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"Right," she agreed, wiggling her shoulders, trying to shake it off. "Let's get this over with."
With that, she cut the engine, went around to the backseat, stuffing the cash from the duffel bag and into her purse.
"Ready?" she asked as we stood at the bottom of the driveway that was lined with lit lights even though it was bright as could be out.
"Yep. Let's try to schmooze this guy, though, Liv. Rich guys probably don't take well to being snapped at like your street contacts."
"Fine. Then you do the talking. I will be your little obedient arm-candy," she said, nose scrunching up a bit.
"I don't think of you that way," I told her in a low voice as we walked up. "Try to remember that, no matter what I say in there."
The door was opened by a butler.
A butler.
Like the guy living here was of English royalty instead of a successful, retired corporate attorney.
"Mr. Hill will meet you in the library," he told us, leading us past the grand entrance where - as I had predicted - there had been a crystal chandelier and gold-fucking-plated light switches.
"Can we really call it a library when there are no books here?" Liv asked in a hushed tone when we were left alone in a room that smelled faintly of cigar smoke and leather.
The walls were lined in various hunting pictures, all old, likely worth thousands, and all hideous if you asked me.
But taste, it seemed, was relative.
It was a long couple of minutes of us standing there on his red, tan, and black oriental rug in front of his mahogany executive desk.
"This is that 'I am a rich guy who can keep everyone waiting' move," Liv suggested. And since he knew we were there, he had picked this time himself, I had to agree with her. It was a power play. A show of dominance.
I have what you want.
It was so long a wait that Liv jolted slightly when the door clicked open to reveal the butler for a short second before Mr. Hill himself came walking in.
I had to work to keep my lips from twitching, giving me away. Because something about overcompensating came to mind when we found that Mr. Hill was somewhere in his sixties. And shorter than half the Henchmen kids. Short and slight, appearing fragile almost in his expensive blue suit with his graying hair perfectly coiffed.
"You must be Liv," he said, greeting her first, closing both of his hands over hers and I could see her eyes dancing a bit over the fact that her hands were bigger. I could practically hear a quip from her head into my own about how she wondered if his fingers were long enough to even reach a trigger of the guns he collected. "And you, sir, must be..."
"Roderick," I supplied, shaking his hand, trying to not do so as forcefully as I might normally, not wanting to take away his dominance since his pride seemed to depend on it.
"Right. Well, Liv, Roderick, I hear you are in the market for a Gold Eagle."
"We are."
"Can I ask if it is for another collector, or some street thug to create chaos with?" he asked, walking away from us to move behind his desk, chin lifting to keep eye-contact.
"It's for a collector," I supplied.
"Good. Good. I hate the idea of one of these beauties being used to start some lowlife gang war."
My hip bumped slightly into Liv's, knowing she was struggling not to say something she knew she wasn't supposed to. Something about how the very purpose of guns were to gouge holes in people, not be eye-fucked.
"Of course," I agreed as the man went into his desk with a key, pulling out the gun that had been hard - though not nearly as hard as the other - to track down in the first place.
"Did you bring the money? Cash," he clarified ridiculously. As if any arms dealer in the world would show up with a goddamn personal check.
I motioned to Liv who shot me a hard look, but handed me her purse, holding it open for me so I could fish out the bank-wrapped stacks for him. Liv was paying twice what we would get from our collector for this. Sometimes doing shit in a backhanded way like stealing meant you paid a lot more steeply. Either literally or figuratively.
It was the first time I felt bad about it. Because while this amount of cash wouldn't even put a dent in Reign's spending money, it was likely something Liv was feeling. It likely meant there would be one extra job put onto her schedule in the coming months to make up for the loss.
"Seems to all be there," Mr. Hill - who hadn't given us his first name - said, nodding a bit as he stroked the muzzle of the gun before passing it across the desk toward me, seeming to expect me to do the same with the cash. As though not actually handing anything to each other somehow made this interaction any less illegal. "And you've never been here," he reminded us, making it take real self-control not to roll my eyes.
