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“No, why?”
He glanced over his shoulder nervously, then jerked his chin at me. “I got something going down in about an hour. You want in?”
“What’s the payday?”
“Half a mil. I’ll cut you in at ten percent.”
“Half,” I negotiated.
“Man, I did all the leg work. All we have to do is deliver.”
I jerked my door open and started to get in. “Then find someone else.”
“Hey, hold up,” he said, rushing around the front. “Hey,” he chuckled. “We can work something out. I’ll go twenty percent.”
“Half or nothing.”
He was really jumpy, standing in front of me like this job could make or break him. If this really had nothing to do with Baz, then he was working around him, trying to cut in on his territory. That had disaster spelled all over it.
“How about this? I go thirty percent and if things go right, I’ll cut you in as a partner on the next one.”
This could give me the ammunition I needed to get deeper into Baz’s operation. I could work both sides, keeping Baz in the loop under the guise that I’m looking out for his kid, making sure he doesn’t get sent back to prison. I had to play it carefully, making sure he didn’t see me as a rat.
“Thirty-five percent. And as a partner, I want full details on all jobs. You don’t make a move without me,” I demanded. “If I get the feeling you’re making a bad deal, I’m out.”
He grinned, pointing his finger at me like an idiot. “Yeah, man. This is gonna be good.”
“So, where are we going?”
Twenty minutes later, Rico drove us to the location in his car. I fucking hated not having control, but I had to play this smart. He wouldn’t give up the location. In fact, he was too damn quiet about the whole thing. If this didn’t lead to something good, I was going to end up doing jobs for him that wouldn’t lead me to anything useful.
“How do you know these guys?”
We drove through a shady part of town, passing warehouses and buildings that had been boarded up long ago. Nothing was being done to revitalize this part of the city, probably because criminals had overrun it, making it impossible for other businesses to move in.
“Friend of a friend,” Rico answered. “I met a guy before prison. I was working on a deal with him, but it fell through when I got sent away.”
My gaze slid to his curiously. “Is that why everyone kept going after you?”
“That and my old man, but I’m trying to get out from under his boots. Ya know, make a name for myself.”
“What’s the product?”
“Mustard gas.”
What the fuck? I narrowed my eyes at him. He had to be fucking crazy. “Who the fuck are you selling that shit to?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m getting paid, and that’s all that matters.”
“Do you even know what happens when that shit is released? Do you know how to handle it?”
“I’ve read up on it,” he scoffed. “Anyway, this is just a test to see if my guy comes through, which he will. And when he does, we’re moving on to better things. Bigger things.”
Bigger things than mustard gas was a disaster waiting to happen. The problem with guys that made this shit, they were like Rico. They read up on it, but they didn’t realize just how caustic this shit was until they accidentally spilled that shit in whatever homemade lab they were using. I was sure he was trying to piggyback off his old man’s business, but this was so much worse. If this was just a test, that meant there was a small target. What would these guys request next, and what would the target be then? This was a fucking disaster that I couldn’t walk away from. Hundreds—hell, thousands of people could be killed depending on what these buyers were looking for.
“I’m meeting my guy here,” he said, pulling into an abandoned parking lot.
I scanned the area. No cameras, no buildings anywhere close by that were still open. There would be no way to track whoever was producing this shit. He shifted into park and turned to me.
