Fierce Defender: Book 2, Hard to Handle trilogy Read Free

mother had told him to be nice, and he hated to piss her off even more.
    Blood and business were separate entities to Vincent’s father. He had insisted on Vincent using his mother’s maiden name, Heston, when he went into business for himself. That way, if he failed, maybe people wouldn’t know that he was Gil’s son. People knew anyways; Vincent had made sure of that. The old bastard was cheap and selfish. The least he could give him was the benefit of his reputation. Vincent was sure that, had it not been for the urgings of his mother, Gil wouldn’t be here today.
    “My informant with the DEA botched that job. We had the rat and his sister and her rich boyfriend. If the DEA swine had been doing his job, we would have known they were coming and changed our plan. I will not forget any of their transgressions.”
    Gil looked at his watch, as if he weren’t listening. Vincent was finding it harder and harder to keep his anger in check.
    “What is it you want from me, Vincent?” Gil asked him.
    “I need help, Papa. My business is in shambles.”
    “I’m retired, Vincent. What kind of help do you expect to get from me?”
    “I need money, Papa. You know the things that were taken by the DEA were not solely mine. I have a partner, and my partner is not happy. Bad things happen when my partner is not happy.”
    Gil shrugged nonchalantly. “That’s the perils of doing business,” he said.
    Vincent had entertained fantasies of strangling the old man with his bare hands since he was about fourteen. He used to lay awake and picture it at night, squeezing until his neck snapped in his hands. The urges came and went, but they had never been stronger than they were now.
    “One of the perils of our business… as you well know… is ending up with a bullet in your head, if they don’t fucking cut it off first. I don’t think Mama would be happy to have to attend the funeral of another son, especially if your refusal to help ended in his death… again.”
    Vincent hated using his brother’s death to gain leverage over his father. It had nearly killed his mother when his brother had been found with his throat slit and on their doorstep, a clear threat to his father. Luckily, his mother was a strong woman… much stronger than Gil had ever given her credit for. Vincent had loved his older brother and looked up to him, but at this point, he was desperate to use whatever he had to in order to get Gil to listen.
    Gil gave his son the look of the devil and said, “Your mother forgave me for Alberto’s death. She finally accepted that it wasn’t my fault.”
    Vincent smiled inwardly. He knew how to work his father. The key had always been, and would always be, his mother. He shrugged and said in a nonchalant tone, “Then perhaps she’ll forgive you for another son gone.”
    ******
    Outside Corpus Christi, Texas
    Late Saturday Afternoon
     
    “So, Barry. Tell me what’s new on the cocaine front these days.” Sitting behind the tinted windows of his luxury SUV, a perk of working for the Drug Enforcement Administration, Grayson Alexander took a bite of the sandwich the boy had brought him from the deli. “Damn, they didn’t put any mustard on this,” he said.
    “You white folk and your mustard,” Barry muttered with a roll of his eyes. Gray wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but before he could ask, Barry launched into an answer to his first question. “Man, there ain’t nothin’ going on right now ‘cept Boss Man is so pissed, everybody’s afraid of what he’s gonna do next.”
    Gray already knew that. It had been deathly quiet since the takedown of the San Antonio operation. It had given Gray and the other agents in the small field office some much needed time to attend to other cases that had been neglected while they chased down Vincent Heston’s crew. He was looking for information on the “rat” that Barry had given him a heads-up about, but he was dancing around it, fishing for all that he could get