holding center for anyone that doesn’t want to behave. Sex makes people crazy, makes them do things they would never ordinarily do in a million years.” I leered at him and saw his jaw clench so hard I was surprised his teeth didn’t break. “You know what I’m talking about, cop.”

He didn’t respond to the verbal jab but he did talk into the radio headset he was wearing to let the rest of his team know he was headed to the basement. Someone must’ve barked back that he needed to wait for backup because he coolly replied that he had the situation under control and would report back once the area was cleared.

Once the doors opened to my concrete prison, I saw Titus’s eyes get wide and his irritation grow. He cut me a hard look as we stepped from the elevator into the barren hallway.

“You’re a sociopath. You do know that, right? What kind of person builds their own jail under a nightclub?”

It was my turn not to respond. He did business his way, and I did it mine. I told Chuck to go ahead and let the cop wander through all the empty rooms, and stood back and watched his fruitless search. Even if I’d been inclined to keep a stash of dope on hand, I would never be stupid or simple enough to leave it in a place that would be so easy to find.

Titus was meticulous. He picked through each and every room, turned over tables and chairs, tinkered with light fixtures, and knocked his knuckles along the solid surface of the walls. If there had been drugs in my dungeon, the cop would’ve found them. He was at the last room, finishing up his thorough search, when all of a sudden ice-cold water started to rain down on us from the ceiling. All three of us barked out different swearwords and I looked at Chuck, who was on his phone screaming at his guys.