by Sara V. Zook
“How large?”
“The bigger the better.”
“How do you expect me to come up with that much H?” Remmy asked.
I chuckled underneath my breath. “There won’t really be any H.”
“Huh?”
I knew I sounded insane. “It’s going to be a fake drop off. We’re gonna stage it to look like a huge shipment. I’m going to see if I can take out Foster and Thomas all in one clip because of this.”
Remmy hesitated. “This could be tricky.”
“It’s the only way. They both need taken out. I think they’re working together anyway.”
“How are you going to make sure they know about it?” Remmy asked.
“I’m almost certain they’re following my moves,” I told him. Then my thoughts drifted to Lilah—my bait. “But I have other ways, too. Leave that part up to me.”
“Okay, Nicky. I’ll put it together.”
I hung up and poured myself another drink. What a pretty little lure Lilah would make.
TWENTY-TWO
CROSS
I was startled awake and sat straight up in bed to look at the clock. 7:08 p.m. That was almost a five hour nap.
It was dark in the room, the blinds drawn. I felt movement beside me and reached out to find an arm. Nicky.
“Sorry to wake you,” he said.
I couldn’t see him, but his skin felt cold as he lay down next to me in my snuggly warm blankets. “Get under the covers,” I instructed him. “You’re freezing.”
“I’m fine,” he stated.
Was he pissed off at me for not having sex with him earlier? I was just so exhausted from the whole Robert thing. My mind and body both had needed to recharge.
“Feel like listening to me vent?”
“Vent?”
“Yeah, something heavy on my mind.”
I looked out into the darkness. “You know you can always talk to me about whatever, Nicky.”
We were both laying here so close together, but I’d never felt further apart from him. It was as though we had turned into strangers overnight. How did that happen? I felt so lonely all of the sudden. It was heartbreaking to come to that realization. We weren’t even touching. The inches between us felt like miles.
“It’s this big drop off I’m trying to put together. I’m really nervous about it,” he told me.
“What kind of drop off?” I questioned him.
Nicky sighed as if distraught to tell me. “Drugs.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway,” he continued, “I’m just worried about it.”
“Why?”
“A big shipment of drugs means a lot of things could go wrong.”
“Then make it a smaller shipment,” I suggested, trying to hide my annoyance. Why was he telling me this? He never discussed things like this with me. What kind of game was he playing?
“No, it has to be done like this,” he replied casually. “Just don’t want the information getting to the wrong people. Sometimes that happens, you know?”
I didn’t know what to say to him. It didn’t even sound like Nicky speaking. It was as if someone else had taken over his body and was talking through his mouth, but the words weren’t of his own mind. My stomach felt sick, like I could throw up. The nap hadn’t done me any good. I was still a raging mess inside.
“Don’t worry about it,” I finally told him. “I think you should trust your guys. They seem to be pretty loyal to you from what I can see. I’m sure nothing will go wrong.”
I felt him reach out to me, his hand finding my belly and then his entire body shifting across the bed toward me. He placed his head on top of my stomach, his arm wrapping around my waist. I placed my hand on top of his head and ran my fingers through his hair repeatedly. I was sure he had fallen asleep not too long after his drop off confession. I was still in awe of what was happening between us, and it wasn’t a good kind of awe. It was the kind that left your heart shattered in a million pieces. It was the kind that left you feeling as though you were dying from the inside out. This was the man I loved. Both of us were becoming different people though. If we didn’t do something soon to keep up with each other’s changes, we’d soon be torn apart. I listened to the sound of Nicky’s breathing, felt the warmth of his cheek against my bare skin, and contemplated exactly what it would take to patch up the holes we had created in our relationship.
TWENTY-THREE
CAIN
A loud noise had me flying from the bed and searching for my gun in the darkness of my bedroom.
“Lilah?” I called out.
“I’m here,” she said in a shaky tone.
I searched for the lamp on the nightstand and switched it on. “Did you hear that?”
She nodded, her eyes wide in alarm.
I gripped tightly onto my gun. “Wait here,” I instructed her as I made my way over to the bedroom door slowly and turned the knob. The lights were still turned on in the rest of the house. I peeked my head out, the weapon pressed tightly to my side, my finger on the trigger just in case.
“Ouch!” someone yelled out followed by the sound of furniture moving.
I walked out to the living area to find Lola falling over drunk. The loveseat was crooked as though she’d fallen into it.
“Lola?” I asked, my eyes still adjusting to the sudden brightness.
Lola braced herself against the back of the loveseat and smiled up at me. Her eyes were painted black, her lips a bright cherry red as was custom of her when she was on the prowl for a man.
I tucked the gun into the waist of my jeans. “How’d you get in?”
Her grin grew wider. She shook her long fingernail at me. “Oh, I have my ways. I’m not as stupid as you think I am.”
Her words were slurring together. She was hammered. “What do you want, Lola? I warned you about coming around me.”
Lilah appeared by my side, her arms crossed as she assessed the situation.
It was as though Lola didn’t even see Lilah standing there. She was zoomed in on me and me only. “You…” She pointed at me again and attempted to stand straight up only to need to use the furniture as a brace again. “You’re ruining my life!” she cried out.
I snorted. “Get the fuck out of here. I mean it.”
“No, you’re gonna listen to me!” she yelled out.
“Come on, Lola, I’ll help you get back home,” Lilah suggested.
But again, it was as though Lilah was invisible. She hadn’t even heard her speak. “I’m not used to being rejected by men.” She somehow managed to stagger her way over to me and jabbed her fingernail directly into the middle of my chest. I narrowed my eyes at her. “I get what I want when I want or else…I just end up throwing a little tantrum.” She laughed, spittle collecting at the corners of her mouth. “Actually, it’s not so little. It’s more of a full blown temper tantrum.” She glared at me then.
“Get your finger off me,” I threatened her.
She threw her fist behind her and sluggishly tried to punch me. I caught her fist in the air and tightened my grip around it.
“You disgust me,” I growled out at her. “The way you prance around in those clothes that barely hide your rolls, the way you throw yourself at every man that walks in this place…” I wrinkled up my nose. “Disgusting.”
Lola’s face twisted as she processed my words. “I fucking hate you,” she spit out as I released her fist, and she stumbled back a couple steps but somehow managed to catch herself from falling down. She rushed back over to me as I continued to glare at her. She seriously made me want to vomit everywhere. Her black fishnet stockings were ripped at the thigh and exposed pale white flesh underneath. I could only imagine what Remmy had put up with all these years being with her. “I fucking hate you!” she screamed, wrapping her hands around my neck and throwing herself at me as she attempted to kiss me.
It didn’t take much of a push to make Lola fall over, but I probably put a little more power into it than I should have as
I shoved her back.
“Do you translate disgusting in that fucked up head of yours as I want you?” I asked her, my temper beginning to surface even more at just the sight of her in my house.
I looked up to see Remmy standing on the other side of the room. I didn’t know how much of that he’d just seen. He was probably pissed off at me for pushing his wife. I panicked a little. Remmy always seemed to be walking in on Lola doing bad things, trying to kiss me, on top of my cousin, Stan. I hoped he knew better than to think I’d initiated any of that.
“Remmy, it’s not what it looks like,” I sputtered out.
But Remmy didn’t seem to see me. He was in a trance—exactly how I’d seen him the night I pulled Stan off of his wife. It was like he could only stare at Lola, and it was almost a scary kind of thing, wondering what the hell was wrong with him, what the hell he was thinking. Lola never once even looked back at her husband even though I’d just mentioned his name. My eyes moved back to Remmy. He just stood there, staring.
“What’s wrong with him?” Lilah whispered beside me.
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. Something told me that when you catch your wife repeatedly throwing herself at other guys and screwing them in front of you, that might fuck you up in the head just a little bit.
Lola attempted to stand straight up. She smoothed her hands over her red blouse and wiped the spit from her lips with the back of her hand. She gritted her teeth together. “Bad things happen when I get rejected. People die.”
I felt Lilah’s hand move to my arm as if she needed to steady herself.
Lola stumbled and caught herself yet again. “I just wanted to be loved. I thought he loved me. I wanted him to love me.”
“What’s she talking about?” Lilah asked.
I shrugged.
“But he didn’t. He just used me like the others.” Tears began streaming down her cheeks as she sobbed. “I tried to get him to love me. I tried everything I knew how. I just wasn’t pretty enough, not skinny enough, not…enough.” She stopped crying suddenly and glared at me again. She pointed at me. “You…you’re just like him, you know? Always looking down on people. Think you’re better than everyone else. So I’ll have to do to you like I did to him.” Lola let out a wicked laugh. “I had to make Carmine suffer for rejecting me. I couldn’t live seeing him, knowing he’d done that to me. I’ll kill you too, Nicky Cain, just like your father.”
Oh my god.
Lola was the one who shot Carmine?
Before I could wrap my mind around any more information thinking how I’d thought it was one of the men, knowing that I blamed them and was suspicious of one of them this entire time, a gun went off. My ears were ringing from the noise and it took a moment to understand what exactly had happened. I checked myself for a wound. I looked over at Lilah who had her arms wrapped around herself in fear. The only one not standing anymore was Lola. She was on the floor with blood gushing from the back of her head, her eyes open and not moving. Remmy stood behind her with his gun still raised.
I rushed over to him and reached for his arm, making sure he lowered his weapon. “Here, man, let me have that.” I twisted the gun out of his hand. He was still in a trance, still staring at his now dead wife. “It’s over, man. It’s over.” I wondered if Remmy was in some sort of shock. I pulled out my phone and called Seton. “Hey, I need a cleanup crew upstairs in the mansion now. Remmy just killed Carmine’s murderer.”
TWENTY-FOUR
CROSS
Oh my god. This was my life now. The reality was like a smack in the face.
Every day it was something else, and there was always so much blood—and death. Every single one of my nerves seemed rattled like I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It had started out with Nicky killing Mark. And ever since, it just continued from there. Being with Nicky Cain meant living like this and learning to get used to living like this. The question was, could I ever get used to it? Should I want to get used to seeing such horrible things? This wasn’t normal.
I looked down at Lola. I never liked that woman. I couldn’t see how anyone did. She was grimy and gross. Nicky had described her as disgusting. Yes, she was all of those things, and then she’d confessed to killing Carmine. Had Remmy known all this time or had he just pieced it together along with the rest of us? I mean, couldn’t they have taken her out to the middle of a field and gotten rid of her like they do in the mob movies on TV? At least then I wouldn’t have had to witness this…mess. I was going to need to schedule an appointment with a therapist soon. It was all slowly screwing with my mind.
Nicky had taken the gun from Remmy. At least one of us was holding it together. While I was freaking out over here, Remmy continued to stare down at Lola as if he were some sort of zombie. He was completely zoned out, his eyes glazed over since the moment he walked in here. Then Nicky was on his phone, and I heard him mention the words cleanup crew. I shuddered. This mansion was full of ghosts, and now another one was added tonight. I didn’t want to belong to the collection.
Within minutes, Seton and some of the other guys appeared with bleach, mops, and a body bag just the right size to fit plump Lola inside. They got to work right away. I looked over at Remmy who was now sitting with his head in his hands as the other guys worked around him.
Nicky came over to me and kissed me on the forehead. “Hey, how you holding up?”
I shrugged.
“Why don’t you go into the bedroom for a while? You don’t need to see this.”
I rolled my eyes. “I think I’ve seen the worst of it already, Nicky.”
He took hold of my hand and led me into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He sat down on the edge of the bed and I methodically did the same.
“Listen, I never meant for you to have to deal with all this,” he told me.
I still felt so oddly disconnected from him. I could feel his fingers intertwined with mine, but it was just two hands together, not a feeling like I used to have when he would touch my hand before.
“I never thought this shit would come this close to home. I wasn’t expecting someone to be killed in our own home.”
“It’s not your fault,” I mumbled. “Lola…she always had a thing for you.”
“And my father obviously.” He sneered. “I need to ask you this. Is it too much for you to take?”
“What do you mean?”
“All of this.” Nicky sighed. “The messy parts that seem to keep popping up in front of you.”
I tried to swallow down the lump that seemed to be wedged in the middle of my throat.
Nicky squeezed my hand. “Because if it is too much, if you want to leave, I’ll understand. Really, I will.”
I couldn’t look Nicky in the eyes. I just couldn’t. “Yes, it’s a lot, Nicky, is that what you want to hear? I mean, how could it not be a lot for me to take? Despite what you think, I’m not used to people dying in front of me. But why does it seem like you want to get rid of me? I want to be with you, Nicky. I want to make this work.” I wanted the disconnect gone. I wanted to feel the chemistry between us once again.
Nicky took hold of my face and turned my head to look at him. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”
“I do.”
He pressed his lips together. “Because maybe, just maybe you’re lying to yourself as much as you’re lying to me.”
I felt the tears fill my eyes as he let go of my face. There was a knock on the door, and he hurried off to go tend to his men and the mess that used to be Lola. I laid back in the bed and buried my face in the pillow, sobbing. Even though I had everything now, everything I had ever dreamed at my fingertips, I had never before felt so very lost.
TWENTY-FIVE
CAIN
This was it. Drop-off night.
I had given it a few days to make its way to Foster and Thomas, hoping they’d make a move. If they did, I’d be ready. I still wasn’t sure if the two of them were connected. I still didn’t know if Lilah wa
s involved either. We hadn’t spoken to each other much, just going about our daily routines and trying to stay out of each other’s way. At least Lola’s confession had eased my mind a little in knowing that all my men were loyal. I wondered if Remmy was going to be right in the head after all of that, but he seemed to shake it off. He wasn’t speaking much, but he was out of his trance at least. I had never seen a man do that before. His wife had driven him to it I guess. She had gotten every bit of what she deserved as far as I was concerned.
I looked over at Stan who was riding in the back of the car with me. I was proud of my cousin. This was all because of him and the information he’d found out for me. He’d become a valuable asset to the group. Seton was driving. None of us said anything, our minds wandering to the what-ifs of what was to become of our night. It was a simple plan really, but one that could turn ugly real fast. The one thing about putting together a plan like this, you never truly knew what your enemy was capable of. All you could do was try to give the benefit of the doubt, over-plan in that you had every base covered, and pray like hell that it would turn out in your favor. This is what I had to do to try to relieve some of the stress that had been continuously eating away at me over the last few weeks. It had been nearly unbearable, and focusing on a plan was about the only thing keeping me sane right now.
We pulled into the empty parking lot. Seton turned the car lights off. Now there was one thing to do—wait. We had multiple large duffel bags in our trunk stuffed with crumpled papers posing as fake heroin. So if anyone was watching us right now, which was hopefully both Foster and Thomas, they’d think we were here before the other car, the buyers. The other car was really Hagan and Brock who were told to wait twenty minutes before driving to the lot in a car that we’d bought new just today so that no one would recognize it as one of ours. The Triplets and the rest of the crew were hidden in the shadows. Their job was to hit Trey Foster and whoever he brought with him hard if need be. This was my big genius plan, which had so many holes in it that could possibly send me straight to my grave tonight, but still, it was as solid as I could make it. My stomach still felt like it was eating itself inside of me right now, so I took out a cigarette to try to calm my nerves.