by A. L Long
My dream turned from good into bad, and it was like a record playing over and over again. I was holding Josh in my arms. His body was limp, with no life. I kept asking him to wake up, but he wouldn’t. The air had an unearthly feel to it and all of a sudden, an impenetrable fog settled in. Turning my sights back to Josh, I witnessed something that no man should ever see. Small white maggots began slithering from every orifice of his face. Trying to escape this horror, I released him, causing his body to fall to the damp ground. His eyes popped open and his lips began to move. There were only two words spoken. “Help me.”
Not even the cool water could comfort the shattered feeling I had growing in the pit of my stomach. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Drawing in slow, steady breaths, I concentrated on my heartbeat, bringing it to an even, more rhythmic beat. Looking at the man who stood before me in the mirror, I began to question my life and the many mistakes I had made along the way. It was only when Charlie appeared in the refection that I saw the one thing in my life I didn’t regret. I slowly spun around and took in her sleepy posture as she leaned against the door frame. My feet slapped against the tile floor as I hurried to be near her. Over the past weeks she had been my only escape, and at this moment she was the only place I wanted to be.
Her small frame shifted from a leaning position as I swept her in my arms and carried her over to the bed. I gently lowered her to the bed and watched as she lay still on the mattress. Her beauty was beyond intoxicating as I positioned my body over hers. As though she had read my mind, her hands were at the hem of her nightgown pulling it free from her body, leaving only her lacy panties to contend with. I ran my fingers along the edge of her panties, dipping my fingers between the moist material and the soft wetness of her folds. A small moan rang from her lips the minute I plunged one finger inside her. Placing my lips on hers, I could feel the swell of her nipples press against my chest. The vibration of her pleasure danced between us as our tongues collided in an effort to escape inside each other’s soul.
I could feel the intake of every breath as Charlie’s breasts crashed into my chest. No longer could I wait. My desire for this woman was fierce and it was something that I needed to tame. Spreading her legs with my own, I lowered my briefs and began moving against her, teasing her folds open. The warmth of her womanhood enveloped me as I began to move slowly inside her depths. Every thrust brought me closer to the brink of surrender. Thrust after thrust I could feel Charlie squeeze my shaft, pulling me further inside. She was like a glove meant to be worn. Moving my hands up her body, I took hold of her hands, my face close to hers, fingers entwined, feeling every inch of her as she brought me closer to home. With her own release close, our passion burst with a wave of ecstasy. My body fell to hers and in a soft whisper she murmured, “I love you.”
****
It wasn’t hard to convince Evelyn that Nick was feeling a bit under the weather and was unable to work on her landscaping today. I had a funny feeling she thought that I was going to give her a little more than just a quick pruning. When we found out that she had changed her spa day, there was no need for Nick to be here. Hearing how unhappy she was running late for her spa treatment, I waited until she was down the drive and out of sight before entering her home. I was pretty sure that the alarm system wasn’t turned on, especially since she was so kind to allow me to help myself to the lemonade she prepared and told me was waiting for me in the fridge.
With the back door already unlocked, entering was going to be a lot easier than I thought. The only thing left to do was grab the painting and leave. As I headed to the art room, I wondered what kind of business Mr. Becker was in to afford such a pristine home. Maybe he was just as crooked as Gallo; all in the family after all. Focusing my attention on more important things, I opened the door to the art room, careful not to step too far past the door before I checked with Chavez. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I dialed his number and waited for him to answer.
His voice came over after the first ring. “Everything is a go, Hyatt. You’ve got two minutes before the alarm resets.”
“No problem,” I answered before ending the call.
Assured that the room was safe to enter, I walked over to where the Warhol hung on the wall. As I stared at the abstract painting, as confusing as it was, the only thing I could think about was Charlie and the words she had spoken so sweetly when she confessed her love to me. I would remember last night as long as I live, because I promised myself that I would never hurt her again.
With the clock ticking, I carefully removed the painting from the hook and replaced it with a small dumbbell of equal weight to make sure that the sensor on the camera wouldn’t detect that the painting was removed. I wanted to be long gone before the Evelyn was notified that her painting was missing. The initial plan was to return the painting back to her unharmed after Gallo was in prison. Peter even came up with a story to cover our ass. It had something to do with catching the thief red-handed with the painting. In a way he would be telling her the truth. In the end Gallo would be the actual thief.
My work here was done and the cameras were reactivated, and just like Chavez said, it was two minutes to the second that they came back on. Getting to my car, I opened the back door and carefully placed the tube holding the painting on the back seat. I had exactly eight hours before I would be meeting with Gallo to show him just how loyal I was. With a priceless painting in hand, there was no reason he wouldn’t accept me into his clan once he saw it. Our plan was slowly coming together and soon my brother’s killer would be behind bars.
Driving down the road to the shop, I caught myself looking in the back seat just to make sure that the painting was still there. It wasn’t like there was a ghost or something in the back seat waiting to take it. I guess I still couldn’t believe that it was so easy to lift. Everything fell into place, almost like Evelyn herself had a plan. Maybe her leaving the house unlocked and offering me lemonade was to set me up instead of trusting that I wouldn’t steal her blind. Pff, now there’s a thought. Looking down at my watch, I now had under seven hours before Gallo would meet his destiny.
When Peter appeared at the door before I got out of my car, I knew something was up. Turning off the engine, I got out and opened the back door to grab the painting. I hadn’t closed the door when I heard his voice. “We have a problem.”
The look on his face said it all. His jaw was hard and when he brushed his hand through his hair, I knew it had to be bad. Handing him the tube, I asked, “How bad?”
“The police found Aaron beaten to death in the alley where you met with Gallo. If it hadn’t been the fact that he had a record, the cops wouldn’t have known who he was.”
“Fuck,” I hissed before adding one more thing to the pot. “I think that maybe we might be in for another surprise.”
Telling Peter everything that happened at the Becker house and the fact that it was way too easy for me to grab the painting, he was also beginning to think we were being played. Something was going to go down at the meeting with Gallo, we just didn’t know what. We needed to rethink the plan and have a contingency one in play. Heading into the shop, we pull our heads together to think of one in a hurry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Charlie
When Ryan left to carry out the first phase of the plan, I didn’t want him to go. Even though it was only to steal the painting and nothing more, I had a really, really bad feeling about it. Call it woman’s intuition, but something bad was going to happen. Knowing that I was going to drive myself crazy with worry, I needed something to occupy my mind. The best way to get your mind off of bad things was to fill it with something else. Since I didn’t have a book to read and my Kindle app was only filled with romance books that I knew would only bring me back to thoughts of Ryan, I determined that the next best thing was to check out the rest of the hotel. Slipping on my sandals, I grabbed my keycard and headed to the elevator. Just as I was about to step inside the car, I remembered that I left m
y phone on the charger near the bed.
Unlocking the door, I headed straight for the bedroom. As I walked over to the bed, I could see that I had missed a notification since the little green light on my phone was blinking. Swiping the screen, I could see that it was a text. As I went to my messages, Nick’s name came up. The text was very short and to the point, ‘Come to the shop.’ That something that had me all worried was just confirmed. Stuffing my phone in my bag, I forwent the elevator and decided to take the stairs. We were on the fifteenth floor, but the way my heart was racing, I could have gone down thirty.
When I finally reached the bottom step, I pushed open the door and headed to the front of the hotel where I knew I would be able to catch a cab. The sidewalk was busy with pedestrians, and I was beginning to think getting a cab to pull over was going to be impossible. Unable to wait any longer, I did the unthinkable. I stood in the middle of the street waving my hands like a madwoman until finally a taxi stopped a few feet in front of me. He was cursing at me in a language I couldn’t understand, but the minute I got in the cab, he said, “A whistle would have been enough. Where to, miss?”
Based on his accent, I would say the little man with no hair on his shiny head was from India. It wasn’t like the statue of a Hindu God taped to the dash was a dead giveaway. Talking very slow, I gave him the address where he needed to take me. The minute I offered to pay him a sizable tip, his foot hit the gas and he began weaving in and out of traffic like he owned the road. I guess I shouldn’t have requested that he “Step on it.” It was just something that I had always wanted to say.
The driver pulled up to the shop twenty minutes later with me a little shaken, but alive nonetheless. Handing him his fare plus an additional twenty bucks, I got out of the car and watched as he pulled away. His head was shaking from left to right like he couldn’t believe he only got a twenty-dollar tip. “What the hell did he expect,” I thought to myself. “There are still people out there on a fixed budget,” I yelled out to the back of his car as he pulled away, leaving me in a cloud of dust.
Shaking the dirt from my sandal that his tire kicked up, I hobbled over to the front door of the shop and pulled it open. I found it very unusual that none of the guys were in the front room playing pool or talking like they normally did. Pretty confident that they were either in the conference room or the back room, I decided to head that way. Stopping just shy of the conference door, which was barely open, I heard Ryan’s voice. I was just about to open the door when I heard him say, “With Aaron dead, I think we need to rethink this plan.”
I just about yelled out, “What the fuck,” when I realized I was eavesdropping and wasn’t ready to make my presence known.
While I placed my hand over my mouth, Peter weighed in on Ryan’s comment. “I think the best thing for us to do is to continue as planned. If what you believe is true about Evelyn being a part of this, then we need to let them think that we don’t know.”
I couldn’t stand listening to this anymore. I had to say something. Pushing open the door, I looked straight at Ryan and asked, “How long have you known about this?”
With long purposeful strides, he made his way towards me. This was not the time to show me affection. I stepped backwards and held up my hand up in a halting position and demanded, “Explain.”
Ryan’s hand ended up on his head, his fingers combing through his thick hair. I’d known him long enough to know that he did this every time he felt uneasy. When his eyes finally met mine, he began. “I only found out about Aaron just before you got here. As far as Evelyn, it was only a hunch. I don’t know if she is involved in this. It’s just that her actions today were a little suspicious.”
“What did she do?” I insisted.
“Offered me lemonade.”
****
Ryan offered to take me back to the hotel where he knew I would be safe. He only had a few hours left before his meeting with Gallo. As much as I hated it, I knew he was only doing what he thought was best for me. So, instead of arguing with him, I decided to play along. Up until this point, I knew everything about the plan: Where they were meeting, how he was going to take the painting, and when they would meet for the exchange. The only thing I didn’t know was where. I guess for no other reason than to keep me safe, that detail was kept from me. One thing Ryan didn’t count on was that growing up with a mom fixated on her damn shows, I learned a few things, one of them being how to sneak around without getting caught. Little did Ryan know that I was going to be there at the exchange, out of sight. I needed to make sure that nothing was going to happen to him.
When Ryan left the hotel room, our goodbye seemed so final. Our kiss was more passionate than the others and it felt as though it would be our last. Standing before him, I watched as he left, feeling my heart drop inside the pit of my stomach. Wiping away the tear that fell only after he left, I began to devise my own plan. There was no way that he was going to do this without me there. I needed to know what was happening to him. Good or bad, I loved him, and there was no way he was going to leave me again. We had only begun to know each other again, and Gallo, as powerful as he thought he was, was never going to take that from us.
Waiting long enough, I placed Ryan’s extra gun from his suitcase in my bag and headed out the door. After pleading with Nick to tell me where the meeting was taking place, I grabbed a cab and headed to Upper Manhattan where Harlem was located. All I needed to do was hang tight until nine o’clock when the meeting was supposed to take place. Feeling Ryan’s gun in my bag, I hoped that I wasn’t making a mistake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ryan
The look on Charlie’s face after I left the hotel room gave me an uneasy feeling that I had never felt before. She made me begin to second guess myself about leaving her behind. All I wanted to do was keep her safe, and in order to do that, she needed to stay in the hotel as far away as possible from this meeting with Gallo. I blamed my nervousness on that reason; at least that was what I was telling myself. After all, this was no different than any other mission that I had been on. I knew what my objective was. Hand over the painting and pray that Gallo accepted me into his clan of thugs so that we could nail his ass to the wall. After tonight, justice would be served and Josh’s death wouldn’t have been in vain. It didn’t matter how bad the things were that he did, he never deserved to die the way he did.
Entering the elevator, I tried to focus on something else. There was no way I was going to let Gallo get to me this way. Soon enough he would be meeting his own fate and this whole thing would finally be over. Taking a deep breath, I managed to regain my composure, and by the time the elevator stopped I felt like I had my control back.
Heading to the reception desk, I requested that my car be brought around to the front of the hotel. After putting in my request, I headed to the front entrance and waited for my car to appear. It was just beginning to get dark, which told me that in less than an hour, I would be facing Gallo. I had to make one quick stop at the shop to pick up the painting and go over last-minute details. The valet didn’t waste any time bringing my car around as he pulled up in front of the entrance. Handing him a twenty in exchange for my keys, I looked up the side of the glass walls to the vicinity of where our room was, knowing that Charlie would be looking down on me, and said in a low voice, “Wish me luck, baby,” before placing two fingers on my lips, kissing them, and sending it her way.
****
When I reached the shop, the guys were all there preparing for the meeting. Peter was giving them final instructions as to where he wanted them positioned, while Ash, Cop, Chavez, and Sly were preparing their weapons. Gainer and Hawk were discussing something by the van we used in many missions, only this time it was disguised as a delivery van. Getting their attention, I yelled, “Hey guys, listen up.” When all of their heads turned in my direction, I continued. “I just wanted to say a few words of thanks and to let you know how much it means to me to be on this team. Even though Josh wasn’t a brother of
the service, you guys treated him like one of your own. For that I want to thank you. Each time we go out on a mission, we all risk our lives, but this time it is different. This mission is personal, and no matter how you look at it Josh deserves justice. So, whatever it takes, let’s get this motherfucker once and for all.”
There was a loud response of cheers from the guys in response my request. Just like me, they wanted Gallo behind bars. Finishing the last of our preparations, Peter and the rest of the guys headed out the back while I went to the locked cage to grab the painting. It’s funny how a priceless painting that hung so tastefully on a wall not too long ago was now kept inside a 6 x 6 locked cage.
As I exited the shop, Nikki, who was Sly’s wife, stopped me before I could leave. She was also considered part of the team, even though she never served. With her eyes focused on me, she said, “I’m going to head on over to the Grand Hyatt, if that is okay with you. I thought it would be nice if Charlie had some company until you came back.”
Even Nikki managed to have my back. Nodding my head, I replied, “That would be great. I know she was a little worried when I left.”