But at this point, tact was paramount.
There was nothing to be gained by putting my fist through his face… yet.
“Good to see you Bradley,” he said when he came to the door of his office, extending a hand. I wanted to smack that shit away, but with Alicia and her sister’s safety in mind, I accepted it instead, for a firm, quick shake I got over as soon as possible.
I searched my mind for a reasonable response that wasn’t a lie, settling on, “Good to be seen,” before I took the seat he offered, across from his desk. He closed the door, sitting down behind his desk to look at me, like he was waiting for me to speak first.
Finally, I did. “You wanted me to come down, Captain. What’s up?”
“Just wondering where your head is, Bradley.”
My eyes narrowed. “As far as what?”
“As far as your job. Your position here, with LVMPD. When do you plan to come back to duty?”
“I didn’t realize it was up to me,” I told him, truthfully. “It was never my choice to go on leave in the first place.”
Santiago nodded. “True, but it was necessary. Your insubordination got your partner killed – you don’t think I could have you just sauntering right in here after that, did you?”
“Oh, is that what killed her? I could’ve sworn it was a bullet. Where are we with that investigation anyway? Any leads?”
“The FBI has some of their best people on it,” he lied, right to my damn face. “And, I like you Bradley, but you’re going to have to drop that attitude before you come back.”
“I don’t even know if I am coming back,” I said, surprising myself as much as I surprised him, based on the way his mouth dropped. He recovered quickly though, eyes narrowed as he leaned over the desk.
“That’s… a pretty drastic choice to put on the table. What has you considering that?”
Your crooked ass.
Vivica’s death.
Crippling doubt that I can trust any of you.
“I’m going to be a father,” I told him, choosing to focus on the least suspicious reason, in lieu of shit I had no business saying out loud. “I want to be alive to see him or her grow up. Grow old. This job radically lowers my chances of that happening.”
“Congratulations,” he said, with a genuine grin that made me sick to my stomach. “Who is the lucky lady? I didn’t realize you were dating anyone.”
“Because I wasn’t. It was a fling that neither of us intended to be more than that, but… shit happens.”
“Indeed. She do it on purpose? Trying to get money?”
I laughed. “Hell no. She picked the wrong one for that,” I told him, wondering why the hell he’d think any woman with sense would be after my cop’s salary. I was sure he made significantly more than I did, as a captain, but certainly not enough to be the target of “gold diggers”.
Unless the LVMPD isn’t the only thing padding his pockets…
“She’s successful in her own right,” I explained. “If anybody trapped anybody, it certainly wasn’t her.”
Santiago laughed. “Good deal, man. And again, congratulations. But while we’re on the subject of beautiful women… what do you know about Alicia Miller?”
I kept my expression cool as I shrugged. “Kingston Whitfield’s security manager? Not much. Why?”
“There’s a case over in vice that she might be a person of interest on. Descriptions place her at the scene in two different cases.”
“Descriptions? No surveillance footage?”
“No. In both cases, there were convenient camera malfunctions.”
I frowned. “So what makes you think it’s her?”
“A very reliable source,” Santiago answered, purposely being cagey. “Not to mention, there’s no real record of Alicia Miller’s existence until about ten years ago – birth certificate and social, then nothing until she enrolled in college at 22.”
Thank God I had Willow put that together.
I didn’t even know she’d made it happen yet, since I’d only asked her to do it a few days ago, when Matt first informed me that Alicia might come under suspicion. When I’d looked into her myself, I’d found valid driver’s license, passport, all of that, but none of the original birth records that legitimized it all, if Alicia ever found herself in real trouble.
Now, she had it.
And it was a good thing, because I had no doubt that Santiago would’ve used it as a reason to issue an arrest warrant. As of now, he had nothing he could act on officially without raising suspicion.
“Keeping your nose clean isn’t a crime, is it?” I joked, and Santiago gave me an uneasy laugh, like he knew I was implying he didn’t have anything.
“No, but… I think she knows something. I’m going to have her brought in.”
“Well, keep me updated I guess.”
“Or not, if you’re thinking about turning your badge in permanently.”
I nodded. “You’re absolutely right… Maybe not. But do keep me updated on Vivica’s case, either way. Her family deserves to understand why she died.”
“Of course,” Santiago answered – another lie that made me feel sick. As much as I wanted to snatch him across the desk, or even just clue him in that I knew he wasn’t worth a damn, I had to remind myself again that satisfying my anger wasn’t a high priority right now.
Right now?
Warning Alicia was.
I wasn’t a fool – they were probably already watching Alicia, and monitoring her calls. It would be unwise for me to call her directly, which would tip Santiago – and therefore Sebastian and Maxim that she and I were in contact, which might prompt more aggressive action.
So as I walked out of the station, I fought the urge to whip my phone out and hit Alicia up, letting her know she needed to get out of sight. I did get my phone out, but I had no plans of calling Alicia directly.
I called Willow instead.
&
I didn’t like killing people.
All life was precious, everybody mattered to somebody and all of that. I wasn’t trigger-happy like some of my peers on the force – if I pulled my trigger it was because I absolutely had to, because of imminent danger to myself or someone else. I took no joy in it.
With that said, in any situation, I wasn’t above doing what needed to be done.
I was about to put a bullet in somebody’s head.
That was the conclusion I’d come to, after leaving the station and tracking down Camille at the hospital with the Whitfields – a field trip I took hoping that maybe Alicia was still there, after her visit earlier.
She wasn’t.
And she wasn’t at her place either, which I’d surmised after a stealthy trip into her building from a side entrance, and not getting an answer at her door.
Willow had pinged her phone more than once, using her hacking skills to send an alert directly to Alicia’s phone, instead of using any of the cellular services. I still wasn’t very clear on the method, but I didn’t need to be. All I needed to know was whether she’d responded, to indicate that she was okay.
She hadn’t.
And so, from where I was standing, the most likely scenario was that Sebastian and Maxim had gotten their hands on her.
Which was something I couldn’t abide.
This was a time where it would’ve been ideal to be able to rely on the Whitfield family – they loved Alicia like their own, and would undoubtedly go to great lengths for her safety. Asha’s unexpected labor and birth presented an obstacle though. They were, rightfully, occupied with celebrating the new baby, and making sure Asha was healthy and safe.
Unfortunately… I was going to have to break that up.
Kingston was out for sure, but I could go to Daniel, and I could get in touch with the women who Alicia worked with – the same little crew who’d helped her with Reo, and had undoubtedly been a part of the warehouse thing too. Between those two resources, I had every intention of making Sebastian Gray regret that I’d saved his bi
tch ass from Kingston that night.
Making him regret that he’d ever met me.
I jogged up the stairs to my apartment and headed inside, going straight for the gun safe in my bedroom closet. Once I’d punched in the combination to get it open, I grabbed a duffel bag and started packing them up one by one, stopping to load each weapon as I went.
“Wow, looks like you’re about to shoot some shit up.”
I turned, lifting the gun in my hands and aiming at the source of the voice only to find Alicia standing there, completely unfazed by the fact that I had a loaded rifle pointed at her face.
“Shit,” I growled, lowering the gun and holding it with one hand so that I could use the other to pull her into my arms, almost making her spill the bowl of cereal she was eating. “You scared the fuck outta me, woman. I thought somebody had snatched you.”
“That’s cute,” she giggled, graciously allowing me to practically suffocate her against my chest, without protest.
“Cute?” I asked, when I finally let her go, indifferent about the milk that was now dripping down the front of my shirt. “I was ready to kill somebody.”
Her eyes went wide, but that cute ass smirk didn’t leave her face. “Really now?”
“Yeah, really,” I told her, finally adding the gun to the bag with the others. “Why weren’t you responding to Willow?”
“Because I disabled my phone,” she explained, eyes narrowed in confusion like that should’ve been obvious. “I got her message, shut that shit down, and came to a cop’s apartment – the last place your brothers in blue will be looking for me.” She stopped talking to look at half her cereal on the floor, at the bag of guns I’d been preparing to ride out, then back up to me. “I see I chose well, when I was trying to determine a safe place.”
I ran my tongue over my lips, heart still racing, veins still pumping with adrenaline as I nodded. “Yeah, I mean… I don’t think they know we have a connection.”
“And everyone they might go to, to ask about me, knows not to say anything. We’re good. I’m going to get something to clean this up, and then we can try to figure things out, okay?” she asked, already moving toward the door. She came back with the paper towel roll from the kitchen, and I asked the primary question on my mind.
“Hey… how did you get in here?”
She scoffed as she bent to clean the cereal up. “Please, Cree. You really think a lock is keeping me out of anything?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the point of them…”
Alicia straightened up, balancing a pile of used paper towels in her hands. “Are you glad I got here safely or not?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“I do,” she called over her shoulder as she left again, prompting me to follow her to the kitchen where she disposed of the trash. “Which is why I don’t understand why how I got in here is the topic of discussion instead of… the fact that Daniel Whitfield vacated his seat in The Collective and chose me as the parting gift.”
My eyes bugged wide. “What?”
“You heard me right,” she confirmed, moving in closer to me to grab my wet shirt. I let her pull it over my head and toss it away, then held back my surprise as she looped her arms around my waist to embrace me, resting her head on my chest. “They lied to me. All this time.”
I returned her embrace, pressing my lips to her forehead. “Probably with good reason.”
“Yes. But still,” she said, her lips tickling my skin as she spoke. “It doesn’t feel good.”
“I can only imagine. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be. I’m fine, really. I got to hold a baby today, and it was… amazing.”
My eyebrows went up. “I…wouldn’t have pegged you as being into babies.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged me as being into babies. I mean they’re cute or whatever, but KJ… he was just so tiny, and precious, and… Kingston and Asha kept calling me “Auntie Alicia”, and I just… it was an experience.”
“A good one, it sounds like.”
She turned her face up toward mine, unable to keep herself from grinning. “Yeah. It really was.”
My phone buzzing in my back pocket grabbed my attention, and even though I wanted to keep Alicia engaged in a positive moment, our current situation made it seem prudent to stay connected. That inkling proved to be true – when I looked at my screen, I had a new message from Willow. It was a link, routing me to an encrypted folder she’d set up to keep all this information together.
It was updated, with new details.
With wide eyes, and Alicia reading over my shoulder, I quickly took in the new information. When I came to the end, I just stood there a second before I looked at Alicia, only to find her already looking at me.
“Paloma Santiago. That’s her maiden name? You have to be kidding me,” Alicia laughed, shaking her head. “La Jefa of the Santiago cartel – you have to be shitting me.”
I pushed out a sigh. “Well… at least now we know exactly who Sebastian and Maxim are trying to use as their “in” with The Collective.”
“Yes, but it raises yet another question, too… the home invasion. My father killed, Dacia and I taken, Paloma left for dead… who was the target? Him, or her?”
Shit…
That was a good question. And having an answer to it would probably go a long way in figuring out the who and the why. But like she said… it seemed like the more information we got, the more questions we had.
A knock at my door made both of our heads pop up.
“Are you expecting somebody?” Alicia asked, keeping her voice low. “Camille?”
I shook my head. “Nah, she’s staying close to Asha. Go back to my bedroom, and wait for me. I’ll see who it is.”
“You need better security,” she fussed, not moving. “There should be a camera on that door – you shouldn’t have to wonder, and you shouldn’t have to get in firing range of somebody with a rifle on the other side.”
“Alicia… go wait for me,” I said again, giving her a gentle push to urge her on. She narrowed her eyes, but moved her ass, muttering under her breath about shooting me with my own gun.
The knock sounded again, so I went ahead and went to the door.
I narrowed my eyes at who I saw on the other side, illuminated by the awning lights, now that the sun had gone down. Glancing behind me to make sure Alicia was out of sight, I let out a sigh and then unlocked the door.
“We need to talk,” Matt said, breezing past me into the door, uninvited. “About Santiago.”
As soon as Santiago left his lips, it made a connection that I should’ve made as soon as I saw Paloma’s maiden name. But Matt didn’t give me a chance to say anything.
“I did some digging, right? Trying to figure out what this all means, right? A LVMPD captain is directly related – first cousins – with the head of a drug cartel, and everything is just… cool. Nobody looked into, investigated this shit?”
I scoffed. “Somebody knew. They just didn’t care. He probably fed somebody lines about not wanting to be like his family, wanting to take them down. Meanwhile, he’s just a goddamn inside man.”
“Right,” Matt fussed, pacing back and forth. “I… who do we even talk to about this? Who do we report it to?”
“Report it to?” I fought the urge to laugh. “Matt, you’d better take your ass home and delete your search history, and don’t mention this shit to anybody. Before it all gets pinned on you.”
Matt shook his head. “Nah, man. I know you’re not suggesting we just let this shit ride?”
“For now? It’s exactly what I’m suggesting. You have no proof of anything, and no idea who to trust.”
“I trust the system.”
“The system was built by crooked motherfuckers, and guess who still runs it?” I snapped, frowning. “Don’t be naïve, man.”
“I’m not being naïve, I’m… trying not to make the same mistake again,” he said, dropping onto my couch with a hard sigh
. “Look… you were right. I knew something was up with my own captain and I didn’t say anything. I minded my business. And look what happened with that – what that sick bastard was doing to young girls.”
“This isn’t that.” I got in front of him, hoping it would make him hear me better. “We don’t know how deep this Santiago shit goes, or how high. But what I do know is that it goes high enough to bury me, you, and everybody connected to us if we don’t handle it the right way. And walking into what… the Chief of Police’s office to level some accusations we can’t prove? That’s not the right way.”
“So then what do you think is?” he countered, sitting back and looking completely defeated.
“You help us take him down.”
Matt and I both looked up in surprise, to see Alicia standing at the kitchen counter, arms crossed.
Matt sat up. “You’re Alicia Miller. They’re looking for you.”
“Let them look. You’re not going to tell, are you?”
Instead of answering, Matt looked at me. “What the hell is going on here?”
“What’s going on, is that you’re going to get to be a hero. You’re Vice, aren’t you?” Alicia asked, taking a few steps forward, her thighs on full display. I frowned, realizing that she’d changed from her milk-soaked clothes into one of my tee shirts, and was giving Matt quite a show.
“Yes ma’am,” he said. “And I’d like to think I already am a hero.”
“You thought wrong,” she shot back, clearly annoyed by his arrogance. “But, you have a chance to help make a real difference. Maxim Bissett has an operation here – one you haven’t been able to touch. Cree isn’t on the force right now, but you are. You can help us take these motherfuckers down, and get all the credit for it.”
I could tell by his calculating expression that she was speaking his language – Matt had never been one to back down from attention, and I doubted he was about to start now.
“Why should I trust you?” he asked, and Alicia smirked.
“Why should you trust them? Or better yet… why shouldn’t I kill you right now? How do I know you’re not with them?”
Deuces Wild Page 20