A sharp yank of her hair woke Misty Stanton abruptly. The only sound that registered was the click of a gun being cocked in her ear.

"Get up!" a gruff voice demanded.

Misty sat up quickly. She had no choice. Her hair was going with or without her. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Mr. Davis sends his regards. Where’s Benny?"

Misty rubbed her eyes and looked at the man in the dark pinstripe suit standing next to her bed. He was tall and muscular with closely cropped brown hair and a neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard. She knew him from somewhere, if she could just focus. "Derek Richmond!" He was the infamous henchman who did dirty work for the owner of the Las Vegas casino where Misty worked. He’d also been the object of a few heated fantasies, before she’d found out about his exact role at the casino.

"Gold star for you. I repeat, and let me advise you that I hate to repeat myself. Where is Benny Alonso?"

She gazed up at him. "Could you let go of my hair, please? I might think better if you’re not yanking on my brain."

He dropped the strands of long brown hair and leaned down to look in her face. "I could yank that pea-brain out one of your ears and shove it back in the other if I wanted to. You’d better start talking, or things are going to get unpleasant."

Misty reached for her cigarettes on the nightstand and frowned when she remembered she’d quit smoking a month ago. She rubbed the painful spot on her scalp instead. "Things aren’t unpleasant now?" She glanced at the menacing look on Richmond’s face and said quickly, "Okay, okay. I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t much. I saw Benny at work yesterday as he was leaving his shift dealing blackjack. He told me he had a meeting with Mr. Davis, and he’d see me at home later. I got done waitressing at eleven, but he wasn’t here when I got home. I waited up for him a while, and then went to sleep."

"You never heard from him, and he never came home?"

"That’s what I’m telling you."

"He never mentioned coming into a little windfall at the craps table?"

Misty’s eyes widened. "No, he never mentioned it."

He grabbed her by the back of the neck and yanked her to her feet, the barrel of his gun resting directly below her chin. "Why do I not believe you?"

"I don’t know," she mumbled nervously. "I’m telling you the truth."

He glared at her. "So, does your scum-sucking, low-class boyfriend not come home often?" He pressed the gun into her flesh.

"No!" she cried out, fighting back tears. "I mean, yes! He pretty much does whatever he wants." I will not let this ape see me cry! But damn if he wasn’t hurting her. Misty blinked rapidly; tears still threatened as she realized things were likely to get worse.

He scowled at her for another minute then released her.

"What’s going to happen?"

He looked around. "Mr. Davis wants his money. If Benny isn’t going to stand up and face his debt like a man, then we’ll have to take whatever we can get."

"Take his debt like a man?" Misty scoffed. "What, by letting you shoot him in the kneecaps or someplace worse? I don’t think he’s going to do that."

"Then he should never have borrowed money from Mr. Davis. He knew the consequences."

Misty sighed and tried to steady her shaking hands. "Benny has a problem. You know it, Mr. Davis knows it, and I know it. Feel free to search the place," she waved about the tiny two rooms that made up her apartment, "but you won’t find anything of value. If you do, you’re welcome to it."

"Oh, I intend to." Richmond sneered at her. "But I’ve already found one thing of value."

~ Buy now from Silver Publishing