by Nicole York
2
Cole
Cole woke up for the sixth time that morning and peered at the alarm clock resting beside his bed upon a haphazard stack of moving boxes. Three, to be exact. Two were full of junk. The third was full of old DVDs he never should have packed up in the first place. It would have been easier to give them away or donate them. Did people still buy DVDs these days? Nevertheless, there they were, acting as the base to the boxes that made up his nightstand.
The red block numbers on his alarm clock declared that it wasn’t morning at all. It was half past noon on Monday.
Cole groaned, rolled onto his back, and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When his eyeballs started to ache, he let his arms fall to his sides and gazed up at the textured ceiling above. There was still a water stain in the far-right corner that had been there since he moved in eight months ago. All it needed was some fresh paint and it would be good as new but he couldn’t bring himself to be bothered to do any work on this less-than-mediocre apartment.
He didn’t pay for it, either.
Demetri DeMarco did. It was part of the deal to work for his Syndicate. Turned out he paid for housing for all his people. Marcus, Cole’s boss at Kadia, had assured him that Demetri would award him with nicer digs as time went on and Cole had more opportunities to prove himself. Digs like Marcus’s apartment.
Prove myself, Cole thought mirthlessly. The only thing he’d proven in these last weeks was how unreliable and trigger happy he was.
In Cole’s headstrong, show-no-mercy, the-bad-guy-must-die mentality, he’d singlehandedly blown the last job Demetri sent them on. Adam Cooper, one of Demetri’s long-standing rivals who lived out in California most of the year, had shown his face in New York. It was no secret that he was on the prowl, looking for trouble.
Hell, for all Cole knew, he’d only been looking for Marcus, who’d been a thorn in his side for at least a year. Demetri wanted Cooper dead. And Cooper? Well, he wanted all of Demetri’s men dead so he could slide into Demetri’s territory and claim everything for himself.
They weren’t going to let that stand. Marcus and Cole had the bright idea to try to bring Cooper in lawfully. With the help of Jon, an old cop buddy of Cole’s he’d served on the force with, they’d made plans to corner Cooper at an underground party outside the city limits. They wanted to catch him in the act of attempted murder so they could slap cuffs on him long enough to bring a full case to trial along with all his other criminal activity. It might have been the nail in his coffin.
And they almost succeeded.
Cooper was a slippery fish. He’d known all along they were planning something and he’d turned the tables on them, capturing Marcus’s woman, Keesha Queen, and holding her as collateral should any of them get the bright idea to try to blow a hole through his skull. Marcus bent to Cooper’s will.
Cole?
He stuck to the plan set out by Demetri. If they couldn’t put Cooper behind bars, then they had to handle shit their own way.
The bloody way.
Cole had pulled the trigger. He could still remember the adrenaline coursing through his veins. His aim had been true. He didn’t miss a shot. Not ever. Everything had slowed down after he pulled that trigger and the bullet screamed for Cooper’s chest. Cole could have shot him in the head, but in that moment, he didn’t want him to die right away.
Cole was selfish. He wanted to stand over Cooper while he bled out. He wanted to watch him die. And he wanted him to know Cole had been the one to do it.
But Marcus—fucking Marcus, the biggest baddest motherfucker of them all—threw himself in front of Cole’s shot and saved Cooper’s pathetic neck to protect his woman and the lives at stake if Cooper didn’t walk out of that underground party.
At the time, Cole had been furious. How could Marcus have cost them such a victory? Why would he be so willing to throw himself in the line of fire for a snake like Cooper?
As the rest of the night wore on and they piled into Marcus’s car, he bled furiously in the backseat. They rushed him home and got him bandaged up, and in those moments, Cole realized the error of his ways. They could not succeed if they worked individually.
Failure was guaranteed if Cole acted against his colleagues again.
Failure or death.
Cole sat up in bed and swung his legs over the side of the mattress. The hard wood was cool against his bare feet. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and massaged his temples.
Guilt and regret had made a home in his gut ever since that night and he couldn’t shake it. He also didn’t have any room left for such feelings. He’d already carried them with him for such a long time that he was beginning to wonder when the bottom would fall out and he’d be nothing but hollow.
Cole ached for hollow.
Hollow sounded so much better than how he felt. Heavy, tired, angry, cold.
He stood up and raked his fingers through his hair. His back twinged with pain and he walked gingerly to the bathroom out in the hall, where he braced himself on the bathroom counter to peer at his reflection.
The man staring back at him was a stranger. Cole didn’t know him.
He was battered and bruised inside and out.
Cole frowned at the shiner on the right side of his jaw. It had faded from an angry purple to a yellow-ringed brown, like an overripe banana. It wasn’t pretty but it didn’t look as bad as it had just days ago.
Another bruise practically glowed on the thick trapezius muscle between his shoulder and neck. This one had not yet begun to turn brown. The blow had been harder, more vicious, and it hurt to the touch.
Cole was riddled with bruises and shallow scrapes down his forearms, too. All of his knuckles were red, three of them split and scabbed over, but the swelling had passed a couple days ago. He had tender ribs and a sore hip. Luckily, the pain was beginning to ebb away.
Cole splashed cold water on his face, took a piss, and padded down the hall to the living room. More moving boxes greeted him. Amongst them was his kickboxing bag, propped up in a weighted mount that held it in place. It came with a chain to hang it from the ceiling but that seemed like a bad idea in an apartment.
Cole pushed it into the middle of the room and wrapped his knuckles in white tape before squaring off with the box for a forty-five minute, sweat-inducing, heart-racing, knuckle-busting workout. By the time he was done, his hair hung wet in his eyes with sweat and the pain in his body had reduced to a dull throb with all the blood flow. He felt better and lighter on his feet, so he moved on to his next circuit.
He worked himself until he felt nauseated, caught his breath, and kept going.
By the time he finished, he was more than a little weary. He didn’t feel like he’d done enough even as he bent over, hands gripping his knees, and fought to catch his breath. Tiny black dots rushed across his vision like little bugs scuttling across his eyeballs. He blinked to clear them, but the fuzziness persisted.
A shower would fix him right up.
He had a hot shower and finished on ice-cold water. He stood beneath the stream, the water pelting down across his shoulders, and let it run from the tip of his nose. Normally he’d jerk off in the shower but he hadn’t indulged in that in weeks.
He hadn’t wanted to.
Still a little lightheaded, Cole got out of the shower and wrapped himself in a towel. He made himself a quick breakfast out in the kitchen and sat on the sofa with his laptop open on his lap so he could do what he’d spent his days for the last two weeks doing: looking for leads about Adam Cooper.
As per usual, he came up empty.
Every search turned back nothing. Adam Cooper could cover his tracks to the point of being damn near invisible. He hardly appeared at all online, and if he did, it was never in any illegal capacity. There were a handful of pictures of him online, none of which he’d taken or probably wanted taken, but they were all old. At least five or so years.
Cole tried to find any criminal-organization busts
in Los Angeles that he might have been able to tie to Cooper but the only ones he came across were related to the Crips and Bloods. None of their operations were nearly on the scale of Adam Cooper’s, and yet somehow, he managed to keep everything so hush-hush to the point where it seemed he was nothing but a figment of Cole’s own imagination.
Cole gritted his teeth.
A figment of imagination, he was not.
Cooper was real, wicked, and incredibly dangerous.
There was no doubt in Cole’s mind he’d make his way back to New York. He’d made a pact with Marcus to stay the hell out of Dodge and any Castaletta-DeMarco territory. Demetri seemed content to take him on his word. So did Marcus.
But Cole?
He couldn’t rest easy knowing Cooper was out there plotting his return and, most likely, his attack.
Hours passed as Cole sat on the sofa. In those hours, all his aches and pains returned.
He needed to blow off more steam. Working out alone in his apartment wasn’t cutting it. He needed the adrenaline rush. He needed violence. Blood. Pain.
So he called the guy who’d helped him find what he was after the last time, Dean Dunham, one of the bartenders at Kadia.
He answered on the third ring with an air of distraction in his voice. “Cole? Why the hell are you calling, man? Every time you call me, you want something I shouldn’t have anything to do with.”
“I want another fight.”
Dean sighed on the other end. “Why?”
“Why doesn’t matter. Can you arrange one, or no?”
Dean was quiet for a minute. The last few times Cole had asked him to get him a slot at the old underground club he used to fight at, he’d been more accommodating. Of course, Cole hadn’t had his ass beat those times. His last fight hadn’t ended as well, hence the bruises.
“You need to give yourself more time, dude,” Dean said. “You’re still in rough shape and these guys won’t give a shit if—”
“I’m not asking an opponent for special treatment. And I’m not asking if you think it’s a good idea. I’m asking if you can throw my name in the ring. Yes or no?”
Dean practically growled into the line. “Fine. I’ll throw your name in. But I’m not going to play matchmaker with this shit anymore. You hear me? You go to your fight and you get your own line of communication.”
“Fine.”
“You’re a dumb fucker, Cole. Letting a stranger beat the shit out of you won’t change a damn thing going on inside your head. You need—”
“Don’t tell me what I need.” Cole hung up the phone, tossed it in the corner of the sofa, and returned to researching Adam Cooper.
3
Cameron
“Excuse me?” Cameron wore her most charming smile as she stood at the end of the buffet line up at the shelter and tried to catch the attention of the employee closest to her.
She was a middle-aged woman with a round body type, tiny feet that were crammed into those rubber monstrosities called Crocs, and hair that was so wildly curly it could hardly be contained by her hairnet.
She paid Cameron absolutely no attention at all as she slapped a large serving of wet mashed potatoes onto a young man’s plate. He thanked her soundlessly with a slight inclination of his head before shuffling down the line to make room for the next person.
“Excuse me?” Cameron asked again, this time peering around the glass divider and waving at her.
The curly-haired woman shot Cameron an irritated look. “I don’t have time for surveys, inspections, interviews, or anything of the like, girlie. I suggest you move along to where you’re supposed to be. Bella’s is down the block and around the corner if you’re lost.”
Cameron blinked. Bella’s was a five-star gourmet restaurant that specialized in Brazilian meats. She’d been a handful of times and kind of resented how accurate her assumption about her was.
“Oh,” Cameron said. “I’m not looking for Bella’s. I had an appointment to come into the kitchen today and speak to some women. I’m the—”
She put her large serving spoon down. “Miss Wright. Of course. I should’ve known based on the, well, everything.” She gestured at all of Cameron with a sweeping up-and-down gesture of her spoon. A little dollop of potatoes splattered at her feet. “I’m Romania. We’re in the middle of our rush, so you’re going to have to give yourself a tour. If any volunteers stop you, tell them Romania is meeting with you this afternoon. They’ll leave you be. And if they don’t? Well, you’re shit out of luck, girlie. If this place has one cog in the motor, we’ll fall behind and never catch up, and I don’t know if you noticed, but there are a lot of hungry folks in line.”
Cameron clasped her hands together and clutched her folder to her chest. “I understand. Thank you, Romania. I’ll see myself around and maybe speak to some of the women?”
Romania laughed like a pirate. She threw her head back and cackled and Cameron dared herself not to double-check if one of her legs happened to be made of wood. “You can go right ahead and try, girlie.”
Cameron wasn’t sure what that meant or what she’d said that Romania found so funny, but she left her to her work and got out of the way of people in line.
Cameron stood at the front of the cafeteria and thanked her lucky stars her mother had the wisdom to make her change out of her all-white pantsuit. Not because she was afraid of it getting dirty. Oh no, that wasn’t it. You see, a little bit of dirt and grime never scared Cameron despite her luxurious upbringing.
She was grateful because she doubted anyone would want to talk to her if she’d showed up looking like a wealthy doctor and socialite.
Instead of the all-white ensemble, Cameron had settled for a pair of high-waisted royal-blue slacks that cut off just above her ankle. She’d paired them with black pumps that were modestly high, about four and a half inches, and a sleek black blouse that had been tailored to fit her and the girls just right. She’d decided against wearing her usual diamond earrings and necklace and instead went with a pair of gold hoops. Her long black hair was down, and for the first time in her life, Cameron was self-conscious about how good it looked.
Then as she looked around, she realized nobody in the soup kitchen gave two shits about her.
In fact, she was being treated like one of those people who posed as statues on street corners. Everyone gave her a wide berth, as if afraid Cameron might spring at them at any moment, and they kept their eyes averted.
Cameron hadn’t spoken a word to them and they already resented her.
This might be harder than I thought.
In high school, she’d always been the girl everyone wanted to sit with. In fact at her private school, boys used to clamor to save her a seat. They’d bribe her with a chilled bottle of her favorite sparkling water or a half slice of a lemon square, her favorite treat. It worked damn near every time and she always sat with whoever was the quickest to the punch, knowing there were fifteen other worthy options to work her way through in the coming weeks.
But this place?
The feeling was obvious that nobody wanted to sit with Cameron White.
As she made her way down the rows of tables, she wondered if this is how the less popular girls had felt. She’d never been mean to them. She was no bully. In fact, Cameron was the opposite, but looking back at being a teenage girl as an adult, she knew she had more power in her size-one uniform skirt than she’d ever realized at the time. All she’d had to do to make a huge difference in someone else’s day—or potentially entire high-school experience—was sit with someone who wasn’t a good-looking seventeen-year-old boy.
But Cameron hadn’t. The boys won out each and every time.
Now pacing up and down each row, Cameron hoped someone would be kind enough to invite her to sit.
They did not.
They didn’t even look up from their plates as she passed.
You’re just going to have to dive in and sit down next to someone. Be brave, Cameron. Be brave.
; Cameron chose two women sitting shoulder to shoulder at the far end of one of the tables. They each had a cup of what appeared to be orange juice in front of them, along with half-eaten meals of lasagna and Caesar salad, sans the croutons and parmesan cheese. So it was basically just lettuce with ranch dressing.
Cameron put her purse down on the bench beside her and the folder on the table in front of her, facedown just to make sure the gold-embossed initials didn’t blind anyone.
One of the women looked up. Cameron couldn’t tell how old she was. Her eyes looked young, like she was in her twenties, but her skin had that worn, weathered look from being out in the sun all the time. The corners of her eyes and lips were wrinkled, her hands were dirty, and her nails had been nibbled to an appalling short length that made Cameron’s fingertips itch.
“Hello,” Cameron said, smiling pleasantly. “My name is Cameron. I was wondering if I could chat quickly with you while you enjoy your lunch?”
The woman with short nails did not conceal her obvious disinterest in talking to Cameron. She nodded at her friend, the woman sitting beside Cameron, and grunted.
The friend looked at Cameron out of the corner of a startling blue eye. “What do you want to talk about?”
Cameron placed a hand on the back of her white folder. “I’m working on plans to open my own women’s shelter and part of my strategy is to get out and talk to the people who might choose to stay at said shelter, or who have experience staying in other ones.”
“Why?” she asked dryly as she crammed a bite of salad into her mouth. Ranch clung to her lips.
“Well,” Cameron said, trying to gauge how she should speak to these women. Did she talk to them like business colleagues? Like friends? Like how she spoke to her father’s friends? “It seemed silly to me to invest a bunch of time and money into a project I didn’t have an intimate understanding of. I need help from women like you to show me what’s important and what’s frivolous.”
“Frivolous?” the woman with short nails asked, bemused.