by J. J. McAvoy
“That’s why they pay me the big bucks.” I winked, walking around him and taking the velvet robe hanging behind the door. “Before you jump me, we have things to talk about.”
“I thought the order was sex then talk?”
“Normally it is, but I’ve had a very stressful night, and need to regain my strength…for the sake of our child,” I said, placing my hand over my flat stomach. His eyes looked to them and then back to me. I just flashed him a smile.
“Why do I have feeling you’re going to use this child against me?” he asked when he held up the robe for me to slip into.
He’s really moved. Interesting.
“Never.” I turned around, letting him help me into the robe, though we both knew I didn’t need it. Reaching over I took the other robe and turned to him. He rolled his eyes, but let me help him. I kissed the back of his neck, “Everything I do, I do for you…for us. I need to check your blood levels.”
I left the bathroom, walking though the master bedroom and straight towards the living room. My work bag was still on the glass dining table, and I pulled out my laptop.
“Who wants the Chinese ambassador’s son killed?” he questioned as he pulled out the chair beside me.
“The ambassador to China.” I faced him, lifting his hand, and he looked very amused by that. It made me like him more.
“Is it not his son?” I flipped his index finger over, swiping the top of his finger clean with an alcohol pad.
“It is,” I said and pricked his finger. I wish he jumped or even flinched a little, it would have been cute. Adding his blood to the reader, I set it aside and faced him. “I’ll share if you share why you randomly came down here and accidently saved his life.”
He nodded, leaning back and waiting for me to continue.
“The ambassador to China, Chao Chong Wei, wants to run for president in two years. His youngest son, Chao Neng Chang, is pretty much unless, the black sheep of the family. He failed out of every private school he was put in, his parents bribed his way into university, which, not shockingly, he failed out of. Following that there were a few run-ins with the police for being an obnoxious, rich little shit, really. Nothing impressive; street racing, fights in clubs, that kind of things. He’s also an avid lover of drugs, and lots of them.”
“Valued customer of ours then. I’m not sure I want him to die.” The reader beeped, letting me know the results were ready.
“Well, it’s not up to you,” I reminded him, reading the machine. “You’re fine. Your iron count is low, though.”
“I’ll work on it, doctor,” he mocked. He seemed to enjoy this.
Rolling my eyes, I deleted his information from my system. “Anyway, the straw that broke his father’s back is the rape allegations against him. At one of his parties, he raped three women. How he managed to do that over and over without any of his guards stopping him is beyond me…it also makes the women’s stories a little hard put into a case around him. Two of the women have taken his parents’ hush money and the third refuses.”
“Why not just kill her?” I glared up at him. “Sorry, was that insensitive? I was merely saying this as a father to be, wouldn’t you protect your son over someone else no matter how monstrous he is?”
Good to know our kid would be free to do whatever the fuck it wanted.
“He wanted that too, but like I told you, I have class, I don’t go that low.” I tilted my laptop so he could see. “An alternative measure and explanation was offered. Explaining that it would be too messy for him, that her family might talk. If he killed the whole family, reporters would start sniffing around. The other girls wouldn’t feel ‘safe’ to keep silent. Kill the son, use it for his political gain, then if one of the girls does talk later, he can simply say, ‘my son is not alive to defend himself against these allegations.’”
“Plausible deniability.” He nodded, and I saw the corner of his lips turn upwards as he looked from the screen to me. “Very smart coverup.”
“Yes, well, it will do—”
“Not for you,” he said, and I paused.
“What?”
“The woman who got raped, you don’t want to kill her.” He shifted his head to the side just slightly, like he was reading me. His eyes narrowed like he found something. “For you, rape is worse than murder. It was a two for one deal, killing her wasn’t below your class level, you simply thought she suffered enough. No, she had already died. So you offered this alternative. It looks good, and it works for the ambassador. But I’m curious; I was under the impression you were one of many foot soldiers, so to speak, in this organization. In my organization, when I give orders, my foot soldiers cannot question nor offer their opinions or alternatives to my directions. So Calliope, how were you able to manage that?”
Beep.
Beep.
His phone went off.
“Looks like dinner is here.” I smiled at him and got up. “You’ve thought of a cover story, right? Miguel and his men must be ready to shit themselves since they couldn’t find me.”
He frowned at me, shaking his head. “Didn’t you kill Miguel in the club?”
“No,” I said slowly. “I didn’t know what you were doing there or why you needed him. So I darted him. The chemicals in that would most likely counteract the poison. He might be in a lot of pain right now, but not dead. He’s also not going be able to remember the last few minutes in the club. Why? Were you planning on killing him?”
“I wasn’t before, but now I am,” he replied, tapping out a text, but then he paused. His eyes snapped up to me again. “He won’t remember the last few minutes. So he won’t remember holding a gun to me.”
“And you won’t forget.”
“No, I will not.” He changed his message before moving to the door. It took about a minute before there was knock. He opened the door wide, wider than he needed to. A man with shoulder-length brown hair and slim build stood holding two bags as well as my milkshake. His eyes shifted to me for a quick second before going back to Ethan.
“Everything you ordered. I was going to say we haven’t found the woman yet, but it seems you have, sir.”
“Indeed,” he confirmed. “Where is Miguel now?”
“In the hospital recovering. They said he was poisoned, and he couldn’t remember anything—”
“Go visit and let him know the next time he does anything like opening a club without my permission, or thinking he can go without me hearing about who he is meeting and seeing, I will collapse the building on top of him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you very much,” I said with an Irish accent, taking the food from his hands. “Isn’t our boss so gracious?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t say anything to me, instead focusing on Ethan. “I’ll let you know when he’s informed.”
“We leave here at 8 A.M.,” was all he said to him before closing the door in his face.
“Smooth, nice cover.” I walked over to the couch and set the food down. “Now it looks like you planned the shooting at the club to warn Miguel, so why does your lapdog look so hurt?”
He locked the door and turned back to me. “Because he forgets he’s a lapdog. He wants the ability to give his opinions and alternatives to my directions. However, that is a mighty power to have in any organization, don’t you think?”
“Hmm…” I took a bite of my fries. “I think it’s your turn to share about your day, Ethan. Sit with me, tell me a story while I eat.”
His eyes narrowed and I couldn’t do anything but smile.
Just because I was his woman didn’t mean I stopped being my own woman…and as such, I was allowed my own secrets.
Chapter 9
“Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as murder.”
~Knut Hamsun
ETHAN - AGE 24
Houston, Texas
Friday, September 7th
She loved keeping me guessing. And I knew why. It was obvious; I enjoy it. By nature, I
could figure things out, I could put the pieces together. So often it left me bored at how simple and easy it was. She did not want me to be bored with her. That was one of many reasons.
“You’re staring, not sharing,” she said before taking a bite of her burger, her now green eyes focused on me.
“It’s hardly as interesting as yours.” I picked up the fries. “Miguel Munha is currently the leader of the Rocha cartel, one of the cartels unofficially under me. Remember the cocaine on the table while we were in Bogota?”
“Nope,” she lied and took another bite. She winked at me and all I could was shake my head. She had a very cute side to her.
“There was cocaine on the table in Bogota. Miguel sent it to me for inspection. They had added something called ángel caido, another plant they found growing next to the coca—”
“It’s more like a weed,” she interrupted.
I paused, unwrapping my burger. “Aren’t weeds just plants that grow where they're not wanted?”
“Do you want ángel caido to grow with your cocaine?”
“Can I make money off it?” I asked before taking bite.
“As a Callahan you could make money off of anything. But go on,” she shot back as she reached for her milkshake.
It did not escape my notice that she had been giving me orders since we met in the club…and that I was following them. Strange. I wasn’t annoyed, even though I normally would have been.
“Ángel caido, as you seem to know it, boosts the effects and memory of those who take the coke. On its own, it does nothing but apparently leave a bad taste in your mouth. It is simply a spice which could be added—”
“I’m sorry to keep interrupting.”
“Yet you continue to do so,” I muttered, taking another bite.
She gave me a look and sighed. “You don’t seem to know much about it, and it looks like you are trying to decide whether or not to add it your…menu for your customers. However, your family is very traditional when it comes to your dishes. Keep it clean and keep it strong, correct?”
“Correct.” I waited for her to go on.
“Yes, well, tradition is all well and good, but it has a flaw.”
“Really now?” I wiped my hands and took my own milkshake. “By all means, explain.”
“I do hope you aren’t one of those men that don’t like when women give them business advice.”
“Did you forget who my mother was…is?”
“Touché.” She sniffed. “As I was saying, traditions are good, they are needed, at least for a family as big and powerful as yours, they are needed. However, with each generation, these traditions need to be evaluated. Many, even most, will stay, but some have to change, that’s what we call survival. Ángel caido has always existed, and has always grown next to cocaine, only then it was called mierda de planta by the native peoples.”
“Plant shit?” I translated. That was one name for it.
She nodded. “In the early cycles of some coca plants, another plant, mierda de planta, grew around it. It’s brownish, smells awful, and is usually ripped out and thrown away by planters because it can ruin the coca. Plants have one desire: to grow. Yet over and over again it was ripped out as a weed, for generations. Its tradition is to be an ugly smelly weed, until one day, it decides it has had enough and it does what all things that need to survive do: it changes. Slowly, over god knows how many years, it changes its appearance, adapts to the one plant that keeps living next to it…coca. It mimics the look of the coca, not completely but enough so it’s not pulled out as weed, it grows, causally blending in. It tricks the farmer, who picks it with the coca, and surprise, this thing, this weed that everyone threw away, goes from mierda de planta, to Ángel caido.”
It sounded like a certain person I knew and I was having a child with…the moment that thought came to my mind I pushed it back.
“So, you are saying add it. Adapt and change like the plant.” I tried to stay on topic as she drank.
She shook her head. “Yes, and no. Yes, you should be willing to adapt when necessary and change when necessary. What has been done for generations is not always correct or still applicable today. The world changes; we must change too. However, you are not really changing Ethan, you’ve already been adding it. You just didn’t know. The plant was always there. Most was gotten rid of, but occasionally some was added to batches over the years. It’s such a small change it wasn’t really noticeable. Some of your customers might have noticed and just thought they got a really good batch. So adding it now doesn’t go against your family’s way, it just lets you see with a clearer eye than them. Miguel Munha might be an idiot, but he’s a lucky idiot, and he just helped you make more money. So are you going to show your gratefulness by sparing his life?”
“Not a fucking chance,” I answered without hesitation, and she burst out laughing, her whole body shaking. And in that moment she took my breath away. She was beautiful. Her mind was beautiful and as result no matter how she looked on the outside, the word ‘mine’ flashed in my eyes. I wanted her, all of her, to be mine.
What the hell? I looked down at my chest. It was heaving, my heart racing.
“You know it’s love when just want to kill her, but you can’t because you’d regret never seeing her so much, you’d want to kill yourself.” My father’s voice rang out in my mind and I tried to think, how would I feel if she was gone? It made my heart race so fast it hurt.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I looked up and saw the genuine concern in her eyes. She looked at her food and then mine before she snatched up my burger, even though hers wasn’t finished, and took a bite.
“What are you doing?”
She swallowed, placing her hand on her chest. “You look like you’re in pain, I thought maybe the lapdog did something to your burger.”
“So you ate it?!” I felt anger this time, just like when I had come over from the club, furious at the risks she’d taken.
She nodded, obviously not understanding. “Yeah, if you haven’t noticed I’m very good with poisons. If I could taste what it was, I could make an antidote, but I can’t taste anything here.”
“Yeah, because it not poisoned!” I snapped at her.
“Why are yelling at me?” she yelled back, annoyed.
Taking a deep breath, I sat up straighter; “Calli did you forget you are pregnant? Do you know if our child is good with poisons, too?”
Her eyes widened, and she looked down at her stomach. She tried to speak but couldn’t or wouldn’t. Instead she just lifted her milkshake and sucked on the damn straw, acting innocent.
“Calli!”
“Yes, I forgot!” she hollered gripping the cup. “And even though I can’t see it yet, it’s stopping from drinking, making me puke in the morning, interfering with my work and our plans and making me get yelled at by you! For a split second while I worried over you, I forgot because you were making this pained expression —”
“I was making a pained expression because I realized in that moment that I really am in love with you! Pain which you do not help ease when you go and eat burgers you believe are poisoned in front of me!”
“Well you knew it wasn’t poisoned—”
“You didn’t! Which shows me you would do it if was actually poisoned, hence the pain!” I could not believe how angry I was right now but there was no denying it. I was angry at her for risking herself. I had been angry all night, I just didn’t realize this was the cause of it.
She held her hands up as if to tell me to stop. “You cannot tell me you love me and then get angry at me for a perceived risk I might be taking.”
“Why not?”
“Because then I want to punch you in the face instead of kissing you back and saying I love you too,” she said calmly, though the look in her eyes was not very loving. “The reason why I want to punch you in the face is because your anger is telling me to stop doing what I am doing, it is a risk you don’t like. Everything I do is a risk
. The logical progression to ease your anger is for me to stop doing what I am doing. I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” I hadn’t thought that far but we did need to discuss this. She was having my child. She was mine. Our plans needed to change, she needed to come back with me—
“There.” She pointed her finger at my face. “That is the look of you putting a new plan together in your head. Let me guess, because of this baby, no more secret plans to trap your parents, no more wigs and secret identities for me. I come back with you in the morning as Mrs. Callahan.”
That was the next logical step.
“That is what you wanted, isn’t it? To be Mrs. Callahan?” Weeks ago, she was ready to kill me because I didn’t want to take her to Chicago and now she was pissed? What?
“Did you not tell me there was only one way to be with you?”
“Things changed—”
“Bullshit.” She frowned, placing her hands on the table. “I said I love you Ethan…which means I want you, which means I want you to want me too. If I go back with you, you lose what you so badly wanted, to defeat your parents, to stand on your own, to be the leader on your own. And you wouldn’t mean to, you would push it down, you would try to get over it or accept it, but you would resent me. I was supposed to help you with this one thing and I failed you. You would pull away from me.”
“Do not tell me what my actions and feelings will be—”
“Why? Because I’m right and it will put you in difficult position? Your goals and dreams of being your version of a reasonable Callahan man?” She stated the options as questions but they were too real, too true, to be just questions.
This is why I hated getting emotional, it threw off the course of my plans. A simple change in my heart rhythm and I was telling her I loved her and asking her to come back with me. I don’t know what I would have done before, and I couldn’t go back to that unknown space.