Title: Bigger Piece of the Pie
Straight fic, one shot
Pairing: Alice Murray/Dalton
Summary: Who was really pulling the strings at SSC?
A spacious office, lean on furniture and decoration, heavy on technology. A slick desk covered in monitors, streaming video news in four languages on some of them, a sat-link to Rios and Salem's radios currently muted on another. Alice Murray sat in her office chair, plush and warm. She stretched the length of her arms, slim yet firm, above her head. A thin tank, tight against her lively chest, silhouetted her shape. She was top heavy with a small round ass, just like she liked it. She had trained enough to keep it that way.
Her skin slightly tanned, yet smooth and unblemished, the tattoos crisscrossing her neck and shoulders tight lines and a sharp black. Hair expertly cut, pixie punk, yet professional. Glossy with just the right amount of bounce. Thanks to good genes, a very expensive physical trainer, dietitian and stylist, she had the looks to sweet talk warlords and dictators, politicians and delegates.
And it didn't cost a penny out of her pocket.
Alice had just gotten off the radio with Rios and Salem, stationed in Russia and freezing their little mercenaries off. Poor babies. Years working together and they never made a real pass at her. Rios, a lovesick fool for a civvie he couldn't ever commit to and marry; Salem, the ever faithful hound dog who lost more money trying to get bar sluts to his place than if he simply paid a hooker.
They had been assigned a mission, disguised as a rescue one, but actually an assassination of a local mob boss with more ambition than is safe in the ex-soviet nation. The pair was good at those, killing the guy in charge as collateral damage, a nice little bonus. Pocket change really. They complemented each other, Rios was good, but honorable, which is a one way ticket to a dead end position. Salem had flexible morals and was decent enough in battle, but he needed guidance and would crack on a solo mission. They strung each other along, balanced out enough to get the dirty work done and not question it. A true army of two, gullible and oblivious, helpful drones with colorful masks and shiny guns.
And cheap. So cheap and naive, she almost felt sorry for them as they risked sound mind and body for less than 2% of the cut. Combined. If they ever found out about how much Clyde made in a day… ha! That crazy bastard might love his job, but he's no sucker and thinks ahead, really far ahead. She couldn't help the glossy smirk at how trusting they are, even with basic business sense. When SSC was established, it could only provide basic gear and weapons. Any contractor that wanted better weaponry had to chip in from his own fee; had to pay to slay. Now a multimillion dollar business, SSC could easily afford such business expenses as effective sniper rifles and heavy guns, and as of this moment wrote it off on its taxes. Stuck in their old ways, they still paid underground weapons dealers for overpriced rocket launchers and last year's tech.
No, this company didn't grow big thanks only to military contracts and sound investments. It came from squeezing its tin soldiers; the commission grew and their fees did too, of course. Simple mathematics, one went up exponentionally, the other geometrically. As long as the hired muscle didn't see how big the pie was getting, they'd never question the size of their own slices.
Yet, here in HQ, the nerve center, Ops, the place the boys called home and she called her throne; where all the deals flowed, the intel gathered and she dispersed her coordinates, vehicular support and spy satellite data; right here she had a bird's eye view of everything. Every dirty deal, every secret bank account, every embezzlement and bribe. Stockwell was a fool for not compartmentalizing when he had the chance, trying to save a measly salary but making her work triple. The secretary, the bookkeeper and the mission coordinator; every role providing all the right clues to lead her straight to the keys of the castle.
She didn't act on her own. Every plan needs a partner, someone to deflect attention away from her if things get a little too hot, to take control of business so she could remain in the shadows. A lovely puppet master unbothered by frivolous meetings and bureaucracy as she weaved her strings along. And he was on his way up now, her senior in age, yet junior in the double-edge world of PMCs. She's played him for years, fostering his ego, assuring him of his indelible right to lead. That once he's in control of SSC, he can redeem himself for his men, give them their rightful due, especially those two. The pair that followed him from the rangers, his most loyal and dear soldiers and the most exploited contractors in the firm. They didn't even get hazardous pay.
Richard Dalton was a hard man, clever and a good judge of character. In men, mostly. She made herself up to be smart, competent, yet trusting. He had a soft spot for that. Camaraderie in the battlefield and off it. The main reason she befriended his pet rangers and gave them special attention on missions. His face has been thinned out by harsh weather, too many deserts and icy winds. Balding and wrinkled, his ambition was what made him passably attractive. And she needed all the stimulation she could get to for his little visit.
The man could function in regular society. Ignore rude kids, drive at designated speed limits, order out and have conversations. He wasn't so ensnared by the military that he needed structure and protocol to run his life. Nonetheless, he couldn't maintain a relationship, whether friend or lover, with anyone that would be considered a soft target. If someone couldn't run a 5K or neutralize an attacker, then they were beneath his notice. She had had basic training, yet requested his help for a little one-on-one sparring to beef up her skills. The right slip of her clothes, the grazing of her skin on his, face flushed in orgasmic reminiscence, enough cues to get him hot and bothered enough to pull the first move. Make him think it was all his idea and initiative.
As he entered the room he spoke of his week, some dignitaries and colonels. More networking and power plays, Stockwell being shoved out of the loop as Dalton became the face of SSC. He undressed as he spoke, neatly. A practiced routine, familiar enough to be dull. She listened absently, her mind glancing at the screens. She had about half-an-hour before Rios and Salem would reach their checkpoint and require her assistance. As she organized her intel for them, she felt calloused hands slip beneath her tank, experienced hands playing with her nipples, which quickly turned into hard little pebbles. She felt it odd that it aroused him to have her ignore him for work; that what he said had no correlation with what he did as he droned on about which countries are planning some civil unrest to pad their military pockets and his palms flattened her breasts against her chest. Multi-tasking and efficiency; there's weirder fetishes. Just something more to deal with as she calculated her steps towards getting the biggest piece of the pie for herself.
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If you would like to read the adult content that follows after this point, I suggest either heading to my fic journal, nanirisfic at lj, or checking out the community army_of_2, also on livejournal. In either one, look for the post titled Fanfic: Bigger Piece of the Pie