“Well, coffee…not all caffeine,” I correct, snorting.
“I think you’re saying you love coffee more than my pussy.”
“Hardly. But I can’t ask you to give up…” I can’t even fucking say—dick. “So, I’m giving up something I love.”
“Better watch it, boy. I’m gonna give you up.”
“Lies,” I hiss, lighting a smoke. “You can’t give me up. You’re too addicted to my charms.”
“Hmph, maybe your snake charmer,” she murmurs and moans. “Oh…”
Staying quiet, I listen to the sounds of her pleasure for a minute. “… What the hell are you doing?”
“Eating Italian cream cake,” she announces, giggling. “Naked.”
“You’re so fucking mean.” As much as I want to enjoy a round of phone sex, I think we both know it can’t compare to the real thing. “I’m going to have to go.”
“I know,” she says, clinking what sounded like a fork against the plate. “I love you. Be safe in there, okay? I’ll see you soon.”
“Soon in three years,” I excuse, gripping the bridge of my nose as tears spill over my cheeks. My fists clench in agony. “God, I fucking hate this.”
“Just love me forever, Sal…”
“Like there was ever another choice,” I whisper, forcing back the fear. “Always, Angel.”
“Bye.”
“Don’t,” I warn, trying to stop her from leaving. Clicking the button and bursting into tears, I bellow, “Fuck!”
I can’t hold back any longer as I erupt into a violent madman. With an echoing roar, I hop up and beat the shit out of the cement block wall. This is the second time I’ve fought a wall in seven days. My knuckles bust open and bleed as Deacon walks around the divider. He grabs my arm.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” he calmly persuades. “Calm down.”
“… What the fuck did we do?” I ask, crumpling into his arms. Slobber and snot drip over us. “What the fuck did we do, Cruz?”
“We saved both of your lives,” he reminds with his arms wrapped tight around me. “That is what we did. We kept both of you breathing a little bit longer. We bought time. And God only knows who else you saved.”
“… How am I going to get through this?” I’m bawling and struggling to hold onto the life rope, but it just keeps slipping. I’m going to fall. I’m going to lose. “How?”
“Look at me,” he commands with his hands on my cheeks. “Look at me, Raniero! You’re doing this because you don’t have a choice. You’re a fucking monster when you want to be, Snookums,” he teases as I smile through the misery. “Remember that. And if it fails, you remember the goddamned bayou. That is what you do. Remember who the fuck you are, Sir.”
Hugging Cruz, I whisper, “Reach out to Kary Vega. His number is in my phone. And get the fucking Ducati ready.”
“Absolutely.”
8
One-Way Ticket
With my hands mangled, I earn a one-way ticket to the infirmary. This was never part of the plan. The large bandages prohibit any movement. And to pour salt into my wounded ego, I’m restrained by several large leather bands on my arms.
I find great comfort in the tethers.
I’m not safe for myself or anyone. With a drip and a pleasant cocktail of anti-psychotics, I enjoy Dr. Gigi Swank’s care. Gigi is relatively young with zero bedside manner, but the middle-aged nurse, Matilda, boasts a dream-worthy rack.
Somehow, it balances out.
Deputy Martinez shows up late one night to see me. I’m alone in the infirmary but under surveillance by Matilda and a guard. “You know, we’ll get you out of here soon.”
“I’m aware,” I slur out as he sits on the edge of the bed.
“I hate the idea of putting in you in general, but we aren’t exactly sure what to do with you. It’s not like we have a lot of your type coming through here.”
He doesn’t have to explain. I’m a black-ops agent under the guise of a killer. After all, I’m Sal Raniero, but Martinez doesn’t need to know the full extent of my operation.
I’m in jail for two reasons—my boss—Kary Vega, and an escape from my tyrannical father.
Prison is a working sabbatical.
Two birds. One Sal.
Technically, Kary Vega isn’t my boss but a liaison between Sibyl and The Feds. He is the closest person to a boss that I have. My checks are cut through Sibyl, but the payments come from the source.
I’m nothing more than a contractor.
Sometimes, it’s hit for hire. Sometimes, it’s working the trafficking cases I love. I love it because I’m good at it and every arrest is a pinch in my father’s network. I’m not the good son he’s proud of, but the lethal thorn pricking holes in his world from both angles. I’m making the slow leaks turn into rivers. The Unholy are set to compete against him via our associations, but at the same time, I’ll take down the porn ring Cesario is funding.
I’m the motherfucking nightmare of a son.
Aren’t you so proud of me, Dad?
Look what I did!
For some time, Vega and I believed the cases were interconnected—Canary, Tommy Guerra, Eric Monroe, Hennessey Bindel’s parents—Frederick and Agnes Bindel, Diamond, Bertrand, and many others. Undoubtedly, Vega would believe – if I could talk to him – we could add Lydia Kettles to the list.
The problem is lacing the cases together.
What are the common elements?
For that, there is one man who knows, or so we theorized, and he just so happens to be sitting in this prison. His name is Sherman “Violet” Hendrix. And if you’ve been paying attention for a while, his son is Halton Hendrix, who worked for the notorious drug dealer, Pharm.
Both Cas and Bertie had connections back to Pharm, and we tried for months to locate him. The trouble with finding Pharm was he stayed on the move, like the cross-country taco truck of drug dealers. He had a small team that went with him, but he abandoned his regional area of New Orleans soon after Kaci’s death.
There again—is this pure coincidence or is something greater at work?
I don’t know, but I aim to find out.
Halton Hendrix disappeared into the swamplands from Louisiana to Florida, traveling like a gypsy in the night. Squatting in houses and staying low, Halton has proved impossible to attain. One of the contractors, Randy Bianchi, has spent years hunting Hendrix.
By pure accident, I met Hendrix once. The first time I hit rock bottom. I didn’t know how important he was at the time.
I was slightly preoccupied with other good things.
The curious thing about ol’ Violet is he was a highly respected Sibyl agent until the murder of Hennessey Bindel’s parents, just like David “Marshall” Hope. Both Marshall and Violet virtually vanished because something went very wrong that night in a Swiss Chateau when Henney was fourteen.
For reasons no one seems to have an answer to, Violet has been locked up for over a decade. There are no records to indicate his presence here, and the only reason we even have a clue is that Juan Neves, Kaci’s adoptive father, offered a hint as to his whereabouts. We did some quiet research with Cinco members on the inside. And sure enough, we have firsthand claims of inmates interacting with him.
Was he a fucking ghost? Undercover? Using another identity?
No one fucking knows, but what we do know is—the good father remains on the inside, and the bad son stays on the outside. How this makes any sense is beyond our comprehension, so Vega offered to let me come in eighteen months ago.
Shortly after his suggestion, I was attacked in the Juliet parking lot and almost killed—shot in a botched assassination attempt. We back burnered the idea of finding Violet for a year, but Lydia’s death presented the perfect excuse to get my ass arrested and out of the line of my father’s fire. So, I’m hanging out in the chink with Cinco and Lotus pledging to protect my crazy ass while I try and contact Violet.
If we pull Sherman “Violet” Hendrix out for interrogation, Kary and I have
no guarantees someone with the Sibyl society or another organization won’t try to eliminate him quick. We also have zero idea who put his ass in the slammer for safekeeping. Maybe he did it himself. Fuck, for all I know, maybe Chance Ballister did it, but someone put Violet in prison for a reason.
I understand how irrational our plan seems, but we have one missing variable. And that shit drives my head to OCD-levels. We don’t know who to trust.
Kary Vega trusts me; I trust him.
But someone is hiding something.
Aside from the two of us, most of my colleagues do not know the truth behind my incarceration. Not Jaid. Not Dom. Not even Georgia.
Is it risky?
Fuck yeah.
Vega put the son of a mob boss behind bars. He can toss the key and change the locks, but my instincts don’t believe he will do that. My gut believes he wants answers to the Bindel murders as much as I do.
As much as Kaci did.
The thing about Kaci was she laid out a map—a terrain of where to go and how to handle situations—in boxes full of three-ring binders. I crossed over the outside edges of that map into unknown territory. Kaci never got this far or managed to get this deep and that scared me more than anything. I have no safety net, harness securing me, or get out of jail free card.
Finally, at twenty-five, I’m charting my course without her training wheels. And frankly, I’m fucking terrified, but with all her knowledge, there were things she didn’t know. Like counteractions. Like vengeance kills. Like other player’s motivations. Like Lydia Kettles death. Kaci didn’t know about that any more than she knew Iris would have a miscarriage.
But did she?
Think about it. Iris worked for Gennaro, who was involved in The Arrangement of The Four Horsemen. They were pissed the others didn’t agree to the treaty. That didn’t mean someone—somewhere—didn’t cause the miscarriage.
That shit keeps me up at night.
I hypothesize and work the problems until I pass out. I can shut it all down with enough whiskey or weed or a girl on my dick, but I don’t have any of that here. It’s just me and my brain in here.
Scary, I know.
The Bindel murders are important because they had intel on the entire grid of the criminal underground. Their daughter, Hennessey Bindel, otherwise known as the elusive fabled white doe Yenneh, took their boxes of paperwork and transferred the intel to USB drives before hiding them all over the fucking world. Henney maintained the original papers were burned after being scanned in and refused to retrieve her secret gems.
How does a fourteen-year-old girl do this?
After getting to know my wife, Jaid, and even Iris, I don’t doubt it is possible. They are well-trained women set on maintaining their cover above all else. Two people know what the fuck I’m actually doing in the slammer.
Iris and Cruz.
Her job is to gather up the USB drives over the next three years. She will play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse while pretending to attend all three schools. Hopefully, she is better than anyone else at hunting for those golden Easter eggs.
Deacon will offer sanctuary for Iris’ mind and keep her on the move as he notifies of her of suspicious outliers attempting to outsmart our efforts. His traversing the globe years ago renders a list of safehouses a mile long. Anywhere Iris needs to go, and Deacon has a spot.
And before you ask why I chose Deacon out of The Unholy, I’ll tell you it had absolutely nothing to do with him and everything to do with his mother.
Clinging to my body, Iris asked, “You want me to what?”
“We have to try. If we don’t, then we might as well give up now.”
“This is like finding the needle in the haystack” she declared, holding up the blank USB drive as I rocked inside of her slowly. She sighed and tossed it on the nightstand. “How many are there?”
“Forty-six and two passwords for each, but I can’t guarantee someone didn’t plant fakes.”
With her fingers spread over my chest, she asked, “How do you know this?”
Nuzzling her neck, I whispered, “Henney told me.”
“… And you believe her?”
“I don’t have much choice,” I said, thrusting in deeper. “Can you handle it?”
Her innocent eyes blinked to me. “I can handle it, but how will I know where they are?”
“I’ve got a list of locations and Cruz will be there to hold your hand throughout the entire journey.”
“And what happens if I find them early?” she asked, digging her fingers into my ass. “Do I come home?”
I breathed, “Yes, but do it gently. Send a text message—Dandelion—to my personal line.”
“And if I screw your best friend?”
“You won’t be the only one.”
In my hyper-vigilant paranoid state, I start doubting—everyone. Ignore the fact I don’t trust a single fucking blood relative because now, I don’t even trust the family I built, except Iris and Deacon.
Jail seemed a feasible option where trust no one was the motto.
Vega long believed we had a rat—or a pack of rats—amongst the Sibyl society. We might have been a secret government agency, but it didn’t negate the fact every single one of us had a badge, a Sibyl issued weapon, and a solemn vow to do the work we set out to do. If someone was fucking with our reputation, Kary Vega and I agreed to use all means necessary. I hate to think about what that could mean.
Would I have to off someone I cared about?
Would I have to put a bullet in a girl I loved?
I don’t know, and therein, lies the agony. In my heart, I know it is all connected, but gathering the proof will take time. I close my eyes only to hear Kaci’s voice, “You eat an elephant one bite at a time, Pretty Boy.”
Blinking, I stare at the ruffle in the blankets, and the thick brown bands latched onto my arms. “How about you get me off this fucking dope, out of this fucking bed, and let me have a shower?”
Lifting the sheet, Martinez marvels, “You’re lucky Tilda didn’t cath you.”
“I’m a sweet talker.” I wink with a smirk. “And Martinez, thank you.”
“You’re racking up quite a tab, Raniero.”
“I’m well aware.”
Walking to the door, he turns around and smiles. “And when you’re cleaned up, you’ve got a visitor.”
In the green-tiled shower from the sixties, I enjoy my limited amount of privacy. The small stall smells of cleanser though it doesn’t look used. Scalding hot water burns my skin, but I don’t care. I haven’t showered since before the arrest, almost a week ago. All in all, my time hasn’t been too bad, but I haven’t made it out of the infirmary, either.
The food sucks.
And the drugs aren’t plentiful enough to be fun.
Lathering up, I hastily scrub and rinse with caution. My hands are a mess of lacerations and stitches. Touching my neck, I miss the weight of my crucifix. The small cross from Amber does little to keep me grounded.
This—incarceration—is happening.
With weak knees, I buckle to the floor. I’m not afraid of the cellblock fights. Or the loneliness in solitary. Or the utter unknown.
But the thought of losing her breaks me.
I’ve spent six years learning to dance between the roles of my life. I can swing and switchback with the best of them. I know how to move and pivot on a dime, so I’m not worried about the jarring rollercoaster ride before me.
I’m alone for the first time, ever.
After eighteen years in my father’s house, I ran away to the West Coast. I met a few friends I connected with and shuffled my way to Texas into another life far removed from being the dark prince of my father’s mafia.
I’m not alone for a night on the town or a trip across the country, but fucking alone.
Alone, as in, this is all on me.
After pinpointing the exact cause of my fear, I inhale deeply and get up off the floor. If there is one thing I’m sure of—behind bars, I w
ill learn who my real friends are. Iris and Deacon won’t count in my tallies because I know they’ve got my back, front, and middle.
Who will care enough to call?
Who will care enough to visit?
Mierne did, but only because I wanted to secure Deacon’s position in Juliet. Will Mierne return at a later date? Maybe. Maybe not.
I need to prepare for the injection of the truth in my life. I am trusting myself, my two feet, and Kary Vega to do the right thing at the right time. I have no doubt I’m about to change as I accept the choices and the bitter vial of grown-up I’m determined to swallow.
Will Iris still want me?
Or even worse, will I still want her?
I grab the towel and dry off before donning the orange jumpsuit emblazoned with my inmate numbers. It is all real to me now, but I won’t freeze in my tracks because that only promises a toe tag at the end of a hard-won journey. I’m not wired to check out. I’m built to fight.
I am tough.
I am so fucking tough.
“You ready?” Matilda asks in the empty hospital ward. “Do you want a couple of bandages for your hands before you go?”
Before I go…
“Sure,” I humbly reply with a nod as she hands them over. “Thank you, Ma’am.”
“Follow me,” she says, showing me to the door where a correctional officer—C.O.—Deputy Craig, escorts me to the interrogation room.
“The room is private. When your visit is complete, hit the button on the inside by the door, and someone will escort you to your cell.”
“Who is it?”
“She said her name is Priscilla Grace.”
Prissy Pants. My partner. Jaid. My co-conspirator.
Yes.
9
Ghosts in Smoke
Her Phoenix
Stepping inside, I skitter as the heavy door slams behind me. The room isn’t like the one we met Mierne in, but older with acoustic ceiling tiles and terrazzo laminate flooring from yesteryear.
Famous Last Words (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 2) Page 8