“Sit,” Mendez ordered, indicating a visitor’s chair, his tone etched with irritation.

Out of the blue, as they often came, a flashback of his Whitney lying in a pool of blood ripped through Blake, and carved out his insides. Mendez might not have pulled the trigger, but he was deep inside the wallet of the man who had. It was all Blake could do not to rip him from behind his desk and beat him senseless. His fingers flexed, curling into his palms, and the twitchy feeling that he used fast cars and fast woman to escape crackled along his nerve endings like raw electricity.

Silently Blake reminded himself that pleasure was always sweeter after being denied, and his revenge over Whitney’s death was the only pleasure that had mattered for over two years. Mendez’s beating was coming and Blake was damn sure going to enjoy the hell out of it.

Blake ambled toward the visitor’s chair and dropped into the leather seat, schooling his features into a bored mask of indifference.

“Thank you for joining me on such short notice,” Mendez offered cordially, like he had a truly cordial bone in his low-life body.

“Money talks and you made it worth my while,” Blake replied, referencing the wad of cash he’d been handed before he’d agreed to take this trip.

“And as long as you’re worth my while, I always will. As for why you are here. Unfortunately, my head of security has failed to address a critical problem I’d asked him to handle. He’s now made an untimely departure, leaving me with the need to hire someone competent to address my problem.”

Blake read between the lines. He was dead. “If he failed you, then I’d say the departure wasn’t untimely at all.”

Mendez gave him a quick incline of his head, approval glinting in his eyes. “Indeed. Nevertheless, I still have my problem and I still need it fixed.”

“I’m contract only. I’m not looking for a staff job.”

“Good, because I’m offering you money for solving a problem, not a full-time job.” He didn’t wait for a reply. “As I’m sure you’re aware, Newport operates several national restaurant chains. One of those chains runs what I’ll call a special inventory distribution and it’s come to my attention that some of those orders have been shorted. I need you to find out who’s behind it and make them go away.”

In other words, someone was skimming drugs and selling them on the side and Mendez wanted Blake to put a stop to it. Worked for him. In fact, it had a limited downside. He simply took down one drug dealer to get to another. “How many locations are involved?”

“The restaurant has two hundred nationally, but the supply chain starts right here in California.”