by Kade, Teagan
We share a glance, Liam taking a step towards Winter. She steps back ever so subtly.
He puts his hands out. “Look, Archer here and I go way back. You’re going to be safe here, okay?”
I place my hand on her back. “He’s right. This is the safest place right now. Just tell Liam what you told me, tell him everything.”
“I’ll make it as quick as can be,” says Liam. “You’ll forget you were even here.”
I’m not quite sure how he’s making that promise. It’s like he’s suggesting she’ll be free to go.
I jerk my head to the side at him. “Can I have a quick word?”
“Sure, brother,” he smiles.
We step over to the wall.
“You’re sweating,” I tell him, pointing to the perspiration on his forehead.
He dabs at it with the corner of his jacket. “Fucking AC around here. I swear to God. I bet garbage collectors get a bigger budget than we do.”
The place does look it’s falling apart somewhat, a set direct from Lethal Weapon. I wouldn’t be half-surprised if Mel Gibson and Danny Glover were to appear around the corner, a hot-tempered Captain Murphy on their tail.
“Is she going to be okay?” I ask.
Liam presses his cheek out with his tongue. It’s the kind of simple personal tick that throws me right back to our time serving. “Of course. If what you told me is true, if she has the heads-up on their operation, she’s basically gold—untouchable, even not being an American citizen. I’ll speak to the Feds, the only people I can trust, and we’ll make it work. I’ll have you two back to bumping uglies in no time.”
“It’s not like that.”
He takes my shoulder. “Like I said, we go way back, so don’t tell me you ain’t getting a good piece of that.”
“Just promise me she’ll be safe.”
He places his hand over his heart. “This we’ll defend, brother.”
He looks down to the envelope. “That for me?”
I hand it over. “She wrote it all down. It’s all in here.”
He takes it, holding it up. “Can’t wait to see these pricks go down.”
“You and me both.”
I look over to where Winter’s standing. “Can you give us a minute before you take her in?”
He squeezes my shoulder. “Take all the time you need.”
I head back over to Winter, holding her by the hips. Fuck who sees it. I kiss her lightly on the forehead. “I’ll be right out here, okay, waiting. You’re going to be fine. We are going to be fine.”
She attempts a smile.
“That’s my girl.”
She looks to Liam standing by the door leading to the secured area.
“All ready?” he says.
We kiss one final time. God, I don’t want to let her go, but I know I have to.
I hold her hand until the last moment, my arm lifting up until it’s just our fingertips touching and then nothing at all.
She reaches Liam and looks back, smiling, but I see it drop the moment he opens the door and ushers her through.
Liam gives me a thumbs up before disappearing himself, the door closing with a mechanical click.
I stand there and take a breath.
It’s done.
But something’s bothering me. I sit and try to work out what’s got me rattled, but nothing’s coming to mind. All I’m drawing are big fat fucking blanks.
I pick up a magazine, but the words blur together. I can’t concentrate. I try the TV on the wall, but it’s some crappy reality show I can’t stand.
I don’t know why, but I become increasingly restless sitting there, my hands fixing themselves over and over. The AC seems to be working just fine, but I’m still sweating like a Sunday roast.
I decide to head out front for a quick breather.
Outside, it’s overcast, a cooler front moving in from the east.
I regulate my breath, starting to feel a hell of a lot better when I spot a khaki Jeep Wrangler emerging from the police parking lot and waiting to turn into the traffic.
It’s Liam’s Jeep, the one he bought the very day we got back from Afghanistan, with its now fading ‘American Patriot’ bumper sticker and the dent in the side where an old woman in a mobility scooter crashed into it.
I dismiss it at first, think maybe someone else is driving, it’s another car maybe, but I can see him through the window, clear as day and, beside him in the passenger seat, Winter.
I squint, looking harder, but there’s no doubt about it.
It’s her.
What the fuck?
I don’t know where he’s taking her, why she isn’t inside like he said, but immediately a deep sense of unease knots itself in my stomach.
It was the thumbs-up, I realize. When the hell ever has Liam done that before? It was out of character. A middle finger, sure, but a fucking thumbs-up? It makes no sense.
Something’s wrong.
I spot a South Beach Yellow Cab in the flow of traffic, basically running in front of it, the car screeching to a stop and the driver throwing his hands up. “What the fuck, man?” he yells.
I open the rear door and slide across the back seat and pointing through the windshield. “I need you to follow that Jeep up ahead, the khaki one. You see it?”
The driver, a young Hispanic man, looks out his window and sees the police station. “Oh, shit. Is this like official police business?”
“Yes,” I half-shout, eager to get moving. “Go!”
The cab tears away, cutting off a minivan and snaking into the flow of traffic.
The driver, whose name is apparently Mateo given the license on the dash, slaps the steering wheel with excitement. “Holy shit, man. Who are we after? Bank robbers? Murderers? Or is it some real sick shit, like mad conspiracy shit?”
I lean forward, holding the headrests. “Just keep on them, but not too close, okay. Hang back a little.”
“Yes, boss,” he salutes, smiling in the rear-view. “I’ve waited my whole life for this.”
I want to remind him we’re not in the Fast & Furious here, but I’m too busy concentrating on Liam’s Jeep. If I had laser eyes I’d be burning a hole right through it about now.
I expect Liam to turn around, to realize his mistake, to at least call me… something, but the Jeep continues to drive on. I try his cell, try calling the precinct, but it’s no good. He’s AWOL with Winter in tow.
Where the fuck are you taking her? I’m thinking, that knot growing tighter and tighter the further away we get from Main Beach.
I rattle my brain trying to think of who else I can call, but it’s like my head is filled with pea soup, all that training from the Army of keeping your cool and focusing completely gone.
I know it’s Winter. It’s my emotions getting the better of me, my attachment to her. I promised her I would keep her safe, that nothing would happen to her, and now what?
But you don’t know where they’re going, the more rational part of me pipes up. Maybe she was hungry. Maybe they’re going to get something to eat, going to a different, secure location. Maybe he’s fucking you over, the darker part fills.
Mateo’s doing a stand-up job, hanging back just enough so as not be conspicuous, though the traffic’s heavy enough a taxi isn’t exactly going to stand out.
Another fifteen minutes and we’re headed to the Glades. The knot tightens until it’s a solid mass, a physical pain in my gut.
The traffic thins as we move away from the main roads, the seaside giving way to new estates and roads that haven’t seen attention since Reagan. It’s not a good sign. I know it. I feel it. I should never have handed her over like that.
If Liam hurts her, if he fucking touches one hair on her head, I don’t care what our history says, I’m going to fucking kill him, take him apart piece by piece and feed him to the gators.
Ahead, the Jeep enters a small industrial estate, two G-series Mercedes in black pulling off the side of the road to follow behind.
&n
bsp; “Careful now,” I tell Mateo. “Nice and slow. Just creep up there.”
He does as I tell him, the taxi slowly driving past where I saw the Jeep and G-wagons enter.
I see them pulling up out front what looks like an old packing warehouse.
“Stop,” I tell Mateo. “Wait a second.”
Liam emerges from the Jeep, four or five guys hopping out of the Mercedes all different shades of no fucking good. Even from here I recognize one of them as the guy who came to the tower that day asking around—the cartel muscle.
They talk for a moment, Liam looking strangely meek. They seem to finish, and he walks around to the passenger door, pulling Winter free. She’s holding onto the grab handle, refusing to let go until one of the goons takes her by the hands, two of them basically tearing her away and leading her inside the warehouse, Liam following scratching his head.
She screams and it takes everything I have not to leap from the vehicle in full on attack mode.
But my hatred is centered on Liam.
You motherfucker, I think, pure, heated rage boiling through my veins. But this is no time for fucking around. I take all the money in my wallet and hand it to Mateo. “For your trouble.”
He turns around in his seat looking confused. “You’re not going to wait for backup? Put on a vest?” He looks down. “Where’s your piece?”
“Left it at home,” I lie.
I open the door. “Go on now. Get as far away as you can.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” he says, apparently reconciling something with himself. He nods to the back of the car, the trunk unlatching. “Have a look, under the floor. Maybe you can find something useful back there.”
I have no idea what he’s on about until I get out and open the boot. I lift the floor, expecting a spare tire, my eyes greeted with a weapons cache that would do Al Capone proud.
Even with the seriousness of the situation, I can’t help but smile.
Fucking cab drivers.
“You’re not going to bust me, are you?” Mateo shouts back.
I look over his little collection. “No, my friend. Not today.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WINTER
It’s over. This Liam, Archer’s supposed cop friend, has betrayed me, handed me right on over to the very people I’ve been trying to escape. But far from the look of smug satisfaction I think I’ll find on his face when I look in his direction, it’s sadness and uncertainty I see.
He’s not sure about this. I know it. Whatever they’re offering him must be real good to betray Archer like this.
As far as I can tell, we’re in a large warehouse in some kind of industrial area. In the corner two men are unloading tins of paint from the back of a truck. From my time with the cartel I know they’re actually full of liquid methamphetamine, cleverly concealed. This is the missing piece, I realize, the one location I couldn’t work out, and here I am, my hands cable-tied together in front of me, right in the middle of it.
There are another two men standing in front of me. I recognize one as the man I saw at the Ball & Chain, the other from Cuba, Serpiente’s lieutenant. In a way, I’m flattered… until the realization sinks in I’ll never see Archer again, never feel the warmth of his arms or touch of his lips, his wry smile.
Hold it together, I remind myself. There’s still hope.
But is there? We’re a long way from Miami Beach. It’s the weekend. No one’s around. We may as well be on Mars.
That hope turns into any icy ball in my stomach when I see one of the men unloading the truck remove an empty body bag, laying it down on the floor.
So they don’t intend for me to walk out alive. They’re going to torture me, find out what I know, and then dispose of me. It’s their way. Worse, I’ve seen what they do to people, heard it first-hand, sounds that will haunt me until the day I die. Today, I guess.
Liam approaches, snapping me out of my thoughts. He stops before me, leaning in conspiratorially. I’m hoping against hope he’ll whisper the cavalry is on its way, that this was all an elaborate ploy to bring the cartel down, but that’s not what he says.
He licks his lips, wiping sweat from his brow. “Look,” he starts, keeping his voice low. “I’m sorry it had to go down this way. You seem like a decent person, but I’m in over my head. I need the money, understand?”
I spit in his face, a surprisingly defiant move that simply happens—no prior thought, no thinking.
Liam wipes it away, nodding to himself. “Well, that makes it a little easier now, doesn’t it?”
“Archer is going to kill you,” I tell him, trying to keep the nerves from my voice.
“Archer’s never going to know, hon. No one is going to know. Do you understand that?”
He takes a step away, thinking I’m going to spit again. “Again,” he says, “I’m sorry,” placing his hand over his heart in the emptiest gesture the world’s ever known.
I see someone emerge from behind a shipping container at the back of the warehouse and my heart drops further.
It’s him.
It’s Serpiente.
He walks slowly towards us, whispering something is his lieutenant’s ear before moving to Liam and taking his hand, smiling. “My friend. Thank you for this.”
He hasn’t even looked in my direction yet.
Liam nods back. “The money?”
“Being transferred as we speak,” Serpiente smiles, but I know that crocodile smile when I see it, spotting his lieutenant slowly and silently moving around behind Liam and drawing his weapon.
I know shouting, trying to warm Liam, will be useless.
“Excuse me,” says Serpiente, stepping aside and nodding at his lieutenant, who’s now standing behind Liam with a gun raised to the back of his head.
I scream when it goes off, the front of Liam’s face blown apart, his faceless body standing upright for what seems like far too long before finally slumping forward onto the ground.
With a whistle, Serpiente signals the men who were emptying the truck, one of them picking up the body bag and bringing it over.
I feel sick to my stomach, a prickly, all-encompassing kind of sickness that takes over my entire being.
Still smiling, Serpiente walks towards me with his hands behind his back. His hair is slicked tight to his head as per usual, the large cross he wears around his neck sitting against his shirt. I know he’ll be holding his rosary beads his father left him behind his back, slowly thumbing the beads through his fingers. It’s his way of alleviating the guilt—if he’s capable of feeling anything at all.
He stops before me and looks back at Liam’s body. He touches his shoulders and the top of the top of his head. “May God rest his soul.”
His eyes are the color of a deep moss, cold and impassive. He reaches and lifts a strand of my hair with his finger. “I thought we’d lost you, but the Lord has brought you back to me. This time I won’t be so reckless with you.” He looks down my body, pausing when he reaches my nether region. “This time I will have my reward.”
“My boyfriend,” I say, the term odd in my mouth, “he will kill you.”
Serpiente starts to pace around me in a wide circle. “The, ah, what is it called? The lifeguard, yes? He’ll be dealt with.”
I swallow down the dread knowing Archer doesn’t stand a chance against the cartel. If only I had been able to warn him, to tell him to save himself.
“You don’t know God,” I tell him, finally finding the courage to speak my mind. “You are the antichrist, and you will pay for your crimes. If not here, up there,” I nod to the sky. “One way or another, you will be held accountable.”
He places a finger on my lips. It smells of tobacco. “Hush, hush, hush. After all, you’ll need to conserve your energy for what I have planned for you.”
That icy ball becomes a solid rock in my chest.
I want to cry, to scream, to do anything, but I know it’s fruitless. I will not allow him the satisfaction of seeing me break. I will fig
ht this to the end. If nothing else, Archer taught me that much.
I picture his face, see him holding me. ‘You are a bad-ass,’ he’s saying. ‘You can do anything.’
I pull in a deep breath and force a smile onto my face. “You cannot hurt me,” I announce, being sure to look Serpiente in the eye. “You can have my body, but you’ll never have me.”
He laughs, wagging his finger at me. “But your body is all I want my little virgin. We’ll see how much you’re smiling when every man, every dog has their way with you when I’m done.”
He gives another whistle and walks away, the body bag zipped up and slid away towards the truck in the corner, a horrible mess of blood and gristle remaining on the ground.
It’s a terrible thought to think I’ve seen worse.
“Bring her,” Serpiente shouts, the man from the club with the teardrop tattoo walking over and taking me under the arm. “Walk,” he barks.
You’ll have to damn well drag me out of here, I think.
“Wal—” he goes to say, coughing through the end of it and turning to look at me with wide eyes. It’s only then I notice the hole in his neck. He reaches for it, mouth wide, but there’s too much blood. It flows around his fingers like thick, cherry syrup before he tilts and falls to the floor, his hand releasing my arm.
I can see the shock on Serpiente’s face.
There’s another loud “oof” from the right, another man going down, this time with a ruby dot on his forehead.
Serpiente shouts something, but with two more muffled expulsions of sound in the distance the men unloading the truck go down, one and then the other, a second shot hitting the poor guy in the back as he’s trying to crawl away.
Another ‘pfft’, another separation of air, and then Serpiente’s lieutenant screams aloud, falling to one knee and reaching for his gun, only managing to get it halfway up before he’s struck twice in the chest, slowly rocking forward onto his stomach.
It all happens so fast I barely process what’s going on.
Serpiente looks around, but his entire team have been dispatched somehow, all of them lying dead and dying around the warehouse in the space of seconds.