Bullets. Brass casings ejected from the barrel of a gun. Any gun. He couldn’t care less what kind. The copper metallic smell. Their hefty weight, feeling the grains packed tight inside each brass case. One touch and your fingers smelled like metal. Each time he fired a gun, put one round at a time into the chamber, that smell resonated through him. Like a tennis pro smelling a fresh can of tennis balls, Bret found himself at home with bullets.

Bret’s Mom loved guns. Any gun, any caliber. The idea of shooting targets? I suppose you could say she was obsessed. She kept the guns out of sight, out of mind of everyone but her staff. Born into a wealthy family, Gina Danica protected her privacy. Three people knew about her gun collection: her personal assistant, Bradly; her housekeeper, Juanita; and her son, Bret. As a young boy, Bret learned how the wealthy keep their money, investing in stocks and bonds. Gina taught him to buy items that would appreciate in value. Disposable items were purchased to save money, but only if more expensive items were unavailable.

She dragged the boy to her private, secluded gun range. The trip took less than twenty minutes for the two of them. Only the helicopter pilot knew its location, but not even he knew what the building held. Gina let Bret play with the brass bullets. He often clinked them together, mixing up the various sizes of ammunition. Mom didn’t care. She had a personal assistant to sort them. It wasn’t the worst job Bradly did for her. The sound of metal on metal and the coppery-metallic smell on his fingers lingered in his memories.

He loved those years of his life. Before his Mom remarried. His stepfather took away all the ‘special time’ he and Mom shared. Bret and Gina were never as close as they were before her marriage to Stephen.

Bret never cried at his stepfather’s funeral, but Mom was a wreck. Gina’s grief overwhelmed her. She blamed herself for not taking better care of her husband. She blamed the doctors. She blamed the lawyers working with her husband to secure rights to Russian-controlled oil fields. Gina knew they were pushing him harder than he needed to work. His personal physician told Gina, only because he had permission to discuss his care with her, that Stephen needed to lower his stress levels unless he wanted to die of heart failure. Gina tried to ensure his compliance with the diet and exercise routines. She took time from her schedule to exercise with him whenever he wanted, which was rare.

The Russians expressed their deepest condolences to the family and Gina. Thankfully for the Danica family and the Russians, the deal was completed three days before Stephen died. Stephen and his lawyers were building a second deal with the Russians for weapons. In the United States, these weapons were illegal, but not in other countries. Stephen was working on keeping control of the deal while keeping Danica’s name off any documents because Gina insisted he take her last name when they married. Between the Russians and the Chadian Arabs, whose Muslim roots didn’t coalesce with the Asian Russians, Stephen worked to keep the peace between both sides. Tensions were high, but Stephen’s heart couldn’t take any more stress and gave up. The weapons deal remained in limbo for years. It wasn’t until Bret took over the company, a move that his Mom didn’t live long enough to see, that the Russians would finally close the door on the deal, moving millions of dollars of Cold War weapons to Chad.