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“You’re skimming off the top.” Zane lowered his arms then shifted his stance again, ready for a strike to come.
“I’m collecting insurance.” Elm spread his hands and took a step toward Zane.
“Stay right there.” Zane lifted his fists. If he had to, he’d knock Elm’s head off.
“Whoa, whoa! I’m not looking for a fight, just a compromise.” Elm held his hands up. “A deal between two gentlemen.”
“I’m not interested in deals.” Zane slid to the side of the car, trying to figure out the best angle to take Elm down.
“Oh, ho! You’re not interested in money?” Elm shook his head. “Hear me out, son. I can make you a millionaire.” Elm hit another button for the floor just under the Security Deck. “Let’s have a drink, and I’ll answer your questions.” The elevator lurched and Elm frowned at the stop button like it was misbehaving.
“I told you that I’m not interested.” He dove for Elm’s waist, but his hands slipped along his skin because of the tanning oil, and he crashed headfirst into his gut. They both barreled into the side of the car.
Elm managed to get in a weak uppercut to Zane’s jaw, enough to snap his head back with a crunch.
Zane shook it off, then moved to strike again, but Elm cocked him in the temple with his elbow then in the gut with his knee. Zane dropped like a bag of rocks. Black spots spiraled across his vision. He curled in on himself, gasping for breath from a hit to the solar plexus. His diaphragm spasmed as he tried to suck in more air.
“Now, son, it didn’t need to come to that.” Elm got to his knees, huffing and puffing his way to his feet. “I’m an opportunity man.” He brushed dirt from his clothes while Zane desperately tried to clear his head and fill his lungs. “When Bill first brought me on this kink cruise, I saw an opportunity to clean some money.”
Laundering, just as Zane had suspected.
“My people collected a fee that maybe cut into the cruise line’s profits.” Elm shrugged. “But what did I care? As long as my money was coming in clean and whole? Let them take what they thought was fair. The kink cruise industry is too niche to keep afloat anyway, and Bill was planning a hostile takeover, so we’d scrap the ships in the end and cover up my dirty deeds.” He wiped his hand over his brow. “Then Bill started to invest money on the sly.” He brushed his fingers through his hair. “His own money!” Elm hit the stop button and the elevator began to climb again. “Well, I couldn’t let my friend lose his own money on a failing cruise line, now could I?”
Zane pushed himself to his knees, finally able to get air into his lungs but Elm was on him with a quick knee strike to the side of the face that sent him reeling back so his head cracked against the metal handrail. It was a million-dollar hit, striking him in exactly the same place as his last head injury. He not only saw stars, but he saw an entire black hole spinning to the point of nausea.
“I suggest you stay down, boy.” Elm kicked him in the ribs—not hard enough to crack any but hard enough to put Zane on his back. “Then I found out that Bill wanted to buy the company! Buy it to revitalize it! What the hell? I was sure the man had lost his mind. This company is ripe for a takeover and dismantling. A floating fortune in scrap metal.”
Zane’s brain was scrambled. Elm’s words echoed too loud then too soft in his head. A thousand bees buzzed in his ears.
Elm reached down and scooped Zane up under the arm like he weighed nothing at all, forcing him to his unsteady feet. “But Bill’s been my friend since we were kids, so what’s a guy supposed to do?”
The doors slid open. Zane tried to straighten his spine, but his gut screamed from Elm’s sucker punch and his head spun like the earth was rotating off its axis.
“I had to tie up some lose ends here. Let my people know that the game is over.” Elm heaved Zane over the threshold and started down the hall. “But Frankie had gotten greedy.” He slipped his key card out of his pocket. “So, I had to take care of that.”
Zane’s head stopped twirling long enough for him to realize what floor they were on.
“Poison is women’s work. Not my style but definitely less to clean up.” Elm pushed the door open. “Just bad luck your girl stumbled on his body in her room. That dumbass Ben panicked or some shit and hauled Frankie’s body in there while he figured out what to do with him. Stuck that greedy bastard in the freezer for safe keeping, which wasn’t the worst idea in the world.”
He shoved Zane into the room then let the door close behind them. Zane crumbled to the floor, his head blazing as if Elm had nailed him with a spike rather than a handrail.
“Darlin’, you in here?” Elm used his shirt to wipe sweat from his brow.
The restroom door swung open. Sherri stood there with a toothbrush in her hand and her mouth full of foam. “Daddy! What are you doing in here with him?”
