by JA Huss
“Did you really think you could just come back to this life? Just show up after all these years and what? Pick up where you left off when you were sixteen?”
“What?”
He nods. “Oh, yeah. I know who you are. I guess the new question then is… are you stupid? Are you naive? Or are you ignorant?”
I try to meet his eyes and find that I can’t.
“I got a full fucking report about Friday night. You know that, right?”
I shake my head no.
“Those fucking people and their little rebellion. It’s kinda sad, really.” He lets out a long sigh and walks over to his desk on the other side of the room, sits down and leans back in his chair. “He can’t get out. I know that’s what you’re thinking. I tried, man. I really did. I did my best for him, and Jesse, and even Zach. For all the thanks they give me. But it’s not their fault. They have no idea how hard I’ve been trying to keep them out of this.”
He sighs again. Longer and louder this time. Like he’s really tired. Of me, maybe. Or this conversation. Or maybe just life.
“Ignorant,” I say.
“What?”
“That’s what I am, I guess. Because I don’t understand. Do you… know me?”
“Do I know you?” Johnny Boston stares at me for several moments. Then gets back up from his chair and walks around the desk. “Are you fucking serious right now? Miklos worked for me. I’m the one who bought you. I’m the one who took care of you. I’m the goddamned one who did all that shit for you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“When Miklos told me he was dying I took care of him. I paid the fucking bills. I got him in the best hospice in Hungary. And I gave him explicit instructions to set you up with some money and to cut you loose. And then you show up here? Pretending to be my brother’s girlfriend? What the actual fuck, Brooke!”
“I don’t know you. You and I, we’re nothing. I don’t—” But I stop talking. I stop protesting. Because somewhere, deep down inside, I know he’s not lying. I know the lie and this isn’t it.
And for some reason I’m thinking about the scam they pulled out at the Kane estate and how I missed it. How I bought into the dream. The fairy tale. How I thought it was real.
It hits me then. What Miklos did for me.
He gave me back my innocence. Not all of it. Not after all I went though. That wasn’t possible. But just enough to believe again. To believe that the fairy tale is possible.
That’s why I missed their lie.
I believed it because I was able to.
I look at Johnny and he softens. Just a little teeny bit. His eye aren’t so narrow. His jaw not so clenched. He presses his lips together and says, in a voice that’s low and much less dangerous, “My father owned you because he owned your mother after your father died.”
“What?” My head is spinning. “Who?”
“Your real father. Not Miklos and not that asshole who confronted you on Friday night at the Kanes. You…” But he stops.
“I what?” I whisper. “Tell me.” And that’s not a whisper. It’s a demand. But my voice is shaky and it cracks a little.
“You’re… I thought you knew. I thought… that’s why you were here with Joey. I thought you two were trying to fuck things up, or get revenge, or…” He runs his fingers through his thick, dark-blonde hair and turns away. “I thought you knew.”
I don’t even know how to process all those words so I concentrate on the only thing that does makes sense. The one answer I’ve been searching for all my life. “Who am I?”
He turns back to me. “You’re one of us.”
“Explain that,” I say. “Please! Right now.”
“You’re not a Boston. Don’t worry. I should’ve said… you’re one of them.”
I laugh. “Incest? You think I’m worried about incest?” I step forward, grab him by the shirt collar, and shake. Johnny Boston doesn’t even blink. “Spell it out for me.”
He grabs my hands, squeezes them tight until I let go of his now stretched-out collar, and then says, “They own all of us. Every single one of us. When we’re born our parents pledge us into a position and that’s where we stay for the rest of our lives. But there’s more than one way to make money off kids in the Way.”
He says this: The Way. Like it’s a thing. But I don’t’ understand it and he’s still talking.
“So your mother did sell you,” Johnny continues. “But she didn’t just do it once.”
“Keep going,” I say. Feeling sick inside. But I need to hear it. I need to hear all of it.
“Her boyfriend runs drugs for us. But I’m guessing you knew that since he used to take you on runs in Mexico and that’s where I had Miklos pick you up.”
I don’t admit to anything but… yes. I did know this part.
“Do you know what it takes to run drugs these days? Any clue?”
I shake my head.
“Mules,” Johnny says. His voice thick with contempt. “His job was running mules. You know what that is?”
I nod. Because I do. They are mostly pregnant women. They are forced to swallow balloons filled with heroine or other things. High-priced things. Or they stuff them up inside themselves. And then they get on planes or boats, and when they get to the other side the men in charge empty them out. Sometimes they just… cut them open.
“Mules are the lowest of the low in our world. One-time things. Practically worthless. But you can often pay off a debt if you have the right girl to sell as a mule. One that doesn’t look like a mule. A pretty girl who can speak well enough to fool customs agents. This is what you need for the special jobs. Your mother was just a whore. That’s all. And you were a very unfortunate accident that came out of that situation. So you were just a whore in waiting. Your father was a powerful man in the Way, but that doesn’t matter. My father ran the bank. Didn’t save his life. Or mine. Your father was in charge of the money making ceremony with my uncle, right up until the day they died.”
“The Way.” I repeat. “You’ve said that twice now. What’s the Way?”
“All those people you met at the Kanes? That’s the Way.”
“What Way?”
Johnny laughs. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for thirteen years.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the bank. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m in charge of collecting and keeping the money. So you were going to be a whore. I’d have left you alone if they were just going to make you a whore. But then your father died and your mother’s boyfriend came to my father and said he’d sell you as a mule to deliver a special package in an upcoming run. I was there, in the room, when this happened. Because my uncle died with your father and my father needed a new partner in crime. So I was there.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Your mother and her boyfriend made that deal with me in the end. Not my father.”
I have so many questions. But the first one is… “Why did you buy me? Why did you give me to Miklos?”
He sighs. Heavily. “Because it’s not your fault. It’s not Jesse’s fault, it’s not Joey’s fault, it’s not Zach’s fault. It’s not our fault we were born into this… whatever it is. A cult. A secret society. A political organization. Whatever the fuck it is, it’s not our fault. So I got you out. When my uncle and your father died thirteen years ago my father put me in charge of certain things and one of them was you. So I… I couldn’t do it. They were gonna stuff that shit down your throat and make you get on that plane, and when you got to the other side they’d have gutted you like a deer to get your package. I got you out and then I…”
He pauses. But the pause is too long. So I say, “You what? What did you do?”
“I let the rest die. Getting you out was harder than I thought it would be. There were too many eyes, too many people keeping track, and my father found out what I did because I made Miklos promise to send your mother letters and pictures. To let her know you were OK. My father was pissed. You don’t get to make
up your own rules in the Way. So I couldn’t do it again. I just let the rest die and didn’t save anyone else. But I saved you. And believe me when I tell you this—I paid for that. Dearly. I saved you and what did you do? You came back. Why? Why the fuck did you come back?”
“Miklos,” I say.
“No,” Johnny replies. “No. He would not send you here. We had an agreement. And he loved you. I could tell. He loved you. He would not send you back.”
“But he did! He left me a letter, and money, and my real passport, and a private jet—“
“It wasn’t him,” Johnny says, turning around and walking to the window. “It wasn’t him. There’s no fucking way in hell he’d send you back here.”
“Then who gave me all that stuff? And why?”
Johnny turns back to face me. His face dark now. Backlit by the brightness of the sky outside. “I don’t know. But they’re trying to start something. And it’s working.”
“Who?”
“The people who really run this shit. It’s not me. I don’t run anything. I’m just a glorified bank teller. It’s some kind of power play. Some war. They’re not happy with the status quo, so things have to change. And you’re as much a part of it as I am now.” He pauses for a moment. Thinking. “You’re gonna leave.”
“And go where?”
“You’re gonna talk Joey into letting the little girl be—“
“No,” I say. “No.”
“—and the four of you are gonna get on a plane to Tokyo and never come back.”
“I won’t let him do that. He loves that little girl. He needs that little girl, Johnny.”
“She’s not his,” Johnny says. “She, and everyone else out at that estate, they all belong to the Way. Those kids that live out there? Those girls won’t be whores or mules. But their lot in life isn’t bright. Trust me. None of this is what it appears.”
“We could… we could…” But I don’t actually know what we could do.
“We are who we are, Brooke. And that can’t change.” He points at me. “And don’t waste my time telling me all about how people can change. We are who we are and that’s the end of it. I need you to talk sense into my brother, get him and his friends on their goddamned jet, and make them go back to Japan.”
I just stand there. My whole world just tipped upside down and I can’t yet make sense of it. So I just stand there and stare at Johnny Boston with my mouth open and my mind blown.
He doesn’t look anything like Joey. His hair is still light. Not fair, like it was in that picture Huck showed me. But you know he’s blond. He’s got a look to him as well. Something mean inside that Joey doesn’t possess. And he’s built more like Huck. Big. He’s big. Which adds to the uneasiness people feel when he’s in the room.
“We are who we are,” he says again.
And then he looks at me.
And all of a sudden I see someone else in there. I see the boy he was. I see the fear. I see the anger. I see the hate.
But in this moment I see something else too.
I see Joey.
Not on the outside, but on the inside.
And isn’t that what everyone says? It’s what’s on the inside that counts?
“OK,” I say.
“OK? Just like that?”
“No,” I say, putting up a hand. “I’m just agreeing with you. We’re stuck and we can’t get out. But we can’t give up, either. We could fight this, Johnny.”
“We?” He laughs. “I am fighting this. I’m doing my best. But you? My brothers? No. Fuck that. I sacrificed a lot to save your asses. It’s not going to be for nothing.”
“Look,” I say. “I’m in now. You can’t back me out of this. You can’t just tell me to run away and hide. I know too much. We all know too much. Running away guarantees that we all get killed. Sooner or later, someone will come after us. They’ll find us, and do horrible things to us, and then what? Talk about ‘all for nothing’? So I’m in. Right along with you. And obviously Emma is in too. She knows. I took one look at her and saw it. And Jesse is in. And Joey. And Huck and Wald too. And do you know what that makes us?”
“I’m dying to find out.”
“A team,” I say.
He stares at me for a moment. “You forgot Zach.”
The baby in the picture. “OK,” I say. “Zach too.”
“It’s not enough.”
“But it’s a start. I think we have Mila. And the other two. Hannah and Natalie. Because they know things. So… we have them.”
“It’s still not enough.”
“Right. But… we could have Michael Connor.”
Johnny laughs.
“They all want out, right?”
“They’re not on my side.”
“They could be,” I say. “So we could get Michael and the Kanes. And all those other people at that meeting, or whatever it was. They all want out.”
“You’re picking sides?” He laughs.
“Of course. Isn’t that what you do when you’re in a war?”
“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Brooke.”
“You’re wrong,” I say. “I have an idea. I might not know what you’re talking about but I spent the last thirteen years lying to myself about who and what I am, and you know what? I’m done with it. This is me. OK? I… I survive. I am a goddamned survivor. If the apocalypse happened right here, right now—today—you know what I would tell you?”
He shakes his head at me. “What would you tell me?”
“I’d tell you, ‘You better pick me, motherfucker. Because I guarantee you, I’m gonna live through it. And if you take my side, I’ll get you through it too.’”
“You are un-fucking-believable. And I’m gonna call you all three right now. Unbelievably stupid, unbelievably naïve, and unbelievably ignorant.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “You can think that all you want. But for once in my life, I’m not even lying. This is the God’s honest truth.”
“I’ve tried, Brooke,” he says. “I’ve spent the last thirteen fucking years trying to find a way out of this shit and nothing ever works.”
“That’s because you didn’t have me.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s right. Now you have me. And we,” I say, stressing the word, “we have something else too. Something they don’t have.”
“Yeah?” Johnny Boston says. “Aside from badass Brooke Alder, what do we have that they don’t?”
“Their money.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - JOEY
Huck, Wald, and I are just getting out of the truck in front of the Bossy building when two cars pull up behind us. Jesse gets out of one and Emma and her friends all pile out of the other one.
Jesse comes towards me, adjusting the collar of his untucked shirt.
“Did you…” I side-eye him. “Did you dress up for Johnny?”
“What?” he says. “I’m just trying to clean up my image.”
“Well, it’s not working.”
“Fuck you,” he says, tucking in his shirt. “At least I’m trying.”
“OK, what’s the plan?” Emma asks, just as she and her friends crowd in on us guys.
Nobody says anything.
“That’s just fucking great,” I say. “Fine. I’ll lead.” I point at Jesse. “But I’m not in charge of this… whatever it is when we get up there.”
“She’s your girlfriend,” Jesse says. Then he looks at Huck and Wald, who haven’t said a word yet, and nods his head. “Your friends?”
Huck opens his mouth, but there’s no time for the details, so I cut him off with a reply of, “My partners.”
Jesse squints his eyes at me. But fuck him. I don’t owe him an explanation and he has no room to judge me anyway.
We all start walking towards the Bossy and when we enter all the security guards take notice.
We own this building, so you’d think they worked for us. But it’s not quite like that. They work for Johnny. So when we ap
proach the glass-doored security archway that only certain people have access to, there’s a little group of them waiting for us.
“Get out of the way,” I say to the biggest one. “And I’m not gonna tell you that twice.”
There’s a moment when I think he’s gonna take matters into his own hands, but then another guy—shorter, skinnier, who must actually have rank here—says, “I’ll let him know you’re coming.”
“You do that,” I say, just as I flash my security card at the control panel.
The doors open and we enter, going left towards the private elevators.
There are eight of us so we’re quite packed together inside the elevator. And by the time the doors open onto my floor, it’s claustrophobic.
I lead my little troop into my lobby then stop and look around.
Haven’t been in here so long, it kinda throws me.
When Johnny beckoned me home last month because Jesse was in the middle of a tabloid crisis, I didn’t even bother coming here. I went straight to Jesse’s floor and made my way up to Johnny from there.
“Everything… OK?” Huck asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just… weird being here again.”
“This way,” Jesse says, taking the lead.
We all follow him down the left-hand hallway until we get to the upper-floor elevator.
“What the hell?” one of Emma’s friends mutters.
“Just go with it,” Emma whispers back.
“Fuck the elevator,” I say, punching in the code for the fire door. “He might have it locked down.”
We all file into the stairs and sound like a herd of elephants as we trudge up towards Johnny’s floor.
Unless he’s not up there, there’s no way he doesn’t hear us coming.
I get to the top first and my hand is on the door handle, ready to throw it open, when I pause and look over my shoulder and find Jesse’s worried face.
He nods. “I got you.”
“Thanks,” I say.
I throw the door open and the sound of laughing fills my ears.
For a moment I can’t make sense of things, so I just kinda stand there.