by AJ Elmore
Freddy sits back, lets his hands linger on the arms of the chair. Still, he's staring at the map. I wonder how many times he's rehearsed this. Or maybe he didn't at all. He doesn't seem like the type to rehearse anything in his life, but he's so focused despite his obvious edge, I wonder.
His words so far have been straightforward, but they are shadowed by a memory. Charlie, a beer in hand, grease on his arms and face, the hood of the Caddy propped open. That's when he told me about Freddy – the former Reaper prodigy who came from nowhere, and found a snug place under the wings of the two slimiest creatures on God's green earth. “I just can't trust an ex-Reap to really change sides,” Charlie had said. I guess Charlie never counted on the persuasive powers of his kid sister.
I realize Freddy's watching me with narrow eyes, almost like he can sense the direction of my thoughts. He can't, that's impossible, but I shut them down anyway. He continues.
“The truck will leave the garage around 1:45 to pick up the load and make the drop. The guard at the garage has accepted a hefty sum to let me in and then disappear for about twenty minutes, which is all the time I'll need to rig the truck with enough explosives to light the warehouse up like the Quarter during Mardi Gras.”
He's fucking insane. His windows of opportunity are narrow, his intel questionable, and the chances of success are so fucking small. It takes every ounce of resolve not to cut him off and tell him what I think. I chew at my bottom lip.
“Meanwhile,” says Freddy, “you two will have positioned yourselves here.”
He sparks a lighter I didn't realize he had in his hand – my lighter, a green Bic. I get the urge to backhand him, but I bite down on it just before my arm twitches. His sleight of hand is just a trick, and he'll need more than that to pull this shit off.
A shade of a smirk tugs his lips then disappears. He sets the lighter upright on its end near the cigarette box. He says, “Maria, you'll position on a rooftop here, with my Dragunov. Izzy, you'll cover Maria.”
Maria's head jerks up as her wide eyes snap to him, proof that they haven't discussed the whole plan before now.
“You're leaving the Dragon with me?” she asks, not at all like a leader. Much more like the leader's little sister.
To see that side of her now, so sincere, nearly makes me cuss aloud. Not now, not after she buried that little girl. Not after she was a woman beneath my touch.
“You've shot her plenty of times. Don't act gun shy now,” Freddy says, and his tone is more admonishing than I've ever heard from him. It hints at the leader that has survived from his distant past.
“I've shot her in range conditions, Frederick, not when it really mattered,” she answers, her gaze falling back to the smokes and the lighter.
After all the cock measuring and proving herself that she's done since Charlie died, I can't fucking believe that she'd argue with Freddy now. Apparently, neither can he.
He slaps his hand down onto the table, the noise making her jump and look back to him. His rigid posture doesn't quite lean toward violence, but his sudden stillness makes major waves in the tension. He's watching Maria with a hot and heavy intensity, ignoring me – mostly.
He says, “Do you want to end this or not, princesa?”
The steel in his tone is his greatest weapon of surprise. She flinches, but she doesn't crumble. Her voice is so low I almost miss it when she says, “Of course, I do.”
I'm waiting for the balance to shift, for her to come clawing out of the gate with flag raised and weapons blazing. But it's clear she's out of her league. She's never witnessed, much less planned, something of this magnitude. She's left to his expertise. His, because she doesn't seem to give a shit about mine right now.
He says, “Then you'll wait for that truck to roll into position and you'll pull the trigger. You'll only need one shot to blow that warehouse and everyone inside to hell.”
She sighs, but she nods. Then she looks up at me. For a moment, I wonder if her vacillation is an act. But Freddy's watching me, too. They're waiting for my reaction. What a nasty team they make.
It's like slow motion, grabbing my smokes and lighter, shattering the scene he has set. I cock a smoke and light it without looking at them. So many things don't sit well about this.
“What about Josh?”
Maria's beseeching expression stutters, caught somewhere between surprise and that suspicion she gave me in the Caddy, when we were alone and she made a bid for my presence at her funeral meeting.
What started there as revenge has mutated into something much uglier. I never thought there could be such a thing, but this revenge will also be an acquisition of power. Power only corrupts, and revenge only ever leads to revenge. That's what killed Charlie, it's what sent Derrik to our doorstep, and it's what sent him back, a dirty, bleeding harbinger of this very moment. Maria wasn't bluffing when she said she wanted to destroy them, and she wasn't bluffing when she said she had nothing left to lose. Any one of us could give her everything and it would never fill the void left by her brother.
She still hasn't answered, so Frederick makes a throaty noise of disgust. His voice is forced when he says, “He'll come with me. Watch my back.”
I'm not sure if I want to laugh or call bullshit. Freddy wants Josh watching his back like he wants another hole to breathe through. The alternative, though, is having Josh watch Maria's back. My gun is more experienced, and so Freddy will take the burden of the rookie. This plan is so rich it tastes like fertilizer: a steaming pile of shit. I choose to let the silence stretch, during which I steadily switch my attention to Freddy.
He fields the volley with considerable mettle, again with that notion that he's silently willing me to dissension. A guy like him must have a lot of steam to blow, a lot of secrets and skeletons, just waiting for him to slip up. I take a long drag on my cigarette and don't care to tilt my head, so that when I exhale it goes directly in his non-smoker's face.
Violence twitches his expression, but he checks it, answers me with a grim stare. I laugh, much more bitterly than I intended. Do they think I'm fucking stupid? Do they see me as some mindless sap just because I'm quiet most of the time? I can't keep quiet any longer.
“And when are you going to tell me the rest?”
The next beat is so heavy I nearly stand and leave this tragedy-in-motion. The pause is pregnant with that connection between them, and with reluctance to give me a straight answer.
“What are you talking about, Iz?” Maria asks, a shade above a whisper.
She knows, has to by now, that I'm not shooting blind. Has neither of them guessed just yet that I heard that conversation in the kitchen? I heard Freddy report to her. I heard all those grimy details that neither of them is saying now.
I give her a wry smile, dry enough that a good wind would shatter it. Then I nail Freddy with my accusation and say, “You know, the part where you tried to talk her out of this, how you hate it and you'd rather pack your shit and disappear like you're so good at doing.” My eyes slide to Maria. “And the part about why my best friend bled to death in my arms.”
She goes utterly still, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. She's been caught with her secrets in her hands. Both of them have. Now how will she respond? If she gives me that innocence bullshit, I swear I'll fucking walk right now.
But she doesn't. She closes her mouth, squares her shoulders, and says, “This meeting is regarding our plan.” Her voice cracks just a little. “Of course, I was going to tell you the details.”
Something snaps in me, something so similar to what made me fuck her.
“When? Whenever you felt it wouldn't affect your little play for power? Whenever you were done fitting me into your plan? Or don't you think I deserve to know all that? You weren't there to hear his dying word and you treat me like this isn't my fight. So which is it, Maria? You want me around to play soldier for you, which is a lot easier if I don't know why I'm even fighting. Or you really want to cut me loose? Don't f
orget that I've been around longer than anyone.”
She gasps and it feels like a shot to my lungs. My words squeeze themselves off in my throat, and it's like a blow to the spleen when the tears gather in her eyes. Fuck. What am I doing? What the hell are we doing, sitting here planning something dramatic and sinister enough to hoist us into complete notoriety – or send us to prison for eternity?
She sniffles. Goddammit. Her voice is quiet when she answers.
“Because I didn't want to hear you say you hate it, too.”
I take a shaky pull on my cigarette. It does its part to soothe my nerves, so that my voice comes steady when I say, “Freddy's right, this whole thing stinks. It doesn't feel right. He's also right about this: it's fucked up for your own family to use you and your bitterness for their dirty work.”
The tears loose themselves down her cheeks, and she presses her lips into a thin line. She's trying to get her shit together. All in all, a teacher might admit that she's doing a damn good job.
There's no retreating this time, no bowing out as the others try to assert dominance. The real truth is that she inherited her rank and I earned mine. I stare her down, ignoring Freddy like an annoying little brother.
I say, “I've already laid my loyalty at your feet, and I'll do right by the friend who always had my back by watching his sister's. But you'll hear this from me, this is a bad fucking idea.”
She sniffs again. Now I turn to Freddy, whose expression is less a challenge and more a mask. Still, he doesn't cower in the heat of my conviction, just meets my eyes like a man. For that, I can respect him.
I say, “You know this is some bad juju.”
He sighs, but his expression doesn't change. His tone is resigned when he says, “This is as much my revenge as hers.”
“Which is why neither of you cares about the implications of your actions. I'm only in this to see you live, Maria. Just keep that in mind. I'll do whatever you ask me to, but I can't save you from yourself.”
I stand up. They’re both staring at me, a strange wariness shared in their gazes. This is the me they don't know, the one I've kept hidden. The one I always knew she would coax forth. I don't speak another sound. I don't really think I need to. I hold her eyes for a few, long moments before I turn and walk away. Neither of them says a word.
Chapter 28 Waltz in Red
Joshua
I jerk into waking at a sound – it's familiar but out of place and makes me bolt upright in the bed. For a moment, I just stare. Where the fuck am I? Everything here is strange. The sound starts again. My phone, now muffled and buried somewhere in the sheet that covers me.
A body stirs beside me and everything clicks into place. Eva, this is her bed, her apartment in the Garden District. And my phone is still ringing.
I see the screen light and feel the vibration through the mattress, and sluggishly I excavate the fucker. The glare is like needles in my eyes as I squint at the name on the screen. Izzy.
Anxiety streaks through me as I hit the answer button. This can't be good.
“Yeah?”
The voice that answers is thin, tired, and . . . pissed? “They lied to me.”
My thoughts churn like a bunch of rusty gears, clunking along like an old tractor through a haze of whiskey shots and sweaty fucking. Eva is awake by now, staring up at me with heavy eyes. Perhaps she can sense the instant tension that squeezes my chest.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Izzy?”
A stretch of silence, then, “The plan.”
“What plan?”
My nerves make another rise. The AC in this place works a little too well, and the air is frigid enough to send chills across my skin. At least, I think it's the air. Then again, there's an uneasy feeling growing in my gut.
“The plan that will take out Gram and his entire operation in one shot.”
The anticipation of bad news spikes into red hot anger, a temper I didn't quite expect. I've been playing fucking bartender for days, with no word from Maria and now Izzy's telling me they have a fucking plan?
“And was the plan to leave me the fuck out?” I growl, ignoring Eva's wide eyes and probing interest in what has me so quickly worked up. She may like my charm, but she doesn't know me and she's not even important at the moment.
More silence. Maybe, for the first time ever, Isaiah and I can relate to each other. She sidelined us both.
Then he says, “I think so.”
“Fucking hell,” I spit under my breath.
“They left about twenty minutes ago without a word and with a big ass gun. They told me the plan, they said two days, but I think they meant to leave us out. I think it's going down tonight.”
The urge to hang up makes my hand twitch around my phone, the urge to break something rages equally as strong. After all the times I swore to her that I'd follow her to hell and back, and she didn't even include me in the plan? And she left Izzy sitting on her grandmother's plantation.
“That bitch,” I hiss.
Eva has retreated to the other side of the bed, sitting there in an oversized t-shirt, hair crazy from sleep.
Izzy sighs then says, “Get something to write with. I'm going to give you the addresses. They'll be splitting up once they get into town.”
The rage makes it impossible to be still. I shoot to my feet, only barely keeping myself from punching the wall. Violence is not normally my way of dealing with shit, but the tang of betrayal is bitter. I don't even care that I'm naked.
“What the fuck do I care what they're doing?”
He's so quiet, seemingly calm, but his voice comes flat when he says, “We can't leave their backs open. They're risking too much.”
Everything. They're risking everything. For a long time, I can't do anything but see red.
“Josh?”
Now I'm the one who sighs and it's a much more aggravated thing than his was. I can't quite check my emotions. Maybe it's from being blindsided out of a dead sleep, or maybe it's being isolated from my crew, the closest thing to friends that I have. Is he right? She left us hanging. Shouldn't we leave her to it? Could I live with myself if something happens to her? Not likely.
“So what's this plan?”
I click on the light as he fills me in on the details. Eva's server apron is on the floor near the bed, so I dig her book and a pen out of it. Then I start to pace like this is my own room. She watches all of this with a wary interest, content to sit quietly.
Izzy gives me both the address for the building where Maria will post up and the garage where Frederick will set up the truck. Then he says, “I'm going to find a ride out of here if I have to steal it. I've already lost too much time.”
The drunken playboy who tossed Eva around in the sheets for a while is gone. All the charm and game have disappeared. This is business. It's something else, too, a chance to prove to all of them that I'm not a stupid kid.
“Fine. Keep me posted.”
The line goes dead and I lower the phone in slow motion. Still, I want to chuck it against the wall. Instead I pin Eva with a serious look and say, “I need a ride back to the restaurant.”
It's not really a request, and it doesn't come out as one. Even if she didn't expect such an authoritative tone, she just nods dumbly. She looks scared but crawls out of bed anyway.
My gaze drifts down to my clothes scattered across the floor. Maria, all she had to do was tell me to go. That's it, but she didn't fucking say a word. I should have known something wasn't right when Freddy split in the middle of the night. I should have known she wouldn't trust me. And here I am, running along after her feet like a goddamned puppy.
I look back to my phone, flip through the contacts until I find Jack's number. I hit call as I start pulling on my boxers. By the time he answers, I've gotten my shorts on, too. He sounds drunk.
“Shit's going down. I need a vehicle.”
Even drunk, Jack's a smart guy. There's a moment of collection f
rom him, then he rumbles back.
“The tranny is shot in my truck. Take Noah's 'stang. If anything happens to it, though, he'll kill you. That's not an exaggeration.”
I hoist my messenger bag onto the bed and dig around inside until I find my Glock 40. I pop the magazine to make sure it's full, my movements pure habit. I hear Eva gasp, but I ignore her.
“I'll be there shortly,” I tell Jack.
“10-4.”
I hook my holster onto my belt and dock my gun. My eyes are roving the floor, but I can't find my shirt. My frustration must show, because Eva tentatively touches my shoulder. My answering gaze is hard, and I almost feel bad for her. None of this has anything to do with her. She shouldn't have to see this side of my life. She points to my t-shirt, hanging over the footboard of her bed.
“Thanks,” I mutter, but there's no feeling in it.
Everything in me says to go to her, to Maria, in the Ninth Ward. Cover her back and wait for Freddy to do his thing. What do I care if Freddy's back is covered? Except there's a dark notion nagging at the edges of my mind. Maria will be nestled on a rooftop of an empty building, no one will have a clue she's there. Frederick, he's walking into enemy territory, trusting the enemy to not pull some shady shit. It's so fucking stupid I wonder why Maria would agree to it. We never go alone, never leave our backs open. It's the first lesson Charlie ever taught me.
“Goddammit,” I sigh as I pull my shirt over my body and make sure it's covering my piece.
Freddy will reach the garage a little after one. It's not quite midnight. I have plenty of time, no need to rush this. The Mustang will get me across town quickly and it's a bit more my style than an old Caddy.
As we leave the building, the muggy night wraps around me like a wet blanket. I suddenly miss the artificial chill and careless sheets of Eva's inner sanctuary. I miss fucking a girl because I want to, no strings, just humans doing what we do. And the innocence in those first few days of meeting someone fun. I knew it wouldn't last, knew the beer taps and food business aren't my home, but wasn't it kind of nice to pretend for a while?