by Huss, JA
“I heard rumors while I was gone.”
I pause to think about that for a second, but it doesn’t make much sense. “Rumors? In Ireland? About us?”
“We have a problem. And David is dead.”
“Shit,” I say, raking my fingers though my hair. “What the fuck? When?”
“Two nights ago. Some girl got him and—”
I stop listening at the word ‘girl.’ I picture Christine instead.
“And she was a professional.”
“How do you know?”
“What did I just say? He took a bullet to the head and my guys say it came from the top of a building almost a mile away. A sniper.”
David is not a partner. Not like me. But he’s pretty high up in our little organization. He runs all the out-of-towners. Keeps the trains on track, so to speak.
“A very talented fucking sniper.”
“How do you know it was a girl?”
“We got footage of her.”
Fuck.
“From a gas station CCTV across the street from where she did the hit.” He turns in his chair, swings his laptop around so I can see the screen, and yup. Her face is blurry but sure as fuckin’ shit, that’s Christine. I see her so clear, this grainy image might as well be HD.
The video cuts out and Brasil asks, “Who is she?”
“How the fuck would I know?”
He stares at me. Long and hard. It’s kind of a challenge. A dare to keep this lie going. But I’m an excellent liar and I don’t care how many cars we’ve chopped together, if it comes down to Christine or Brasil, I choose Christine. “Why the fuck are you looking at me that way?” I growl the words out.
“Because you had a girl once, right? That girl you used to talk about long time ago.”
“She’s gone. Been gone since before we got into business, Brasil. You know that already.”
“I hear she’s back.”
“I think you’ve heard wrong.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’d know.”
“Maybe you’re not as important as you think?”
“Maybe you’d better shut the fuck up before you say something I don’t let you take back?”
“Are you threatening me, Danny?”
“Depends,” I say. “Are you accusing me?”
We stare each other down for the better part of ten seconds. Then he opens his desk drawer, takes out a pack of smokes, lights one up, and blows out the hit with the words, “We have a problem.”
I lean back into the chair, prop a leg on my knee, and shove my hands into the deep pockets of my leather jacket to let him know I’ve got all day.
“Someone used our cars to smuggle diamonds.”
And there it is.
The who, the what, the when, the why, the where.
Alec is back. And this time he brought Christine with him.
But I rally. I don’t even miss a beat. “That’s dumb. No one needs to smuggle diamonds these days. No one gives a fuck about where diamonds come from anymore.”
“Not true,” he says. “There was a UN resolution last month about it. Cracking down pretty hard from what I hear.”
“And you know this how?” I ask, but I don’t need to. And he doesn’t answer. Because he saw this coming. Maybe not the fucking hit on David or the actual car robbery, but he knew something was up and he never told me.
I point my finger at him. “Do not fuck with me, Brasil. I might not be the muscle I used to be, but I’ve got a contingency plan for every possible scenario.”
“You better,” he says. “Because we lost something else in that shipment. Something we didn’t own and something we now have to pay back.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Women,” he says.
“What?”
“Russian women. Asian women. All kinds of women.”
“What?”
“We’ve been trafficking people for over two years, Danny. And the fact that this got past you really disturbs me.”
CHAPTER SIX - CHRISTINE
There’s this leftover breeze in the air after Danny leaves. Like the cold rushed in when he opened the door and it decided to stick around afterward.
I sit on the couch for a few minutes trying to wrap my head around things. There’s this hazy fog in there. Like memories trying their best to come back. My hand involuntarily goes to the stitched-up wound and I absently count the stitches again.
One. Two. Three. Four… still seventeen of them.
I know what I do. Which means I kinda know what I did to deserve this. I know my name. I know Danny is Danny and some guy named Alec sits between us. I know I should take this opportunity to leave, but I also know I’m not gonna.
I get up, find the hall closet, grab two towels, and cautiously enter the bedroom because there’s no bathroom out here so that’s where it must be.
The bed is messy. Sheets strewn about like a good night’s sleep is some elusive pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. There are clothes on the floor, T-shirts and jeans all stained with the blood of bikes, and the smell of transmission fluid and brake dust in the air.
I breathe it in, liking it for some reason.
I have an urge to snoop but the urge to wash the days-old blood off me overrides it, so I give in to that and make my way to the bathroom.
It’s surprisingly modern. Like he put a lot of thought into it. Marble floors and tile. Large soaker tub and a separate standing shower.
For a second I debate taking a shower instead. There are four shower heads pointing down at the drain from different locations and a control panel on the outside that looks like it might have magical powers a tub can’t conjure up.
But I really do want to soak. Just slide down under hot water and listen to the hard thrum of power pouring out of the faucet while I think.
I take off my clothes, start the water, and get in before it fills. I like the feeling of buoyancy a tub offers. I like feeling heavy like stone and then, as the water level rises, the feeling of weightlessness. So I lie there, my body pressing down on the cold porcelain, close my eyes, and wait for it.
Gunshots make me sit up, water splashing around my body and spilling over the side of the deep tub.
Shit.
I think I fell asleep.
Were those gunshots real? Or was I dreaming?
I grip the side of the tub—forcing myself not to move—and listen.
There’s nothing. But the feeling… that feeling that I’m in danger… it doesn’t quite fade with the realization that I’m alone, I was dreaming, and no one is shooting.
I reach over and turn the water off, then sink back down into the liquid heat.
Alec.
Christine.
Danny.
This is how you say our names. In this order. We are Alec, and Christine, and Danny. I don’t know why that matters, I just know that’s how it’s done.
I’m in the middle. They surround me.
I know this. I feel this. But I have no memory of it.
There’s a bar of white soap waiting for my fingertips when I reach over to the marble tile insert on the wall. There’s a black bottle of shampoo too. I wash, breathing in the thick steam, and then reluctantly pull the plug and get out before the buoyancy feeling fades and the weight of the world comes back.
The towels are scratchy and for some reason that makes me smile. Is it a memory? Are cheap towels some little quirk of his that feels like home? Some kind of rebellious stand he took once, long ago?
Shit. What the fuck is wrong with me? I don’t know much about who I am, but I have a pretty strong feeling that a towel’s softness factor isn’t something I give two shits about.
I wrap the second towel around my head, swipe my hand across the fogged-up mirror, and stare into unfamiliar eyes.
What happened to you?
There’s this moment when I feel something floating up to the surface the way my body floated up in the tub with the
rising water—the soft thoomp of the bullet leaving the suppressed barrel of the rifle. The recoil of a powerful weapon pulsing through my body. The kill shot exploding his head—what was his name?
It’s on the tip of my tongue when it disappears.
Shit.
I throw the bathroom door open, slamming it against the wall so hard, a picture tilts on the wall revealing a…
Holy fuck. What is that?
I walk over to it, take it off the wall and smile.
A safe.
Not just any safe. A Starling HC900. A 1999 model that everyone said was uncrackable back in the day. It’s still a good safe today. Not like the digital ones lazy people keep. An old steel dial with barely visible black-inked numbers carved into the metal stares back at me as all this comes back.
This safe…
LONG TIME AGO
He sticks a gun into the waistband of my jeans, the cold metal pressing against my lower back. “What’s that for?” I ask, looking up into his bright eyes. They’re the eyes of a privileged boy who has everything and doesn’t even know it. A boy with a family, and a home, and a history that doesn’t involve pretend relationships you gather up and discard every time opportunity knocks and then, sure as shit, slams the door in your face.
He has blood ties and I am jealous of that.
And he’s pretty. Like that blue beetle. And I have an urge to poke him until all the pretty spills out.
But I look at Danny instead. Danny isn’t pretty. He’s strong. And rough. Like a wall. And he’s got the same things inside him that I do. And he won’t let me poke the beetle or this golden boy either. He takes my mind off the ugly inside with just one look.
“Just in case, nunu.” Alec winks at me and some of the sickness inside me dissipates into the air like a misty day at the end of summer.
“OK,” I say, even though the gun is uncomfortable. “But should I use it?”
“If you have to,” he says.
“No,” Danny says at the same time. And then he turns to Alec. “You said this was a done deal. No one was inside. Why the fuck—”
“Just in case, bru. Precautionary tale and all, yeah?”
I like the way he talks. I like the way words come out of his mouth like poetry. Doesn’t even matter what he’s saying, I just get lost in it. I like the pretty inside him. And he’s got enough to share with me. With us. So I don’t care if I have to use the gun to bring him back what he’s sending me inside for.
“Now, you go in there,” Alec continues, “And do it just it just the way I showed you, K?” He places his hand on my cheek and it’s surprisingly warm. “Four turns to the left. Stop on the first number. Then three turns for the second number and—”
“I know,” I huff, irritated. “You told me all that a million times last night.”
“Good,” he says, petting my hair. “Then go. We’ll meet you in the alley with the bikes.”
“Be careful,” Danny says, reaching for my arm.
“Shit,” I say, shrugging him off. “Don’t start, Danny.” I hate it when he treats me like his little sister. We’re not family. Not real family. I’m his best friend, not his stupid sister.
TODAY
The memory comes rushing back like a slap in the face. Makes me recoil and want to fall into it completely at the same time. And it occurs to me—I have these opposing feelings a lot. Even in my unreliable memories.
This safe in his bathroom wall is the same model as the first one I cracked lifetimes ago. Not that I had to crack it that day. I had the combination, I remember that much. It was an inside job. Some friend of the family—I roll my eyes, can’t help it. Some family. Some friend, for that matter.
You don’t steal a seven-carat diamond from your friends and family.
Unless your name is Alec van den Berg.
How did he get that combination? I try to dive back in the flashback. Look for that answer. But it’s not there. It’s all gone.
I tug my towel up, straighten it out and tuck the edge in to keep it tight as I look at the safe.
Could I open this? I didn’t crack that safe that day, but I have a feeling cracking safes is something I do well. Maybe as well as I shoot people.
Funny, haha, Christine, that thing inside me says. You shoot people so well you wake up in strange apartments with a gash on your head you don’t recall getting.
Fuck off, thing. Alec and Danny put the pretty inside me and I don’t need you anymore.
I press my ear to the side of the safe and start turning the dial. If I had the right equipment I’d know what to do, that’s a fact.
But my fingers already know what to do…. four turns to the left, each time briefly stopping on the faintly visible tick mark for the number thirty-three. The dial is already rotating to the right, briefly stopping on the second tick mark. At the end of the last two rotations to the left I smile.
I rotate the lever and the safe silently opens when I pull.
Still got it, Christine.
And dumbass Danny is still using our combination.
None of this is normal. Most friends don’t share combinations. You give them the spare key to your apartment in case you ever get locked out. Or your spare car key in case you go to jail and need someone to pick your car up from the bar for you.
But not us.
I want to think about that for a long time. Get lost in it. But the little stainless-steel box inside the safe steals all the thoughts in my head.
The brushed-metal box with a triangle etched on the top. The brushed-metal box that, when opened, reveals one seven-carat loose diamond sitting on a plush cushion of black velvet.
“Holy shit, he still has it.” I don’t know how, or why, I breathe out those words because the memory of what happened that night I took the gun inside that house has no ending.
But they come out anyway.
And a moment later it all comes back.
This diamond is the very first one I ever paid for in blood.
CHAPTER SEVEN - DANNY
The fight isn’t pretty. It’s not some good-natured rumble between friends or a small hitch in a plan between partners. I have Brasil pinned up against the wall behind his desk, gun pressed into his throat so hard, he’s gasping for breath.
His gun, not mine. Took it right out of the fucking holster he wears under his arm.
Jack, his top security man, has another gun pressed against the back of my head, but I’m growling as I stare into Brasil’s bloodshot eyes, “Underestimate me, Brasil. Do it.”
“Back off,” Brasil chokes out to Jack. “Back. The fuck. Off.”
Jack pulls his gun away and I feel the space he creates between us as he does as he’s told.
I don’t take my eyes off my partner. “What the fuck did you do?”
“Your turn to back off,” Brasil gasps. “Now, Danny. You won’t get out of here if you don’t.”
Yesterday I wouldn’t really care if I walked away from this. Finding out your business partner of almost five years has been trafficking humans behind your back and now you’re responsible for a debt you never signed on the dotted line for is enough to make a guy snap.
And, oh, man, do I ever feel like snapping right now.
But Christine, that little voice in my head says. Christine is back. She’s taking a bath in your apartment right now. If you die here she’ll die there. Sure as fucking shit. They’ll go there, find her, and then all those things I said would happen to her will happen. Torture, rape, death…
Only I’ll be the one responsible, not Alec.
And that kind of weight isn’t something I can die with. I won’t take that burden down to hell with me.
So I grit my teeth, tilt my head, and say, “You know what I find really disturbing, Brasil? The fact that my business partner has not only been lying to me, but doing it with such conviction I didn’t even suspect him capable of such betrayal.”
And then I spit in his face.
He blinks, but that’s it. Just
takes it. And Brasil Lynch might be a lot of things, but he’s not a man who cowers from a well-deserved insult.
I press the gun into his throat even harder, but only so I can grab a moment to look over my shoulder at Jack. I’m still his target, but he’s good at his job and has followed orders. So I back off, step away, Brasil’s own gun still pointed at his face, and say, “I’m out. Whatever the fuck you’ve gotten us into, you’re gonna remove me from it and I’m gonna walk away now.”
Brasil laughs, a good-natured chuckle that even comes with a smile. “Brother—”
I pull the trigger. The bullet smashes through the wall of his apartment, mere inches to the left of his skull, and shards of concrete go flying.
“Do not,” I say, feeling the temperature in the room rise up to boiling, “call me your brother.”
Brasil brings his hands up to chest level, palms out. A small calm-down-dude-it’s-all-good-here gesture meant for both me and Jack, because Brasil’s looking at his muscle when he does it, not me.
“We are not brothers, got it? We’re over. I never signed up for this bullshit.”
“May be the case,” Brasil says. “But you’re in it anyway. What? You think I can just call up the Russians and say, ‘Little problem. We lost your people in the last shipment and oh, by the way, my business partner is out so let me take all the responsibility for this?’ Do you really think they give a shit which one of us costs them money?” He laughs. “You are out.” He’s not laughing now. “Fuck you, Fortnight. No one ever gets to pull a gun on me in my own fucking place. Least of all you, motherfucker. We’re done here. But you will help me find out who did this. And you will take them down. Maybe get that girl to help you, huh? We know she’s alive. We know you probably have her. So now who’s the liar? Now who’s the cheat? Now who’s—”
“Still you, Brasil. I have no idea what you’re going on about, but my girl is gone and has been for a very long time.”
“Nice try.” He chuckles, pulling his shirt down as he grabs his stupid king-sized office throne, spins it around, and takes a seat. “She killed David. I was gonna tell you about the women this week. Give you a nice, clean escape route. Let you walk away rich, fat, and happy and let David take your place. But guess what?” He shrugs, palms up, like this is an actual question.