Three large men in dark suits entered the lobby as I exited the bathroom. Their presence made me stop, two breaking away to look around while one smiled and approached me.
“Ms. Vega,” he said, knowing who I was.
“If you’re a reporter, you’d better get off my property or I’m calling the police.”
Nikki came out from behind me already taking out her cell phone.
The man held up his hand. “No, not a reporter. In fact, I’m here to offer my assistance.”
“Did my father send you? I told him no bodyguards, no nothing. There’s no need.”
“I beg to differ, but, no, your father did not send me.”
“Then who did?” I asked folding my arms across my chest and glaring at the two men he’d brought with him.
“Is there someplace we can talk privately?”
I studied him. This man was tall, all three were, and built like houses. Their suits barely contained muscular arms and shoulders, and they seemed uncomfortable in the tight jackets. The one who was doing the talking must have been in his mid-forties, with graying-brown hair in a crew cut, his face clean-shaven, brown eyes intelligent, although not quite friendly. I didn’t like him, not one bit.
“Call the cops, Nikki.”
“Ms. Vega” — he leaned in too close for comfort, touching my elbow — “Adam Smith sent us.” He spoke only loud enough for me to hear.
Everything changed as soon as I heard his name. As soon as someone else spoke it. It was as though it became real again — like Adam was real and not someone I’d imagined because if I didn’t go downstairs to see that prison, if I didn’t go into the bathroom to glimpse the scars on my back like I did daily, it could have all been a dream, as if what had happened, hadn’t.
“Is there an office where we can talk?” he asked, obviously knowing he’d taken me off guard.
I nodded.
“Elle?” Nikki asked.
“It’s okay. I’ll talk to him.” I led the way toward an office Nikki and I shared. It was mostly ready for use, and we’d arranged two desks and some filing cabinets inside. Only the finishing touches remained: paint on the walls and carpet on the floors. Personal items, photographs. Once inside, I closed the door behind us and offered him a seat across from my desk, which I sat behind. “Who are you and how do you know Adam?” Could I trust this man? How would he know Adam’s name? Anything about him?
“My name is Clay Boxer. Adam worked for me for many years. I was his commanding officer in the navy.”
I knew he’d gone into the military. Those were the missing years. “I don’t understand.”
“He’s doing some work for me now.”
“Protecting the witness who’s come forward to testify against my father.” I heard the distaste, the disgust in my voice. I didn’t want it to be true, didn’t want there to be a witness. I wanted my father to be a good man. That was when the nagging thought of something else worked its way into the forefront of my mind. Did Adam have a relationship with this woman? Was he in love with her?
“He’s asked — as a personal favor to him — that I keep you safe.”
I stared at him, feeling the tears fill my eyes, willing myself not to cry.
“The men you saw today will, if you accept, stay on property when you’re here and accompany you wherever you go until things have settled. They won’t be in your way, but they will be watching to make sure no one comes near you that you don’t want near you.”
“I’ve always refused bodyguards, Mr. Boxer.”
“I understand that.”
“I’m not the one under investigation. What makes you think I can’t handle myself?”
“It’s not me who thinks it.” It was all he had to say and, from his eyes, I knew he didn’t care what happened to me one way or another.
I rose to my feet. “I thank you for your offer, but it’s not necessary. I can take care of myself. You can pass that message along and get off my property.”
He stood. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Boxer.”
“Good-bye, Ms. Vega.”
“Wait,” I called out when he reached for the doorknob. “Did you have anything to do with the charges against my father?”
His flat expression didn’t change. He didn’t smile or gloat or anything. He simply answered. “I had everything to do with them.”
We studied one another for a moment before he turned and walked out the door. I sat back down, exhaling a loud breath. What was going to happen now? Adam wanted me protected, but he couldn’t be bothered to do it himself. Instead, he stood on the opposite side of the law from me, from my family. And my father was family. I couldn’t betray him. I wouldn’t desert him. I would stand by his side. I had to, whether he was guilty or not.
A full week passed and all I could think about was Nikki’s question. Well, that and the two men who followed me at a distance wherever I went. I’d told Clay Boxer no thanks because I couldn’t have one more thing linking me to Adam. It was over — this thing that had never really begun, that had been one of the strangest experiences of my life was over, and the sooner I got on with my life, the better. SafeHouse already bound me to him and would for life. I neither wanted nor needed his protection as I got on with things.
But Nikki’s question bugged me, and my mind started working, putting two and two together: fatigue, nausea, sensitivity in various parts of my body, my favorite jeans just a little too tight. That day she’d mentioned it, I’d bought a pregnancy test at a drugstore nearby but hadn’t yet taken it. What if it was true? It could be. I’d been on the pill, but while he’d kept me in that cell, I hadn’t taken the pills and hadn’t yet picked up a new prescription. We’d had unprotected sex more than once. Pregnancy had been the furthest thing from my mind then. Could it be, though? Could I be pregnant?
There hadn’t been anything new about my father in the papers but things hadn’t quieted down. The news talked about our life here, about me. Pictures of me flashed across TV screens all over the state and likely the country. They talked about how I’d grown up in a house of crime, oblivious as a child to the things going on under my nose. Several of my nannies were interviewed, but they only spoke about me as a child. Nothing damning about my father, apart from the one who’d been fired when she’d let me wander down to the basement. I shuddered at the memory, at what it was I’d potentially interrupted that day. She hadn’t had anything nice to say about my father but nothing that could put him away either. I barely remembered her, actually.
Alexia Rhone was kept out of the news although reporters seemed to have taken up permanent residence on her front lawn. At least the ones who weren’t camped out outside of mine. Construction on SafeHouse moved along well, and Nikki did a great job of managing it. I threw myself into the work and, although it was an aggressive timeline, we planned for the opening in two months’ time.
The fact that I hadn’t had a period in more than a month I chalked up to stress, but as I sat there staring at that box, reading the instructions for the twentieth time, I knew I had to take it.
What if I was pregnant with Adam’s child?
And what if I wasn’t?
At that moment, my cell phone rang. It was early, and I expected it to be a reporter but I checked the display to find it was my father.
“Dad?”
“Good morning, Elle.” He sounded weary. I’d never known him to sound like this.
“Is everything okay? It’s early.” I checked my watch. It was just a few minutes after 6:00 a.m.
“Oh, shit. Sorry, honey. I wasn’t paying attention to the time. Did I wake you?”
“No, no it’s fine. I was up. Dad, are you okay? Where are you?”
“I’m at the airport. I’ll be heading to New York City in half an hour.”
My heart raced. Was he coming to turn himself in to the police?
“What’s going to happen? The newspapers, what they’re saying…”
“I
have to explain some things to you, Elle.”
He sounded so damn tired.
“Okay.” But it wasn’t okay. I didn’t want him to tell me he’d done those things. I didn’t want them to be true.
“There are going to be men coming to protect you.”
“Protect me? Why? From what?”
He took in a deep breath. “Your uncle, Elle. I’ve agreed to testify against Eduardo.”
“What?” My uncle? What did he have to do with this?
“He’ll be extradited once I give my testimony. That’s why I had to go back. I needed to talk to him one more time. I owed him that much.”
“What did he do?”
“The witness who came forward? Alexia?”
“Yes?”
“All these years, I’d believed she was dead.”
“What?”
“I didn’t do that to her face. I wouldn’t have ever done that to her.” His voice broke.
“Who did it?”
“Eduardo. He let her live, telling her I had ordered that as her punishment. She believes it was me, but it was Eduardo. The flesh trade —”
I choked back a sob. Here it came. It was all true.
“When I found out about that, I stopped it, but it was too late for so many girls. I bought back the few I could find, and I covered for my brother. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I didn’t have anything to do with the flesh trade, Elle. I need you to know that. I wouldn’t do that.”
I wept, relieved. I believed him, I knew he was telling the truth. “I believe you, Dad.”
“Good. I want you to stay inside. You can’t go anywhere —”
“You think he would hurt me? I’m his niece.”
“He’s crazed, Elle. I don’t know what he’s capable of anymore. I told him I had to testify. I couldn’t cover for him anymore.”
“What about the drugs? Is that true? Are you involved in that with Eduardo?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know about that,” he snapped. He took a breath audible through the phone and his voice softened. “Not now. Not after all these years.”
He was right.
I turned a blind eye, and we both knew it. And Adam knew it, too.
I hung my head in shame. Long moments of silence passed before I asked my next question. “Are you going to prison?”
“We’ve negotiated a deal. I’ll give them Eduardo, and they’ll give me immunity, but one of the requirements is that I turn in my American passport. My citizenship will be revoked, and I won’t be allowed back into the country.”
“What?” No! “What about protection? They’re not putting you into a witness protection program?”
“No.” He paused. “That wasn’t on the table.”
“Dad, no —”
“I have to go, Elle, but you need to listen to me. I decided to testify when it came to the point Eduardo threatened to harm you. That was when I knew I had no control over him anymore.”
“He threatened to harm me? He barely knows me.”
“But he knows I’d give my life for you.”
I knew this story. I’d just lived it with Adam.
“I have to ask you one question, Dad. I want to know one thing.”
“Promise me you’ll stay put until the bodyguards get there first.”
“Okay, I promise.”
“Ask.”
“There was a girl, Alessandra Moreno. A man named Niel Horrenson bought her. I saw photos, Dad, of you talking to him.” I stopped, wiping my eyes.
“When I found her, I tried to get her back, but he wouldn’t give her up.”
Relief led to sobbing, uncontrollable weeping. I just kept nodding my head, unable to speak. That’s why Adam had photos of my father with that man. He’d just misunderstood them.
“Okay, honey?”
Adam had it all wrong. My dad wasn’t a monster. How could I have believed for one moment he was?
“I have to go now, Elle. They’re ready for me to board. I’ll call you once I land, okay?”
“Okay.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, too, baby doll. Stop that crying. I’ll see you very soon, okay?” He sounded stronger again, the way I was used to him being. For how many years had he been covering for his brother? How many years was he hiding me from my uncle to protect me? All that aside he still supplied drugs to so many people. How many of them had he inadvertently hurt?
I choked on a sob.
“Shh, come on now. It’s all going to be just fine.”
I nodded, knowing he couldn’t see me, knowing it wouldn’t all be fine. Oddly, having this out in the open between us, it wasn’t earth shattering. I had known and maybe it took all these years to come to terms with it. No, that didn’t matter. I wouldn’t make excuses, not for myself, not for him. But he was still my father, and I knew testifying against Eduardo would be a death sentence for him. As soon as he set foot in Columbia again, he’d be killed. And the feds knew it too.
“I have to go now, honey. I’ll call you the second I land.”
“Okay.” I forced myself to stand; it would give me strength. “Okay, I love you.”
We hung up, and I blew my nose. It took me a few minutes to stop sucking in air and calm down, focusing my attention on the box in front of me, the one containing the pregnancy tests. God, this couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.
I went into the bathroom, unpacking one of two sticks as I did. I took the test, peeing on that stick and setting it on the counter while I washed my hands, glancing at it from the corner of my eye as I waited.
It came up quickly. I thought it would take longer. I re-read the instructions and let it sit another minute, my heart racing as I perched on the edge of the tub. Forcing myself to watch the clock, I only rose after a full five minutes had passed and there it was, undeniable. I drank a glass of water then another, and waited until I had to go again, taking the second test out of the box and doing it again. Again, the plus sign showed up right away.
I was pregnant.
I was pregnant with Adam’s baby.
ELLE WOULDN’T ACCEPT THE bodyguards, but I didn’t care. I told Clay to keep the men on her anyway. I’d been staying at Alex’s house, but, so far, there hadn’t been a threat. Vega had flown into the country the previous day and, although he should have already been rotting away in prison, the slippery son of a bitch had a room at a hotel in Jersey under twenty-four-hour guard. They should have put him behind bars the second he’d landed.
My mind traveled to thoughts of Elle almost constantly. I couldn’t get her out of my head, wondering how she was holding up, what she did when she was alone. I knew when she got to SafeHouse and when she left. When she went to the grocery store. Knew she wasn’t meeting friends and was spending most of the day with Nikki at SafeHouse and nights alone at home.
I wondered if she was lonely. If she thought of me.
“Clay’s here,” Alex said, laying a hand on my shoulder, watching me. She was always fucking watching me, her eyes looking as though they saw right through me, into those things I desperately needed to keep hidden.
Clay had called early this morning to say he had to meet with us urgently. That usually wasn’t good news. If it was, he’d have shared over the phone. Making a trip out to see us — or, more particularly, me — meant no good.
“Good morning,” Clay said, stepping into the kitchen where Alex brought him a cup of coffee before joining us at the table.
“Morning,” I said, not sure it was good just yet.
“I’ve got some bad news,” Clay began.
I realized then how hard the grip on my coffee mug was. “Spit it out, Clay. I’ve been waiting an hour to hear it.”
He took a deep breath and I noticed how two of his men moved in closer to me.
“Manuel Vega has been granted immunity.”
I flew from my seat as soon as the words registered. “What the fuck —”
Two sets of
hands gripped my shoulders.
“Sit down, Adam.”
“Fuck you.”
“I said sit the fuck down!”
The men shoved me back into my seat and held me there. Alex put a hand over mine, but I could see he’d ruffled her, too.
“What do you mean?” she asked, a tremble to her voice. Vega would know where she was. He would come after her. Finish the job of killing her. I wasn’t sure she wasn’t ready to die. A part of Alex had gone dark. It was inaccessible, mostly, but always there, just beneath the outermost layer. I wondered if death wasn’t what she wanted, knowing Vega would kill her like he had all the other witnesses to ever have come forward.
“He’s giving up his brother, Eduardo. He claims, and apparently has proof, of Eduardo being the mastermind behind the operation. He claims he had nothing to do with the flesh trade, that he put a stop to it as soon as he learned of it. That he bought back a few of the girls and returned them to their homes, set them up for life.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I said, fisting my hands.
“There’s proof.”
“That he fabricated,” I added, glaring at Clay.
Clay shook his head. “No.”
I shoved the hands that still held me off and sat back, feeling powerless. Like I’d failed.
“He tried to buy Alessandra back.”
I slammed my fist on the table and stood, this time shoving the men off when they tried to restrain me again. “No!”
“Sit down, Adam.”
“Fuck you, no.”
My eyes grew hot, and I turned away, feeling the weight of the pistol in the harness beneath my jacket.
“The conversation with Horrenson was recorded. Turns out he’d been recording a shitload of stuff. Probably figuring it would come to this at some point.”
I faced Clay. “He’s covering his ass. He’ll do whatever he needs to do to cover his ass. What about Alex? What about what he did to her?”
I watched as Clay met Alex’s eyes, something passing between them. Something I wasn’t privy to.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Retribution Page 18