Sonja scoffed. "I don't have to start anywhere! I'm the one with the gun, remember."

She waved it to make her point. But he could see that her hand shook.

"True, you have the gun," he said with a negligent shrug.

She snorted. "Typical behavior from you. You're on the verge of getting a bullet between the eyes, and

you act like you hold all the cards. Well, let me tell you, I hold the cards."

"Fine, you're in charge. But just want to understand why the hell you did it."

"Why I did it?" she practically screeched. "It's easy. Henry was blackmailing my girls-"

"You mean Lionel's girls."

"No, my girls." The worry and anger mixed with a sudden softening of her expression as she looked at

the wounded man. "Lionel's my right-hand man," she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

"And you're the madam?"

"You make it sound so bad."

"Last I heard," he said, taking a step toward her, "selling women's bodies for profit didn't fall into an

altruistic category."

She jerked her gaze back to him, every trace of softness gone. "A woman's got to make a living."

Ben halted. "You've got a job as a hairdresser."

"Which makes a fraction of what I do with my escort service. And then Lionel came up with the brilliant

idea of putting the site on the Internet."

"And that worked."

She sniffed. "Let's just say business has been booming. Or at least it was until we had to start lying low

once you started poking around." She scowled. "First Henry was blackmailing my girls, shaking them

down for a percentage of their fees. Then the next thing I knew, I heard you showed up wanting to

know what happened to Henry. At least you weren't like that jerk. Scaring off customers unless the

girls gave him a cut, hurting them if they didn't."

The words made him reel.

"I had more girls quit on me during that four-week period than ever before. I had to do something about it, just as Lionel said."

"So you shot him because he was in your way."

"No! We just wanted to warn him off. Lionel went with the sole intent of talking to him. Let him know we

weren't going to take his crap anymore. Lionel was just going to scare him. Then the next thing I know,

Henry pulls out a gun and shoots. I mean just shoots," she practically wailed, still in disbelief. "No warning, no discussion. The gun comes out and he fires like a lunatic. I was waiting down the alley, and the minute I heard the shot, I came running." Sonja's voice actually started to tremble, but she held her own gun firmly. "Lionel was on the ground"-she looked at the man now with a wealth of emotion- "and Henry had the gun trained on him. If you had seen the look on that man's face, you would have known he was going to shoot to kill the next time. He wanted to shoot. What choice did I have? I fired a single bullet."

"And you hit him in the back of the head."

"That's right! And I don't regret it," she said boldly, though she didn't look as convinced as she sounded.

"So it wasn't an execution."

"What are you talking about? I didn't execute anyone. I was protecting Lionel."

Ben ran his hand over the back of his neck as if he could relieve the tension. "You dragged Lionel away, then bandaged him up yourself."

"Lionel was lucky. The bullet only grazed his shoulder." She sighed. "Everything was going great until that night you started asking questions, then got fucking shot yourself. Geez, cops were everywhere, asking questions again. All because you were trying to find out about your drug-dealing friend Henry."

He looked at her for a second, only then understanding that she didn't know Henry had been a cop.

"Why not just go to the cops and turn Henry in?" he asked. "How can a drug dealer blackmail you?"

Sonja scoffed. "What am I going to tell them? I've got a guy dipping into my prostitution profits."

"You could have done it anonymously."

"You think I didn't?" Her patience was fading. "I did turn him in. Twice. Both times he disappeared for a few days, but then he was back, mad as hell, wanting even more money. It was like he had connections on the force or something. Probably given them a cut of the profits. Finally things were going to be better. Then you come along."

"That's why you decided that you better find me," he continued.

She shrugged belligerently. "You weren't hard to find. I had an associate follow you once you were discharged from the hospital. Later, I drove by the Meadowlark Drive address to see how I might get into the house, and there was a line down the driveway of men trying out for the show. Bingo, I had my way in. I was smart enough to use the situation to my advantage. Amazing how one little thing can get out of control."

"It doesn't have to be out of control."

She cringed and shook her head. "Sure. If you had just let the Henry thing go. But no, you've been on it like a dog with a bone between its teeth. Though now you've made it easier for me by showing up here. I have a business to save." She glanced over at Lionel, who leaned against the wall, clutching his shoulder. "And I have the man I love to protect. Besides, no one's going to miss you any more than they've missed Henry. What's one or two drug dealers in the scheme of things?"

"Henry wasn't a drug dealer."

Sonja's brow furrowed.

"And neither am I."

Sonja's head jerked back, and the gun wavered. But before she could do anything a gasp shuddered

through the room.

Julia stopped dead in her tracks. "What's going on here?"

Ben and Sonja whirled around. Ben saw Julia instantly, and a fierce need to protect her consumed him. He had walked into this house intent on getting the truth. He wore a wire, and backup was waiting to move in. It would have been easy even if it hadn't ended up being a clean takedown-easy until Julia walked in.

The time for answers was up.

His calm evaporated. But wild bravado wasn't going to save Julia. For weeks he hadn't cared if he was

reckless in his pursuit of answers. But with Julia standing there, innocently caught in the crosshairs, long years of training took over.

Adrenaline cranked through him as his mind kicked into overdrive and he sized up the situation in a

matter of seconds.

"Put the gun down, Sonja," he said, iron in his voice.

Sonja's arm jerked back and forth between Ben and Julia, the gun extended.

"Sonja? What are you doing?" Julia asked, clearly confused.

"Damn you!" Sonja screeched. "You're making me do this!"

Ben saw the moment her finger tightened on the trigger. She was going to shoot, once again feeling the

need to protect Lionel and herself. The same need he felt as horror exploded through his mind.

"No!" he roared.

The word shuddered through the room, and time seemed to stop. In some recess of his mind he saw

the terror that dawned on Julia's face. Like in the replay of that night he had gone into the alleyway, chasing Nando, or all those nights in his dreams, the gun went off, the sound so achingly familiar. But this time he wasn't dreaming. He threw his body at Sonja's like a crazed animal in just that second when her finger curled around the metal trigger. The gunshot reverberated in the small house, and Julia screamed. The force of his weight took Sonja to the ground, her body struggling against him. Every nerve in his body screamed with fury as he pinned her to the carpet, tearing the gun from her fingers just as the front door burst open and the house filled with cops. Ben rolled away, and it was Taggart who pulled Sonja up and handcuffed her. Another officer did the same to Lionel, despite his wounded shoulder. But Ben didn't breathe again until he saw with his own eyes that Julia stood there, stunned but whole, bits of plaster from the ceiling still sprinkling down like snow from where the bullet had hit.

"I'm sorry," Sonja whispered to the man she loved. "I screwed it all up."

Julia still hadn't moved, her face white, until she blinked and tried to find words. She looked from Sonja to Ben, then finally back to Sonja.

"Help me understand," Julia said, her voice a squeak of sound.

Sonja looked at her, tears on her face as Taggart paused before taking her away.

Julia wrinkled her nose. "So you're not really mad that I set you up on a bad date with Ben?"

A moment of startled silence sizzled through the room, then Ben threw back his head and laughed. But

before he could cross the room through the detectives and uniforms to pull her close and never let her

go, her cell phone rang.

Julia appeared to be in shock. Her fingers trembled as she answered without seeming to realize what she was doing. "Hello?" she said.

She listened, then suddenly her shoulders stiffened. "What?"

She listened for another second, then took a staggering step back. "Oh, God, please no."

To: Julia Boudreaux From: pedro@elpasotribune.com Subject: Quote needed Dear Ms. Boudreaux: I had a call from a woman who is in your reality show Turn That Primal Guy into a Sweetie Pie, and she is saying she was used.