LITMIR.BIZ

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made Don King look like he had a better hairdresser.

      However, expensive, flashy suits and ugly pompadour aside, the reason I hated Benny Bonita was he had worn a wire two years ago in a sting that made it appear as if my father was taking a bribe to have one of his fighters throw a match. But my father wasn’t doing anything of the sort. My father was trying to catch Bonita in his little scheme. It was just Dad’s unfortunate luck that he had a cop named Conrad Spiller on his side—a drunken oaf he played poker with who screwed up the entire matter. And Benny Bonita had the chief of police on his side—a slick son of a bitch named Lawrence Dillard. Which meant Dad got busted and Conrad got a desk assignment prior to early retirement, and I got broke hiring attorneys. It also meant I hated Benny Bonita with every fiber of my being.

      And that evening, about an hour after I tucked Destiny in bed, Benny decided to show up at the ranch. With five bodyguards.

      Perhaps bodyguards isn’t the right term. Donald Trump has bodyguards. Dumb blond pop stars have bodyguards. Benny Bonita had five linebackers who served hard time in prison. At least that’s how they looked. And they didn’t ring the doorbell like the Avon lady. They sped up to the ranch in two black Hummers and almost drove through the front door.

      Deacon, Big Jimmy, Miguel, Terry and Eddie the Geek, another of our trainers who insisted on wearing glasses like Buddy Holly, hence his nickname, were sitting in the den watching a TiVo’d episode of All My Children. Don’t ask. Deacon got all the guys hooked on it years ago. He has a thing for Susan Lucci. Now they all have a thing for Susan Lucci.

      “Good Lord Almighty! What was that?” Deacon jumped up, hearing the Hummers crash into a fence.

      I raced to the front of the house and peered out a window. We had security lights that were activated when someone drove up the driveway, so the front of the house was lit up like the Vegas strip. “It looks like Bonita and several of his choirboys.”

      Deacon, Big Jimmy and the rest of them joined me in the foyer. Big Jimmy was packing a gun of some sort he always wore strapped to his ankle. Deacon opened the front hall closet and pulled out a rifle, and I looked for something big and heavy to beat someone over the head with—should it become necessary. And with Bonita, there was a good chance of that. I settled on a nine iron out of Deacon’s golf bag.

      “Not my lucky nine iron!” he shouted at me. “Are you crazy, girl? Grab the wood club.”

      I traded out the nine iron, and Terry and Miguel adopted fighter stances. Eddie the Geek, all five foot two of him, opened the door cautiously. Benny and his goons strode in like they owned the place.

      “Well, look what the cat dragged in. Six oil-slicked rats.” I sneered at them.

      Bonita turned to face me. He had pockmarked skin and wore his trademark black Ray•Bans so I couldn’t see beady little eyes. “Jack…Jack…still a little girl in a man’s game. Haven’t you learned your lesson yet, like your dear old dad?”

      I raised the golf club and considered just slicing at his knees. I wanted to see him fall to the ground and beg for mercy. Deacon raised his rifle and pointed it right at Bonita’s chest, causing the well-built bodyguards to all draw their weapons out from beneath their suit jackets.

      “Looks like we have an old-fashioned standoff, Bonita. So why don’t you and your boys get lost?” Deacon said.

      “I’ve come for something that’s mine, and I ain’t leavin’ till I get it.”

      “Not a chance,” I snarled. I just wanted him to give me an excuse to club him. At that moment, I had never hated another human being so much in my life. I had visions of Crystal sprawled on my bed.

      Terry Keenan was the voice of reason, coming to stand between Bonita’s thugs and Deacon and me. “Come on, fellas…Jack. Let’s leave the fightin’ for the ring. Everybody put away your weapons.” He stretched out his arms and looked from one to the other, urging calm with his steady blue gaze.

      Slowly, Deacon lowered the rifle. Bonita nodded almost imperceptibly at his guys, and they reholstered their weapons. I lowered the golf club—only slightly.

      Bonita’s voice was gravelly. “Now, look, sweetie, your friend Crystal took something that wasn’t hers to take. And I just want it back.”

      I was completely confused. He obviously hadn’t come looking for Destiny, then. What had Crystal taken? Money? Drugs? I had to keep an advantage over him by pretending I knew what he was talking about.

      “You’ll get your…stuff…back when I have assurance that Destiny will be left alone. I’m not having her raised by Tony Perrone.”

      “You think he wants that brat? This is a lot bigger than your pretty little head can understand. You have no idea who you’re messing with.”

      “In fact, I do. A lying, cheating snake.” I walked closer to Bonita, and raised myself to my full height to stare him in the eyes—or at least in the Ray•Bans. I could smell faint garlic on his breath.

      “I’m only an honest fight promoter.”

      “Spare me your sarcasm.”

      “Look, it’s an ugly business, Jack. And it’s no place for a lady.”

      “You referring to me or Crystal?”

      “Both,” he snarled.

      That’s when I’d had enough. I punched Bonita in his soft belly as hard as I could, twisting my fist upward and making sure I landed in the vicinity of his diaphragm, knocking the breath out of him. Bonita was a fight promoter. And unlike my father and uncle, he really wasn’t a fighter—not a very good one at least, even in his prime. And he was soft. Too many women, too much booze and cigars and good casino buffets. Too much time surrounded by big burly guards who did his dirty work so he didn’t have to do it himself. Just had to give the order.

      Quick as lightning, he reached out a fist and grabbed hold of my hair, pulling me close to him. “Wouldn’t bother me one bit to watch you die. You’re just another Rooney in my way.”

      He released me and shoved me toward my uncle. Deacon wrapped a protective arm around me. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”

      “Yeah.” I glared defiantly at Bonita. “What my uncle is saying is you’ll get yours, Bonita.”

      “Maybe.” He shrugged and signaled to his guys to leave. “But chances are you won’t be around to see it.”

      “Don’t count on it.”

      His bodyguards closed ranks around him, and they headed out the door. “Remember, Jack…” Bonita gave one last glance in my direction. “I want what’s mine.”

      With that he shut the door, leaving me confused—about what he wanted—and worried. It hadn’t gotten past me that Terry Keenan was the one to step between Bonita and me. I wondered whether that was out of concern for me and Deacon or a secret new loyalty to Benny Bonita.

      “Is nothing sacred?” Deacon asked. “Comes to a man’s home in the middle of All My Children, interrupting a man’s private time to relax.” Switching gears, he said, “I wonder what Crystal took.”

      I shook my head. “I don’t know. Deacon, can I have a word with you?”

      He nodded at the rest of them. “You all go and rewind to where we left off. And Eddie, how’s about you reheat some of that jambalaya from supper? I’ll be joining you in a moment.”

      Deacon followed me down the long hallway to the office. Walking in always filled me with a swarming sense of sentiment. I once told myself it felt as if a beehive had taken residence in my belly. While Deacon and I both had boxing memorabilia in the house, the office here at the ranch was where pictures of my life played out in living color—albeit some of that living color including putrid shades of tie-dye overdose in the outfits my father and Deacon wore in the sixties. There were pictures of the two of them as champs. But once I arrived on the scene, there were pictures of

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