Loose Cannon (American Badass Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  LOOSE CANNON

  Boom No. 2

  of

  AMERICAN BADASS

  by

  DANI STOWE

  DaniStowe.com

  ABA, Spotify Playlist

  ***

  WARNING: This book contains material that may not be suitable for all readers due to its sexual content, graphic imagery, and some violence. It has been formatted to fit mature minds.

  ***

  All rights reserved © 2017 by Dani Stowe. This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

  ***

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author. This e-book may also not be re-sold, transferred, or given to other people without written permission of the author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  ABOUT DANI

  Chapter 1

  This story is told in its entirety by

  Bastion

  Real. Life. Superhero.

  That’s what I think when I think of Senator Gemma Jones. I look up to see the senator has entered the hangar and I can’t believe my eyes.

  I have to agree with Specialist Ransom as he mumbles under his breath, “She’s so fucking hot.”

  The skinny enlisted soldier in my charge straightens his slouching spine; as I look to the rest of my team of subordinate soldiers, all dressed in camo, they all get taller—coming to attention without having been asked.

  Senator Gemma Jones looks like someone straight out of a comic book—brunette with long legs, steel blue eyes, and a busty chest. I’ve seen her on television, but she looks a lot different in person. On TV she has the appearance of a balls-in-your-face politician, but in person, she looks like a genuine superhero. If she had indeed been crafted from a comic book world of crime fighters, she’s not hiding her superhero identity very well. She’s wearing a fitted, cut-at-the-knee, bright red dress complete with a matching slim blazer with shoulder pads that makes her look like she’s about to kick ass.

  The woman exudes power and I can see my soldiers stick out their chests as Senator Jones swiftly glides into the hangar—smoother than a glider plane despite the six-inch red heels. She’s in the company of her bodyguards, all dressed in black suits, who were likely soldiers once...except for the fatty slouchy one who is rubbing me the wrong way. He makes me uneasy as he rolls his eyes at my men. He’s an asshole. Ain’t no way he was once a soldier.

  But these are not government paid suits; they are definitely privately paid. I can tell since they are carrying more weapons than is typically allowed and I have no doubt that most of what they are packing are not government-issued either.

  Gemma Jones has money. It’s what got her into the political arena and what keeps her there. Her family owns one of the largest international shipping companies in the world, among other assets.

  I can’t help but wonder what she has on under that superhero suit that was likely designed by some French designer for thousands of dollars to fit exactly snug on her bodice. I venture to think how much her underwear costs and if it could be lace or satin or cotton under that red dress suit. It wouldn’t matter. I’ve fought with all kinds of fabric—yanking panties to freedom with my teeth. Jeez, I’d love to get into a fight with her panties. I’d love to be her adversary, her villain. Come to think of it, if she is a superhero, she probably has on spandex. I don’t think my pearly whites have had the pleasure of grinding on stretchy spandex just yet. That would be an awesome tug-of-war.

  I call my men to attention as she gets closer. She glides right past us—soldiers lined up in a perfect array, yet she heads straight towards the display of firearms and weapons.

  Senator Jones glances over the weapons and turns to us. Her voice has a sultry, raspy, and somewhat off-worldly sound when she speaks. “Where’s my new guy?” she asks. “Where is the officer that is supposed to give me a demonstration?”

  I step forward. “I’m not an officer, Senator Jones. I’m a First Sergeant. You can call me Sergeant Badass.”

  Senator Jones looks stunned. “Is that a joke?” she asks and her glide turns into a cautious stomp as she moves towards to me.

  “That’s not a joke,” I say proudly, “but if you’re uncomfortable calling me by my last name, you can just call me Sergeant.”

  She examines me for minute with her steel blue eyes under a crinkled forehead that shows she is deep in thought. She looks me up and down—assessing me, as if she needs to be sure I’m not mocking her, as any villain would. I take it she’s not used to having people fucking around with her, which I’m not.

  She makes eye contact with me. It’s a bit peculiar that she makes me feel cautious; I don’t get the jitters easily. It almost feels like she does have superpowers behind those out-of-this world eyes. It feels like she can see right through my green eyes, under my thick skull with short blonde hair, and deep into my soul. I wonder, what does she see as she stares into me? Her eyes soften and her forehead relaxes. I see a smile wanting to play at the corner of her mouth, but it’s obvious she doesn’t want anyone to see her without her stern superhero disguise.

  “Okay, sergeant,” she says, “show me your guns.”

  The relaxed suits chuckle, as do I, and the senator realizes the silliness of the comment she just made and rolls her eyes. I know my soldiers are chuckling too, internally, as they remain standing at attention.

  “At ease,” I tell them and I ask my soldiers to line up behind the table as we rehearsed yesterday to help with the demonstration.

  Today my job is to be more of a salesman than a soldier. Senator Jones is here to assess the firearms as well as the tank we’ve parked in the corner of the hangar. Although the senator is the owner of a billion-dollar company known as World Gem Shipping and Enterprises, she’s not here to secure any contracts. She’s here on behalf of the House Armed Services Committee.

  We all know how Senator Jones, the youngest woman in Congress at thirty-three-years-old, only a few years older than me, feels about weapons. Her father, a former politician himself, died in a hunting accident and her older brother was killed in action as a marine overseas.

  I need to convince the senator that the weapons are safe for transportation, but it’s my understanding the super senator won’t be so easily won over. As I understand it, she doesn’t just know a lot about politics, money, and world commerce, but she knows a lot about weaponry as well.

  I pick up the first rifle at the end of the table when we all hear a loud, “Damn!” holler from inside the hangar. “Is that a tank?! That’s a fucking tank!” the voice exclaims.

  I turn to see it’s the senator’s kid brother, Graham Jack Jones—who just turned eighteen yesterday. We all know the stories about the kid who’s going to inherit billions one day, but is a total fuckup. He’s been kicked o
ut of every school—public and private, and the senator is stuck having to watch over the kid, who should be acting like a man, but is fooling around like an ill-behaved two-year-old. He stumbles into the hangar and the kid looks like he just finished banging his head while getting stoned at a rock concert. He’s dressed in ripped black jeans and a black jacket torn to shreds at the shoulders with black hair gelled stiff to cover half his face. He’s also carrying a dirty gray backpack, which I can only wonder what’s inside.

  I watch Graham wander over to the tank as the senator does, too. I bet she’s embarrassed. I only have one kid under my charge that is the same age as Graham, but he’s most certainly more of man.

  “Holy shit!” cries Graham. “This fucking thing is huge! Look at the cannon sticking out of this thing,” he cries and looks at his sister. “You’re really planning to fuck shit up with this thing, aren’t you, sis?”

  The senator shakes her head and I see the kid climb atop the tank.

  “Get down from there, please,” I say as pleasantly as I possibly can although I already feel a need to choke the kid. I don’t know how my adoptive father managed to never beat my brothers and me for all the shit we did when we were Graham’s age and younger. But I do know what it’s like to get beat. My biological father ingrained that into my earliest memories.

  Instead of coming down, the kid crawls higher onto the tank. He’s not going to hurt or do any damage, but it does piss me off that he’s behaving disrespectfully.

  “Get down, please,” I ask again.

  Senator Jones calls out to her brother in a girlish whine, “Graham, can you please do what the sergeant asks and come down?”

  I can’t believe it. The super senator’s weakness is her own kid brother. She slouches as she speaks to him and her voice is weak. If I were her, I’d be yelling.

  The kid jumps down from the top and trips on his own two feet, landing on his back, and laughs at himself as he rolls on the ground. I’m pissed. My demonstration, which I’ve planned for weeks, has become a circus.

  I turn to one of my soldiers, “Will you ask the senator’s brother if he would like to wait in the office in the next building and escort him there?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” the kid interjects and skips over to us.

  “Graham,” begs the senator, “please behave.”

  The kid laughs and picks up one of the semiautomatic weapons on the table.

  “That is fucking awesome!” he shouts as he grips the gun and holds it upright pointing it at one my soldiers. It’s not loaded, but this kid is getting on my last fucking nerve.

  “Sir, please put the gun down,” says my soldier standing in front of Graham across the table. The soldier reaches for the gun, as does the senator, and all three scuffle with the weapon.

  “Son!” I yell at the top of my lungs, “Put that gun down!”

  The kid gets startled and he turns, but as he does he whacks his sister in the face with the gun.

  We all pause for a minute. My soldier has put both of his hands up. The senator has her face in her palm and the kid starts laughing.

  The senator’s entourage of suits who have been watching step towards us, and the senator puts her hand up and waves it. “I’m fine,” she says, but as she removes her hand from her face, I see blood as red as the skirt suit she’s wearing.

  I’m am fucking fuming. The kid just laughs.

  “That’s it. I’ve had enough,” I say. “Specialist Ransom, you’re in charge,” I order as I push the senator out of the way, pull the gun from the kid, toss the gun to my soldier, then grab the kid by the neck.

  “Ow!” he cries as I lock his arm behind his back and grab his head by his stiff, sticky hair and lead him to the bathroom.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” cries the senator. “Get off of him!” she says as blood continues to drip from her nose.

  I look at the suits. “Stay here, will you? I’m just going to have a chat with Senator Jones’s baby brother.”

  “Chat?” cries the senator and to my surprise, the suits move in to keep her from following us. I’m sure the suits are more than fed up with having to play constant babysitter to an overgrown spoiled brat.

  Both the senator and the kid are wailing at one another as I grip the kid tighter to march him towards the toilets.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” I hear Specialist Ransom assure her. “The sergeant isn’t going to hurt him, but I’m sure your brother will emerge a new man.”

  The senator starts screaming; I guess she thinks I’m going to hurt the kid and no one is standing in my way. I should feel lucky to have the support I do in the hangar. And one day, I’m sure this kid will feel lucky he had it, too.

  I march the kid through the bathroom entrance door, push us both into a stall, and I stick his head in the toilet. There’s not enough water in the bowl to cover his whole head, but his face gets wet and I yank him up quickly.

  “What the hell?!” cries the kid as he struggles to fight me—face wet and trying to pull my hands free of him. “Do you know who the fuck I am?” he asks with his eyes still closed.

  I shove the kid’s face back into the bowl. “I know exactly who you are, Graham Jack Jones,” I say and pull the kid’s head back out. “You’re a spoiled rich brat, a Cracker Jack, with no parents so no one taught you how to be behave.”

  “Fuck you,” the kid whines and I put his face back in the bowl and pull him out again.

  “I didn’t hear you, Cracker Jack, what did you say?” I ask.

  The kid is breathing heavy as he continues to fight my grip on his head. Despite the cold toilet water dripping from the edges of his nappy hair, he’s steaming and red in the face. It reminds me of my youngest brother and when Cracker Jack opens his eyes, which are identical to his sister’s, he makes eye contact with me, clearly unafraid to face a fight or confront his enemy, but I can see in his eyes he knows this is a losing battle.

  The kid is strong like his sister, but he clearly has no direction. It’s too bad; with the strength he has, he would’ve made a good soldier one day.

  I repeat myself. “Did you have something to say or are you ready to do right by the people waiting outside, waiting on you to grow the fuck up? Especially your sister.”

  “Grow up?” repeats the kid with a huff. “You’re not a grown up,” he scorns. “All you soldiers do is take orders and do what you’re told. You’re more of a child than I am! At least I get to be independent—do what I want and when I want. You might think you brought me in here to teach me a lesson, but the only lesson going to be learned here is that you’re nothing more than a little bitch—and my sister’s bitch at that.”

  I want to hit the kid. I want to squish the little shit’s throat between my palms until he crumbles like a cracker. Of course, I can’t do that and shitty toilet water isn’t working on him, so I grab his backpack. He fights with me for it.

  “What do you have in here that’s so important to you?” I ask as I push him with one hand so he’s facing the stall wall and use my other hand to dig through the bag. “Let me guess,” I say. “Whatever is inside seems relatively small and by the look of you, I’m guessing its drugs. Or a sippie cup. Or, most likely, your tiny ball sacks, which you have to carry with you because you don’t know how to keep them attached.”

  “Don’t fucking go in there!” he yells.

  Sure enough, I manage to pull out a plastic bag, of what looks like cocaine, which was resting between a porn magazine and a comic book.

  A comic book. Fuck, now I feel bad. Some people might think I’m a little too old for comic books, but some dreams just stay with you your whole life and being a soldier was the closest I knew I’d ever come to being in one of those comics. If Cracker Jack doesn’t clean up his act, he’ll never have dreams, much less fulfill any of any kind.

  I grab the plastic bag of drugs and toss it in the toilet.

  “Don’t do that!” he screams and I hear the tapping of high heeled shoes enter the
bathroom.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” snaps Senator Jones and she grabs my arm to try to get me off of her brother.

  “Step back, ma’am,” I tell her. “This is between your brother and me.”

  “No!” she cries. “This is between you and me. Get your hands off him right now!”

  I laugh. “Hey Cracker Jack, I’ll make you a deal. If you promise to behave for the rest of the day and not hit anyone or touch my guns, I’ll let you fish the drugs out of the toilet later.” I’m lying of course; I have every intention of flushing that shit down the toilet.

  “Drugs?” asks Senator Jones.

  I cock my head to show her what’s in the toilet and she closes her eyes as she sighs. “Flush it,” she says.

  “No! You can’t!” the kid exclaims. “That’s worth a lot of money! You can’t flush it. Please, you don’t understand!”

  Senator Jones pulls my hand free from her brother and she reaches her foot up to the flush lever and pushes on it.

  “You fucking bitch!” Graham hollers as he tries to go for the drugs spiraling down into the toilet. I hold him back and the three of us watch the bag of cocaine swirl to the bottom of the bowl and into the abyss of sewage.

  The kid starts to cry. He’s actually crying over a bag of coke as his sister walks out.

  “I’m a dead man,” he says. “You have no idea what you just did. What my sister just did.”

  I finally understand why the kid was not afraid of having his face dunked between a porcelain ring where assess sit to shit. “Don’t tell me you’re dealing drugs,” I say. “You’re an heir to a billion-dollar corporation. What the fuck do you need to deal drugs for?”

  “I don’t know,” he whines. “It just kinda...happened. I have a lot of connections. People know this.”

  “How long have you been doing this?” I ask.

  “A year,” he sulks, “and I’ve tried to get out of it, but they threatened to kill my sister. I fucking hate her, but she’s the only family I’ve got left, you know?”