by Sweet, Izzy
“Ah.” He smiles and shakes his head. “So how’s the wife?”
I splutter at the term. “Fuck you, asshole. This is all your fucking fault. First you… Then I had to get fucking hexed by John… We’re not married.”
“You will be, and I’m sure your testicular issue can be reversed easily enough,” Lucifer says right as I hear Simon walk into the office behind me.
“His testicles are still intact,” Simon says as he flings my coat off his chair and sets his laptop bag on the small desk he keeps in the office.
I turn my head toward Simon and glare at him in annoyance. “Fuck off. And what? Do you have a bug in here?”
Simon sighs and shakes his head. “It’s the same line I’ve heard you tell Jude when you two were together. It’s a lie. The last body scan we did of you proves that fact. Also, since it’s getting close to the time of your yearly checkup, I’ve set up a reminder to push to your phone calendar.”
“Where the fuck is Jude anyways?” I ask after a minute of watching Simon play with his laptop like it’s his dick. “Dude, Simon, listen man… Does Meredith get jealous that you stroke your laptop so sexually like that?”
“James…” Simon growls at me before he returns to his laptop.
“Seriously, like how did you knock her up? Was it artificial insemination?” I ask and can’t help but chuckle at Simon’s expression. “I thought you were a techno-sexual.”
Pulling a black Smith & Wesson from his under-the-arm holster, Simon doesn’t even turn to face me as he aims the gun at my forehead. “Five million.”
Laughing loudly, I ask, “Five million what?”
Cocking the hammer back on the gun, the pussy explains, “Five million is what I’m offering Matthew as a penance for putting a hole through you.”
“Sorry, I’m—” Johnathan says as he stops in the doorway. “Well fuck.”
Turning my head, I watch as Johnathan pulls his gun from the holster on his hip and aims it at Simon.
“What the hell?” Gabriel says as he shoulders past John and pulls his gun. He aims it at Lucifer and shrugs.
“Will you all stop fucking around?” Andrew asks when he walks in behind Gabriel.
Pulling his gun, he aims it directly at me.
Then, with a smirk, Andrew lowers his gun, aiming it at my dick.
“Dude, what the fuck?” I ask.
Andrew just shrugs at me. “I figured it’s what got us all here in the first place.”
“Well… I can see I joined a sane and totally not out-of-the-ordinary family,” Uriel says as he walks in.
Lucifer laughs loudly then shakes his head at us all. “Children, put the toys away.”
He loves it though, I know it. He may love each and every one of us, but deep down he’s wondering which finger will accidentally pull first.
As the guns are all put back in their places, Uriel looks at me and shakes his head. “What did your dick do this time?”
“I got a vasectomy in Kuwait,” I say with a smirk.
“Figures. You go with Doctor Al Mutairi?” he asks.
I nod. “Yup, best one out there.”
“Simon, see if this simpleton really did get a vasectomy,” Lucifer says with a growl.
Raising my hands, I say, “Anyway, back to this world.”
Raising one pale eyebrow at me, Lucifer sighs and says, “Agreed. For now.”
“Good, now that the bum-fuckery is over with…” Simon sighs loudly as he gives me a pointed look. “We need to discuss the issue with the police department.”
“TO Dickers, Trent Morrison and his father,” I say, ticking the names off my fingers.
I count down three, leaving the middle one up for Simon.
And by god, I swear his thin lips fucking crack the briefest of smiles before he shakes his head. “I have a list of men that were trained under Dickers. Most moved on to different precincts or different departments…”
“How many dropped or quit during or after their time with him?” I ask, interrupting Simon.
Rolling his eyes, Simon taps on his keyboard for a few moments then stares intently at his screen.
“How many of them can be accounted for if they quit or were cut with him as their TO?” Uriel asks and looks over at me.
“That’s a good question. How many went to something different, like becoming a teacher, and how many went on to something less legal?” I ask.
“Give me a few moments,” Simon says as he starts typing rapidly.
“What are you thinking, James?” Lucifer asks, his eyes staring intently at me.
He’s trying to read my mind again, I can feel it. Well, not really read it, but he’s trying to see inside my head. Like it or not, I really am a bastard. Because he’s king, he will never fully trust or believe that I have nothing to gain from his death.
“I want to know how many fuckers went full on criminal. And how many died from unknown causes or suicide. Like you know… shooting themselves five times in the head,” I explain.
“What about the guys who went way off the reservation?” Uriel says to Lucifer.
“Militias, mobs, gangs, and criminal records,” I add.
“You’re thinking that just because they couldn’t hack it as a cop, they didn’t flip to the opposite side of the coin,” John says.
“I’m betting all those dirty little things in the department memos that couldn’t be swept under the rug could easily be ins with the Russians, the Irish, and the Italians,” I say and look over at Simon doing his work.
As if he can sense me staring at him, Simon says, “James and Uriel have hit something, but this kind of information isn’t going to come quick or easy. I’ll have a more detailed picture tomorrow. But, suffice to say, there’s an issue it seems with the men who spoke a little too loudly about Dickers. Deaths, threats, transfers… They’re all there.”
Leaning back in his chair, Lucifer frowns before asking, “What’s our exposure on this?”
Simon looks up from his laptop at that. He looks at every single one of us for a long moment before he sighs loudly.
Reaching up and pinching the bridge of his nose, he closes his eyes, “As of right now? About thirty percent. The biggest problem was Cronin being shot in broad daylight. We were supposed to keep such activities from happening in Garden City. In truth, most of this links back to the kidnappings outside of Johnathan’s bar.”
Jonathan growls loudly. “Hey, it isn’t like I wanted that shit to happen.”
Simon amends himself. “Not that it wouldn’t have happened regardless of him owning it. We were able to keep it out of the press and the official channels. And we got three of the four back. Two are now married to the family.”
Lucifer peers intently at me and I roll my eyes. Then I flip Johnathan the bird when I hear him snicker.
“Yeah, two of them,” I reluctantly agree. “But that new marriage is being put on hold until we’re able to sort some of this shit out.”
“It would look better if we tied you to her sooner rather than later,” Simon says. “At least to those who are watching us. We need to make sure they know we have still have ties to the department.”
“How’s Sommer’s doing? Any chance we can get him on the fast track for a promotion soon?” Andrew asks.
“Yes and no. A promotion is easy. But to replace the Chief?” Lucifer says. “No. We need to bring the Deputy Superintendent or the Superintendent further in line with our goals.”
“I was slowly working on two of those,” Simon says. “With Deputy Chief Morrison, who was Cronin’s supposed friend, moving up to Chief, that gives me more issues than I’d like.”
“Find out what the superintendents need for the police force… Or who they’re fucking,” Lucifer says. “Either way, I want them under our thumbs.”
Nodding his head, Simon starts typing again as he asks, “Uriel, what are the chances you’d be up for some extra work tonight?”
Shrugging his massive shoulders, Uriel smiles. �
��I’m up for anything.”
“Good. I’ll get with you after the meeting. I need you to be with me tonight while I make a visit to Bethlehem. There’s a banking issue I want to deal with,” Simon says.
“Which act will I be performing tonight? The big scary black man or the silent partner?” Uriel asks with a laugh.
“The second one, and bring a baseball bat if you have one,” Simon says with a grin.
Fuck me, why don’t I get to go on that? I love playing baseball!
Oh yeah, that’s right…. I have a wife now.
All the fun times are over.
Things start to wrap up quickly after that and all the guys make their exits, heading off to do whatever they need to do.
When it’s just Simon, Lucifer, and me left in the office, I ask, “Do you have all the files ready for me to check out? Also, I need a new phone for Sophia. I kind of ruined her old one.”
“Walk with me to my car. I’ve got the laptop, a phone, and your new mode of transportation,” Simon says as he stands up.
“Did you get a vasectomy, James?” Lucifer asks quietly and stares me down.
“Look, big brother, I love how you’re showing care for my body and all that, but drop the act. Why do you give a shit if I have swimmers or not?” I ask.
“Because I want to make sure that our bloodline does not end with my children or their children,” he says simply.
I point at Simon. “What about him and Meredith?”
“They’re already having children, so I’m happy.” Lucifer grins at me.
Simon sighs loudly and heads out of the office. “I’ll meet you out there. And if I find out it was you, James, who told Evie to ask me about where babies come from, I’ll fucking skin your cock and eat your heart.”
Don’t react. Don’t react. Don’t react, I repeat inside my head, doing my best not to laugh.
“See you at the car, Simon. Ask John or Gabriel, that’s more their style,” I say while still looking at Lucifer.
The door closes behind us before I ask, “Why?”
“Because, as I said, I want our family’s bloodline to continue long after our bones turn to dust,” Lucifer says.
I’m not buying it, but I’ll drop it for now.
“No vasectomy, although the leg wound I took over there could have been an issue,” I say. “But somehow some world-renowned surgeon just happened to be in Germany the day I arrived for surgery. Kinda odd, huh?”
“Yes, very odd indeed,” Lucifer says with an enigmatic shrug of his right shoulder.
I stand from my chair. “Alright, I’m out of here. I need to get home and take care of my babies and future wife.”
Heading to the door, I stop only when Lucifer calls out to me. “James, did you send Evie to Simon?”
“Fuck yeah, I did,” I say with a small chuckle before I leave the office.
Heading out into the hallway, I can hear Lucifer bellowing with laughter.
It’s not until I reach the front steps that I see I’m not going to have the last laugh of the day.
Standing in front of a shiny red Volvo station wagon, Simon grins at me, showing off his pearly whites. “The Nanny was kind enough to lend you her vehicle for the time being.”
10
Sophia
Disbelief slowly morphs into fear as my eyes scan over the pictures fanned in my hands.
Pictures of me.
Pictures taken candidly, with me completely unsuspecting.
I focus on the picture in the very front. It shows me from the side as I sit at the bar in what looks like a nightclub.
It takes me a minute to figure out where it was taken, but when I do I start to feel sick.
I haven’t been to a club for a few months…
I tried to go back to life as normal after the kidnapping but couldn’t keep up with the pretense. It was too hard to pretend everything was fine and I wasn’t damaged by what had happened.
I wasn’t the same, and I didn’t look at people the same. I was suspicious of everyone.
And after a guy tried to force a spiked drink on me…
Slipping that picture quickly behind the stack of others, I take in the next picture, my eyes working left to right as my anxiety grows by the second.
I’m walking to class with a group of classmates after having lunch uptown. I remember that day vividly because I kept feeling like someone was following me and watching me, but I never caught them.
I felt crazy and paranoid, like I was losing it…
In the next photo, I’m hiding behind a tree. There’s a smile on my lips and laughter in my eyes as I peek around the trunk. I can’t place it at first, then I recall visiting Beth last week. We were outside, playing hide and seek with Charlie.
The picture beside that shows me helping my father work in the front garden of our house. Both of us squatting down in the grass and digging through the dirt.
I stare at this one for a long time, my eyes drinking in my father as my heart aches at the memory. It was one of his rare days off. He’d been so busy with some secret case he was working on, I hadn’t seen him in days.
Swallowing past the tightness in my throat, I shove the picture behind the others and quickly flip through the rest.
Both the remarkable and unremarkable days of my life jump out at me, chronicled in no particular order.
All spanning over a few months.
The few months since I was abducted.
Not a single one appears to be taken before then.
Only a few of them look like they were taken from a distance, with an actual camera. The rest… they look as if they were quickly snapped with a cellphone, as if whoever was taking them didn’t want to get caught in the act.
Was it James?
Has he been following me and spying on me this whole time? Wouldn’t I notice him?
You’d think I would notice him.
Or did someone else take all the pictures? Take them all and give them to him for some unknown reason?
That seems the most likely answer. Otherwise, if James took them, why would he bother printing them?
Calming down a little, I set the stack of pictures to the side then grab the box and pull it to me.
It’s probably all surveillance…
They were watching me… for some unknown reason.
At the very top of the box are more pictures. Handfuls and handfuls of pictures. I sort through the top layer quickly, checking to see if there is anything out of place or especially creepy.
But no, like the other pictures, they were all taken when I was out somewhere in public. All taken when I was completely oblivious.
Classic surveillance.
I convince myself it was probably a private investigator, or one of Lucifer’s other men following me around, and keep sorting through the photos until I find something lodged within the stack.
I almost miss it at first, it’s so small. And it takes some digging to pull it out from under the weight of the pictures, but when I do, I’m only left more confused.
It’s a black elastic… the kind I use when I put my hair up.
It could still be a coincidence though. Practically everyone I know uses elastics like this.
I decide to dig a little deeper to be absolutely sure.
Lifting handfuls of the pictures out of the box, I stumble across another elastic.
No big deal. It’s still not necessarily mine, even if there are a couple of blonde hairs attached to it…
I keep digging.
I’m nearly to the bottom when my fingers poke and wrap around what feels like a small tube.
As I pull it out, the sharp edge of a picture cuts into the side of my hand, leaving a thin paper cut.
Cursing, I bring my hand up to my mouth and try to suck away the pain while I stare at what I pulled out.
It’s a tube of lip balm.
Again, it could totally be a coincidence that it’s the exact brand and flavor I use.
Regardless, a
ball of dread begins to form in the pit of my stomach.
Determined to literally get to the bottom of the box, I decide to pick it up and dump it out. The stacks of pictures I created on the floor topple over as a new tidal wave of pictures crashes into them.
A couple more elastics slide out of the mess followed by a dark piece of cloth and a stack of pictures held together by a rubber band.
Ignoring the dark piece of cloth for now, I pick up the stack of pictures and slip the rubber band off.
The picture on top of the stack is dark, too dark for me to really tell what it is, so I quickly slip it to the back of the stack.
The next picture however causes the ball of dread in the pit of my stomach to sharply tighten.
It’s a picture of me in my bed, sleeping.
There’s a blueish-green tint to the photo, as if it was taken with night vision or something like that. In the picture I’m sprawled on my stomach with the covers twisted around my legs and my sleeping shorts riding up my thighs.
And I have absolutely no clue how someone could have taken the picture. My bedroom is on the second floor of our house.
Were they in the room with me?
My heart leaps at the thought and I examine the photo more closely, searching for an idea of the Peeping Tom’s location.
They could have been in the room with me, but from the angle, it looks more like it was taken outside.
Shaking my head, I set that picture off to the side and move on.
The next picture turns out to be another one of me sleeping. This time my arm is thrown across my face, the covers have been kicked to the floor, and the t-shirt I was sleeping in is pulled up, exposing my panties.
The ball of dread tightens so hard I’m afraid I’m going to be sick.
Again, from the angle, it looks as if the picture was taken through my window.
But how… Why…
Was someone stationed in a neighboring house, spying on me all this time?
I flip through picture after dark picture of me sleeping until I reach the back of the stack and hit even more creepy shit.
Pictures of me at the pool, at the beach, and laying out, tanning in a bikini.
“Fuck!” I shout and toss the stack away.