by Xavier Neal
The taken back expression on his face is unexpected. “Ángel, you can’t possibly think that’s true…”
“Why wouldn’t I think that’s true?” I bitterly bite. “I’m the oldest. I remember seeing how happy and in love you and my mom were before the bad outweighed the good. Before you stopped telling each other how much you love each other all the time. Before you stopped arguing until it lead to you kissing. Before breakfast was only filled with condescending reminders instead of poorly cooked eggs.”
“Excuse you,” my mother’s voice invades the conversation. “My eggs were always cooked to perfection.”
Papi pulls her into his lap. “Mi amor, they’re always a little runny.”
“Carlos!”
“¡Qué! Yo como la comida, anyway!” His arms wrap around her. “Because I love you.”
“More like because you’d starve otherwise.” Mom snips but leans into his grip.
Seeing the two of them sends images of Holden and me at our table with our kids.
No.
His table.
With his kids.
I’m replaceable.
After all I’m not their mother. I’m just the help.
Tears cling to my vocal chords and I drop my gaze back to the table.
“Meena,” my mother’s tone beckons my attention back up. “The good still outweighs the bad.”
“Does it?” My snip receives two pairs of darted down eyebrows. “Because I’m not like the rest of my siblings. I don’t have tunnel vision for just my life. I see the love lost between you. I don’t even blame you for continuing to fake it until the last kid is out of the house. I get it. I’m-”
“Completely wrong.”
“Completamente,” my father echoes.
“Just because your father and I aren’t breaking things anymore or making out like teenagers every other five minutes, doesn’t mean we don’t love each other. And just because our days are often spent trying to figure out how to keep ourselves from drowning in debt doesn’t mean the woes are winning. It just means we have to fight a little harder to stay together through them.”
“Meena, love is what gets you through all the other mierda. Love is what keeps you together when your three children are starving and you’re not sure you can feed them. Love is what gives you the energy to work those extra four hours of overtime or pick up a second job. Love is the tie that binds us. True love is a permanent state hija, because it’s not just in your mind. Está en tu corazón. Tu alma. It’s the only thing truly left behind after the dust clears and life settles.”
A tear tumbles down the side of my face.
“I’ve never known you to get this upset or worked up about someone,” my mother says sympathetically. “Which is why I’m guessing you are in love with Holden.”
I shouldn’t be.
His asshole nature. His complete disregard for my feelings. His chomp at my ankles now, kiss them better later tactics are infuriating.
I hate him.
I love him.
I hate that I love him even after he said what he did yesterday.
“¿Tengo que poner la cabeza en una caja también?”
“What!” Mom shrieks so loudly the both of us can’t help but chuckle.
Leaning back into my chair, I drop my hands into my lap. “No. I already called dibs.”
His grin grows as he winks. “Esa es mi chica.”
“Hate to foil plans of murder,” my mother says uncertain if we’re joking, “but remember this, Meena. Every time something goes wrong, it is not your cue to find the exit to run away.”
Her accurate accusation stiffens my lip.
“If you want a real relationship, a husband, a family…you can’t leave the moment someone says something you don’t agree with or something that pisses you off. You have to be willing to stand your ground. To fight. To get through the troubles and back to the things that make the troubles worth wading through.”
My father leans over and places a kiss on my cheek.
I run because it’s less painful this way.
Because I don’t ever have to risk losing a piece of myself again.
But how can I be pissed at Holden for being terrified of the same thing? How can I be pissed he has a harder time opening up considering he has two children to account for?
He shouldn’t have panicked yesterday. He should’ve trusted me. He should’ve known I would die before letting something happen to them.
He needs to apologize.
I need to apologize.
I’m not their mother no matter how hard I wish I was. There are still boundaries he needs respected. Limits that need to have the chance to expand without being pushed too hard.
“Hable con él sobre lo que ha molestado.” My father instructs. “Give him a chance to listen. Give yourself a chance to really love someone outside of this family.”
His advice sends a few more tears down my cheeks paralyzing all other capabilities aside from nodding.
My mother checks the phone in her hands with an increasingly worried expression. “Before you head home, do you mind stopping by Wren’s and checking on Mia?”
“Why?”
The unsure look remains. “They were supposed to go the mall this morning, but she hasn’t texted me yet. I made her swear she would text me when she got there.”
“She probably just forgot,” Papi brushes off.
“She is sixteen….”
“Maybe,” Mom sighs her discontent, “but Mia always text me back regardless of where she is or if she’s pissed I stopped her from kissing someone.”
“Did she try to kiss Mario’s friend?!” Papi aggressively snaps. “Lo voy a matar!”
“Calm down,” she instructs. “Why do you think I let her go to Wren’s? That poor boy tried to resist, but there’s something in our genetics that makes us irresistible.”
My father doesn’t bother arguing.
Ha. I’m sure Holden wouldn’t disagree either.
“Besides, if they were already at the mall, I would’ve gotten the money text.”
“For make-up?”
“Or a dress. Or a shirt. Or a coffee…”
“She needs a trabajo,” Papi mutters loudly.
“No. She needs to get better grades,” Mom corrects.
“I’ll stop by Wren’s and see if they’re there,” I volunteer, hoping to prevent the conversation from taking an ugly turn. “If they’re not, I’ll check her favorite spots at the mall. I’ve pretty much got them blueprinted to heart.”
“Thank you,” she sighs in relief. Afterwards, she asks, “Want some breakfast before you head out?”
“You’re not making eggs, are you?”
The joke gets a good hearty laugh out of Papi, but he receives a slap to the arm for it. He pleads his apologies in Spanish, several of the compliments more flirtatious than I can recall them being recently, proving their previous proclamations about still being in love.
I want that.
I want something that isn’t easy to walk away from.
I want Holden Reiss and all the havoc it seems to bring to my heart.
I just hope after we hash some shit out, he still wants me.
That I’m still a 1 instead of a 0.
Despite repeatedly being warned not to enter Brewster’s office by agents at their desks, I do.
The minute the door swings open, Murphy’s lean body flies away from hers and into the corner of the desk. He bites back his groan of pain.
“Knocking, Mr. Reiss,” Brewster scolds, adjusting her skirt back down. “It’s common courtesy.”
So is not fucking your agents, especially my handler.
“Out,” I command to Murphy, hand still on the knob.
“Excuse me?”
“Out.” My voice booms. “Now.”
“Who the hell-”
“Murphy, I will make sure the gambling problem you think you have under control is exposed for the crippling weakness it really is if you say
another goddamn word to me. Out!”
His eyes widen in fear as much as concern.
Brewster clears her throat. “Go.”
He gives her a curt nod. “Yes ma’am.”
On his way past me, he glares, mentally ripping me apart.
His hurt feeling for being an immoral, borderline corrupt agent one blow job away from ruining his career, is the least of my concerns right now.
The moment he’s gone, I shut the door, lock it, which is what they should’ve done, and approach Brewster’s desk.
Unfortunately, she gets a word out before I do. “You have some pair of brass balls on you to march into my office and start making commands. You are out of line, Reiss.”
I roll my eyes. “I honestly don’t give a shit.”
She starts to speak, which is when I cut her off.
“I don’t have time to give a shit even if I wanted to. I have less than fifteen hours to save a young girl’s life. So spare me the bureaucratic bullshit you were about to bore me to death with and listen.”
Brewster folds her arms across her chest, eyes pasted on mine.
“One of the auction sites went live.”
“They’re always live.”
“Live streaming. Live….victim up for purchase.”
Intrigue shoots her eyebrows up.
“I need to do a live hunt.”
She leans against the edge of her desk and shakes her head. “No.”
Rage blitzes through me rattling my chest. “What the fuck do you mean no?”
“No.” Her refusal stands. “In case you’ve forgotten, I was in the presentation yesterday. I was right beside everyone else looking into the bidders you brought us. And you were right. They’re all small fish in a stupid aquarium tank. I remove them now and others just like them take their place, and pick up the little feeds they left behind. I want one of the men who is feeding them. And that information is something you don’t have. You don’t have any an inkling who-”
“I do!” My voice echoes around her office.
“What?”
An annoyed exhale escapes. “I do.”
“Then why didn’t you bring that up yesterday! Why are you withholding information?”
“You really wanna have this discussion now? You really wanna talk about my lack of being a team player with a kidnapped sixteen-year-old girl in the process of being sold!”
“Talk!”
Frustration forces me to growl, but I continue through it, “Once I infiltrated the small ring of buyers, they begin to babble about past auctions. Past buys. I began to detect a pattern and established not only a string of aliases, all assumingly linked to the same individual, but more or less his comfort zone of snatch and distribution. Unfortunately, no actual addresses to go off of. He steals those or uses P.O. Boxes.”
“And you didn’t think you might wanna share that with us!”
Guilt grabs me fiercely by the neck. “I didn’t want him to get away again.”
“What….What do you mean again? Is this a cold case of ours?”
“It’s the one that got me here.”
Brewster shakes her head. “You were sent here for hacking yourself into a prestigious university.”
“Please, Clover Rose is far from prestigious. Having me at the school brought them the closest they were ever gonna get to it.” After swallowing my arrogance, I explain, “I was sent here because I called in a false tip to the police station about a bomb, which got me exposed before I had time to cover my paper tracks. I called in a false tip because I knew what this man had planned. He was going to kidnap a student, a student I….knew. She fit his profile then and my false tip forced him to flee before he had the chance grab her.”
Her mind is clearly reeling yet she asks, “Why don’t I know that?”
“Confidential and keeping it confidential was part of the agreement. Even she doesn’t know what almost happened to her.”
“Why do you think it’s the same man?”
“I told you. Patterns. I spot shit most of you can’t fathom. Not just typical repeated actions like where the asshole likes to get his coffee in the morning, which when he’s planning for an auction it’s Bella’s Brewhouse, it’s a series of numbers. Repeated dates. Repeated times. Repeated codes all used on a very conscious and subconscious level. He has a system. A system I cracked. A system, I wanna take down before he gets away with-” the information about the teen’s identity almost slips out.
She doesn’t need to know that. I don’t want her to think I’m too close. I don’t want another analyst or fresh out of the academy computer idiot to lose Mia.
I’m not leaving shit to chance.
Wyatt was right. I’m a control freak. But this time? It’s gonna be beneficial.
I press my lips together to regain my composure. “I don’t want him to get away with selling her, and I damn sure don’t want him to get away again. This is what you have been begging me to do. Let me. Do it. Set me up for a live hunt.”
This time Brewster immediately agrees. “Done. We’ll get you in the hunt house and have agents ready to go as soon as you get a location. You think you can actually catch him?”
I don’t have choice.
I have to.
“I’m gonna call in a favor for an extra guarantee.”
She doesn’t seem phased with additional legal or illegal help.
Good because I can’t do this alone and the idiots she’s going to enlist won’t be anywhere close to enough.
“But I do need something from you.”
“A favor?” Her scoff isn’t off putting. “You don’t get to ask me for favors, Reiss.”
“I’m not asking for a favor.” My body takes a step forward. “I’m telling you what you’re going to do for me, starting with having an agent that’s not Murphy escort me and my children up to their grandparents’ house and leaving a security detail to insure nothing happens to them.”
Brewster’s lips purse briefly together. “Done.”
“And then you’re going to get their mother and bring her to the live hunt where I can physically see she is safe.”
“Their mother is dead.”
“Their mother is very much alive,” I growl, instinct kicking in. “And she is going to stay that way. You bring her to the hunt house. Don’t bother asking. She’ll give you hell. Your best bet is a surprise attack and to pray she just doesn’t get in a shot. She socks a punch like she’s got a brick in her fist.”
Lesson learned when sparring at the gym one day. Needless to say, while my girlfriend may not hit as hard as me, if you rile her up to the point she needs to swing, chances are it’s gonna hurt like a bitch.
There’s a gleam in Brewster’s eye I don’t like. “Okay….I do that for you….I rescue your girlfriend or whatever…you lose the chance at your freedom.”
“What?”
“Your freedom for her protection. You catch me this sonofabitch, your sentence remains. You lose him and I add to it.” Her threat makes her smile triumphantly. “Is she really worth that to you, Reiss?”
“Yes.”
The lack of hesitation in my voice is unexpected by her mouth creaking up.
“If that’s the deal we have to make then fucking do it, Brewster. There isn’t a goddamn thing I wouldn’t do to protect those I fucking love.” Stepping forward once more I close the gap between us. “And it would be wise for you to fucking remember that. Because if anything happens to them, any of them, and it’s your fault or this department’s in any way, you will see what a real monster looks like.”
She squares her shoulders. “Are you threatening me, Reiss?”
“Yes.”
“You think it’s smart to threaten a Federal Agent?”
I pin her in place with my stare. “I think it’s smart for you to remember Brewster, just how dangerous the man standing in front of you is.”
She noticeably tenses.
“Test me and you’ll watch me destroy your life, your legacy
, and this joke of a facility brick by fucking brick. Not only will I expose every dick you sucked to get where you are because equality in the workplace is a goddamn joke, but I’ll make those skeletons in your closet do a walk of shame like it’s Sunday morning at a fucking frat house.” Her mouth twitches to reply, “Oh, and before you consider threatening to lock me up or take away my job again, let me not so kindly remind you, this agency isn’t the only one on my dick. I choose to be here because it keeps me close to my family. I am much more powerful than you can possibly process. I wouldn’t make the mistake of provoking me.” After giving her uncomfortable demeanor another glance, I begin to exit the room. “I’ll see you at the hunt.”