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Becca searched the faces of Death’s Head. Each and every one of them glared at her, not so much with hatred as contempt. In their eyes, she wasn’t someone to be reckoned with. She was nothing but a pest, a little girl who had foolishly wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time.
It came as a bit of a surprise to her that she wasn’t intimidated by them any longer so much as she was pissed off. She’d been shot at, hit, strangled… had even shot a man. She wasn’t the same person who had flown in from Denver after losing her job.
And who the hell were these guys to doubt her? She’d bought and sold companies worth ten times as much as everything Death’s Head had.
She had to show them who was boss. She had to show them that she was right where she was meant to be, at the center of negotiating a high-stakes deal.
“Okay, fellas, I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Raise your hands. Who here has negotiated a nine figure deal? That’s a hundred million dollars or more, in case you’re as bad at math as I think you are.”
She looked around at their faces. None of them made a move, other than to look at each other blankly.
“Just me?” she said. “Well, then, I guess that makes me the big dick in the room. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“This ain’t some corporation on Wall Street,” Mal said.
“Yeah, no shit,” Becca said. “If it was, you’d all be making a lot more sense and this would go a hell of a lot more easily.”
“I didn’t come here to get insulted,” Victor said.
“I’m not here to insult you, Victor,” Becca said. “That’s the last thing I want. I’m here to help you. Unless you want to keep being played like a fool by Beef Jerky here.”
“Stop calling me that!” Mal said. “Victor, what the hell, man?”
“Easy, Mal,” Victor said. “What are you talking about, lady? Getting played?”
Mal continued to bristle. “Man, don’t listen to…”
“Mal,” Victor said. “Ease down. Let the lady speak.”
Lady. Not bitch, not ho, but lady. That’s progress, at least, Becca thought.
“Let me ask you a question,” she said. “Before Mal’s brother shot up our town and hit that pregnant lady with his car, how many of you wanted a war with Razor’s Edge?”
None of them said anything, which told her volumes. But none of them said anything against the idea, either, which told her that she still had to take them on a bit of a journey yet before they would listen to her.
“You don’t have to say anything out loud,” she said. “Just think about that for a second.”
“None of that matters, because…” Mal began to say.
“Hey, Beef Jerky! Shut it!” Becca said. “My turn to talk!”
“Let her talk, man,” Victor said. “I want to hear this.”
“I get it,” Becca said. “A while back, you thought you had some leverage, to make a hostile takeover into MC territory. Because you had that psycho lizard queen Linda backing you. With a corrupt cop on your side, you thought that you could maybe make a push. But then she was gone, and so was your leverage.”
“So?” Victor said.
“So… why are you still trying the takeover?” Becca said. “With no leverage? That’s a recipe for disaster. I want you guys to think for a second who really stands to gain from this war. You’re down six men. And are any of you making any more money?”
More quiet and blank looks at each other. She could tell that a lot of them were thinking along the same lines as her, even if they didn’t want to say anything in front of the others. Especially not in front of Mal.
“I’ll take that silence as a no,” she said. “And how many of you really think you’re going to make more money, even if you win? Given that the local police are on the MC’s side, not to mention you don’t know the territory at all?”
“I can make it work,” Mal said.
“Mal, man,” Victor said. “Let the lady say her piece. I ain’t going to tell you again.”
Becca thought it was time to make her move. Mal was the problem point, the lynchpin that had to be pulled to make this war thing come to pieces and finally end. It was time to move on him.
