by K'wan
Animal squinted. “How the hell are some random ass numbers gonna help me find the boat?”
Tasha shook her head. “For as worldly of a young man as you are there’s still so much about the world that your young ass brain has yet to get hipped to.” She grabbed her laptop from the coffee table and fired it up. “You have to remember when dealing with boat or planes they don’t use addresses to get from points A to B,” her fingers floated across the keys punching the proper sequence on the Google Maps page and a location popped up. “These numbers aren’t random, they’re coordinates,” she tapped the red marker on the screen.
“Port of Newark,” Animal read it out loud over her shoulder.
“If the information on the manifest is up to date, the ship is scheduled to pull into port at 5 am,” she told him.
Animal checked the time on his watch. He still had a few hours before the Red Widow arrived. “Thank you, Tasha,” he kissed her on the forehead. “I really appreciate your help…again.”
“Just don’t make me regret it…again.”
“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best.” He was about to leave, but she stopped him.
“I know you well enough to where I don’t have to guess what you’ll do when you find the ones responsible for all this, but is there any chance that I can get you to just tell me what you know and let the police handle it?”
Animal gave her a look. “If you know me as well as you claim then you should understand why that’s impossible.”
“And you should understand that if this turns into a mess I won’t be able to clean this one up,” she shot back. “I’ve already betrayed my badge once in the name of love, and I can’t do it again. Regardless of my personal feelings, I took an oath.”
Animal nodded. “As did I, an oath to protect my family by any means necessary. I won’t ask you to put yourself at risk on this one, but I would ask that you stay out of my way.”
Tasha crossed the room, closing the distance between them. She hadn’t meant to, but she reached up and twirled a lock of his curly black hair around her finger like she had done on so many nights she had spent with him. “And if our paths should cross in the line of our respective duties?”
Animal gently removed her hand from his hair and kissed the inside of her wrist. “Then I pray you don’t hesitate because I won’t,” he released her hand. “Take care of yourself, Detective Grady.”
Long after Animal had gone Tasha could still feel him in the room. She had told herself a long time ago that she was done with the young outlaw and had shut the door on whatever it was they had, but she couldn’t help but to open it again every time he knocked. She and Animal had been playing that game for years, but when he left that night, it felt different. It was as if somewhere in her heart she knew that would be the last time she ever saw him.
*
For a time after Animal had left Tasha’s apartment, he lingered in the hallway. It had been a long time since he had seen Tasha Grady, and she was right to be cross with him after the way he’d left things. He had genuine love for her, but things in his life had gotten crazy and he had to prioritize things, and his family came first. In truth, he owed Tasha at least a visit or a phone call; after all, she’d done for him. There were a few times when he contemplated reaching out, but decided against it. There were feelings involved between them and he couldn’t chance having a moment of weakness. Tasha was a good girl, but she wasn’t Gucci and never would be, so he made a clean break. Still, even after all, he’d done to her; she still rose to the occasion when he needed help. For that, he would always respect her.
Animal pressed his forehead against the glass window, looking out at the east river. It was the first time he’d gotten to take a breath all night. He had endured so much in the last couple of days that he felt like he barely had the strength to move, let alone follow another lead. He was tired, but he had to keep going. He turned his attention back to the incoming cargo ship, and what it would take to pull off what he was planning. This was going to be a big job, and though Animal was good, he wasn’t pompous enough to think he could pull it off on his own. It was time to call in the team.
He composed himself and made his way to the elevators. Animal tapped the button feverishly, looking at his watch. They only had a few hours before the Red Widow docked and there were still preparations to make. There were two elevators on Tasha’s floor, both arriving within a few seconds of each other. Animal stepped onto the first one as the second one was opening. The doors were just closing as he got a glimpse of who was stepping off the elevator, and he had to blink to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.
*
Tasha went back to her abandoned jar of wine, and filled to the point where it spilled over the rim and onto her hands when she tried to move it. She licked the excess off her knuckles, before tipping the jar up and taking a deep sip. Seeing Animal always complicated things, and that random appearance was no different. She’d tried hard to get him out of her system, but remnants of him would always remain.
A knock at her door delayed the pity party she was contemplating throwing herself. A slither of hope crept into her heart. Maybe he had reconsidered. Crossing the living room, she wiped away the mist that had formed under her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. She felt a mess, but that didn’t mean she had to look it. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door with a smart remark pursed on her lips, but swallowed it when she saw who was on the other side.
“Evening, Detective Grady,” Detective Brown greeted her with a sly smile. Detective Alvarez stood behind him, wearing a sour expression on his face. “Apologies for popping up unannounced, but we need to have a word with you about an old acquaintance of yours.”
CHAPTER 12
Lilith Angelino-Suarez, better known by the moniker Tiger Lily sat in the den of the expansive Westchester, N.Y. mansion she’d had built to her specifications a few years prior. She rarely visited New York unless it was to go shopping, and even on those occasions, she never stayed for more than a day or so. They only reason she’d had the mansion built was because she hated hotels. She was a woman who valued her privacy, and rightfully so, considering she had so many secrets.
She had been born to a dirt poor family in a small in a part of Cuba called Pedro Betancourt and migrated with her mother to Florida in the early eighties. They had moved to America for better opportunities than Cuba had to offer, but quickly found out that life in America was nothing like it seemed on television. The American ghettos weren’t as dangerous as the ones in Cuba, but still dangerous nonetheless. Her mother made sure she learned the art of survival at an early age, among other things.
Lilith’s mother had been a botanist in Cuba, but had been reduced to whipping up bathtub elixirs for those who didn’t have the money or proper documentation to go to a regular hospital. Between that and whatever odd jobs she could find, they made ends meet as best they could. When she could find it, Lilith’s mother did honest work, but when things got bad, she did what she had to do to keep them from starving.
Her mother proved as good at playing on the desires of men as she was at making potions. She mostly targeted men rich men who weren’t very attractive or suffered from some type of physical defect, as they were easier to manipulate. She would bleed them for whatever wealth or influence she could before moving on to the next. It didn’t set the best example for her young daughter, but it taught her to do what she had to do in the name of survival by any means necessary. The lessons taught to her by her mother would be what shaped Lilith into the young woman she would grow into. Lilith was cold blooded with the way she would play men like guitar strings until one night she hit a sour note.
One night she’d met a rich man while trolling the bars and underworld dives of South Beach. He was older, almost fifteen years her senior, but he attracted younger women like flies to honey, Lilith included. There was something dashing about him, with his deeply tan skin, and silver hair. Before Lilith e
ven realized it, she was at his table sharing a bottle of wine with him. She had learned that his name was Victor, or at least that what he was calling himself at the time, and he was in Miami on business. It wouldn’t be until much later that Lilith would find out what that business actually was.
Later Victor extended an invitation to his hotel room for a nightcap, which Lilith happily accepted. He had a suite in one of the finest hotels in all of Miami. They went through another bottle of wine before having knockdown, drag out sex. For an older man, Victor had skills, and plenty of stamina. A few times during their romp, Lilith thought she would pass out from the sheer pleasure of it all. She was somewhere between relieved and sad when he finally fell asleep suddenly. It took longer for the tranquilizer she had put in his drink to take affect than she had expected. She genuinely liked Victor and hated what she was about to do to him, but he had it to spare and she didn’t.
Lilith climbed out of the bed and slipped back into her dress. After checking Victor to make sure he was still sleeping soundly, she went about the task of looting his hotel suite. She had taken him for his money, credit cards, and even the gold watch he’d put on the nightstand before they had sex. She was just about to tiptoe from the room when a voice stopped her.
“You forgot to steal the pinky ring I left on the bathroom sink.”
Lilith spun and couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw Victor propped against the pillows on the bed. Lilith made to run for the door when she heard a snapping sound behind her. Something that felt like a belt snaked around her neck, cutting off her oxygen. As she struggled, she turned around and saw Victor holding the other end of the bullwhip that was threatening to suffocate her. The whole time Lilith felt herself being dragged across the floor and back to the bed all she could think was how? She had given Victor enough tranquilizer to damn near kill him, and he didn’t even look drowsy.
“From the shocked expression on your face I gather you’re wondering why the little additive you slipped into my drink doesn’t have me sleeping soundlessly right now,” he said as if reading her mind. “I’ve been working with poisons and tranquilizers for longer than you’ve been on this earth, little girl, so you’ll have to excuse me if my body has built up somewhat of an immunity to most,” he jerked the whip and sent her spinning across the room like a top.
Lilith was so dizzy that she tripped over her own feet and fell on her ass. When she tried to get up, Victor was on her again, kicking her in the stomach and knocking the wind out of her. There was no way he should’ve been able to move that fast, yet there he was. She’d thought he was going to kick her again when Victor turned and walked back over to the nightstand near the bed. When he turned, he was holding a syringe. As he stalked towards her, a twisted look was on his face. The dashing older man she’d come back to the room with was gone, and in his place was a monster.
“Victor, please don’t. I’m sorry,” she pleaded.
“Don’t be, sweetie. This is the most fun I’ve had in months and the party is just getting started,” he squirted a bit of the fluid from the tip of the syringe to clear it of air bubbles. “I’m going to show you why I’m called the Master of Poisons,” he laughed before sticking her with the needle and everything went black.
When Lilith awoke two days later, she found herself in the place that would serve as her home for the next few years. For her first few months as his hostage, Lilith was subjected to all kinds of mental and physical tortures by the man she had set out to rob. There were nights she prayed for death, and she had even tried to kill herself once, but he wouldn’t let her die. Once he had thoroughly broken her mind, he started what he called her reconditioning. She would later find out that his name wasn’t Victor at all, but Nicodemus. He was a part of something he referred to as the Brotherhood, which at the time Lilith was ignorant to, but she would learn all about it the longer she stayed with him. Over the years, Lilith had overcome her hatred for the man who had stolen her from her old life, but eventually she came to admire and even love him for the things he had taught her. He was the first one who let her taste the rush of real power, which was command over life and death.
In time, Lilith and he would become lovers, and elevate through the ranks of the Brotherhood together, eventually both becoming elders. As Nicodemus got older, he became more withdrawn, and became more interested in studying his venoms than he was pulling the puppet strings of the order. Lilith, on the other hand, became more entrenched. She was a forward thinker, and saw great profit earning potential in using the Brotherhood’s expansive networks to branch out into more lucrative schemes instead of murder for hire, primarily drugs. Cocaine was still a booming business and the age of designer drugs like LSD were making a comeback. With the reach that the Brotherhood of Blood commanded, they could control a huge chunk of the global narcotics market. The elders who sat at the table at the time were set in their ways and had no interest in revealing more of their order than necessary. They were a secret order of assassins, not drug dealers. When it became obvious that the elders would never back her, Lilith left the order she had served faithfully for so many years, and set out on her own. If the current ruling body of the Brotherhood turned a blind eye to her vision, she would show them the light.
Her travels took her to and from several different continents, making connections and gaining allies along the way. Lilith found herself keeping company with some of the most dangerous men in the world, one of which would be responsible for introducing her to her future husband and benefactor. While visiting her native Cuba, she had attended a gala being thrown by an old-money gangster named Poppito. He was a big time cartel boss who operated out of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. The fact that he was a foreigner able to throw a party in Cuba told Lilith that he had clout, but she didn’t understand the true measure of his power until she saw that the who’s-who of the underworld from several continents had shown up. In Poppito and his cartel, Lilith saw a foundation, which she could build her dream on.
For as powerful as a man as Poppito might’ve been, he was weak for Lilith, and that would prove to be his undoing. When he left Cuba and went back to Puerto Rico, Lilith was by his side. Within six months, they were married, and within a year, she was running his business. Slowly but surely, she began pushing his men out and replacing them with those loyal to only her. With an army and a vast drug network at her command, Lilith was finally ready to set the wheels in motion to unseat the council and take control of the Brotherhood. After years of careful planning and scheming, her time was finally at hand, and then Sonja came along and everything went to shit.
From the time she was introduced to Poppito’s only daughter, it was obvious that she and his new wife wouldn’t be friends. They both had aspirations to rule Poppito’s kingdom by any means necessary. Sonja was a bigger manipulator than Lilith was and more larcenous than just about anyone she’d ever met. The older woman couldn’t stand her, but Lilith had fallen in love with her young daughter, Celeste. She was the child of two notorious killers, so she had the genetics, and was still young enough for Lilith to mold her into a weapon just as she had done with her adopted daughter Ophelia. She would be the perfect vessel to usher in a new era of the Brotherhood under Lilith’s command, but first she had to get her mother out of the way.
Removing Red Sonja from the equation should’ve been a relatively easy thing. Lilith held sway over the cartel’s soldiers, and Poppito was dying slowly from the daily poison regiment Lilith had him on. She had cut Sonja off from all resources and allies, leaving her helpless and at Lilith’s mercy, or so she thought. In all her scheming there was one thing, Lilith had never factored in, Celeste’s father Animal.
Sonja had gone to him and convinced the killer that his child was in imminent danger, and Animal reacted as any parent would, he came out with guns blazing. Sonja had Animal so blinded by rage over someone trying to harm his daughter that he was beyond reasoning with and as a result backed Lilith into a very uncomfortable corner. By bringing Animal and
those loyal to him into the fight, Sonja showed Lilith just how dangerously cunning she could be. She had a new appreciation for her enemy, but it changed nothing between them. For Lilith’s rule over the cartel to be solidified, she had to get rid of Poppito’s only remaining heir.
For the last few days, she had watched from a distance as Sonja’s daughter’s father cut down members of her cartel in the name of protecting his child. Lilith had been content to watch from the compound in Puerto Rico while the little war played itself out, until her son George was taken hostage. George was not a soldier like her other son Peter, but he played the game and knew the risks that came with it. Still, he was her baby boy and Lilith couldn’t sit by and wait for news of his fate, she had to take action. As soon as she had gotten word of George being taken she secretly boarded a private jet and flew into New York.
With thoughts of her latest problem and how best to solve it, Lilith’s eyes were fixed on the small monitor in front of her. It was a live video feed from a camera in one of the bedrooms. On the screen, there were two children, a boy and a girl, and one of Lilith’s handmaids. After a few hours of being in the house, the boy had stopped crying when the handmaid had given him some McDonalds and a few toys. He sat in the middle of the room fiddling with a racecar and munching French fries, finally seeming at ease. The girl was a different story. The three-year-old girl was like a wild animal, attacking any and everyone who tried to get near her, including Lilith. When she bit one of the handmaids, almost taking off her finger, Lilith made the decision to have the girl sedated. She now slept in the corner of the room. Even at such a young age, she proved to be extremely strong of will and it wouldn’t be easy to break her, but Lilith had her ways. In time, she would come to embrace her destiny, just as Lilith had when Nicodemus reconditioned her.