Charity's Secrets

by Maya James

I hate this for him. I hate it enough for both of us.

  He reaches the mark and there's no hesitation. Justin grabs the side of his head and slices the knife downward in a quick jerk. He steps back one short stride and tosses the man's own ear into his lap. "Where's Jesse?"

  Our mark doesn't even scream. The cut is so clean there probably isn't much pain at all yet, but the shock is insane. His wide eyes fixate on his ear. "My cousin, Miguel Warez, he put him up, gave him a job."

  I hear Garrett mumble, "Holy shit!" in amazement.

  "Doing what?" Justin demands.

  "A lot of guys on the inside owe us. Their girls have to keep the payments coming, no excuses. When they don't, we send Jesse to them. People are taking their payments much more serious now."

  Justin puts the knife down on ground and takes out his gun, but I don't want to watch anymore. I close my eyes and listen.

  "Where?" Justin demands.

  He gives Justin an address, then I hear a familiar muffled pop.

  Justin was right to do what he did and I understand that now. When we got here, if he jumped out and cut the man's ear off before shooting him, both Garrett and I would have thought he was cold and ruthless, that it wasn't necessary. Now we know differently; it was the only way to get what was needed, and there was so much less suffering his way.

  My eyes seek out and find his when he gets back in the truck and I see that they're full of hurt. He doesn't want to do this anymore, not now that his life has changed so much. The transformation began when we met and had taken a huge leap toward its end with the truth about his mother. I don't believe that he ever enjoyed this part of things, but he knew how to tolerate it. With me in his life, he never has to tolerate anything again. We can be happy without any of this

  THERE WAS NO WAY in hell Justin was letting me go with him this time. Jesse Simpson was to never see my face, never know I exist. Jesse is hiding inside the drug-house of a well-organized and well-armed gang. Justin still has his limits of the amount of danger he will let me face and this is way past it.

  More of the team is involved this time; eight men and three untraceable trucks parked at separate points of escape. Lena is on surveillance and I'm with her. Justin feels that's where my eyes are needed. They are in full gear this time, which means Kevlar, masks, earpieces for constant communication and video so we can see what they see.

  Connections have been called in for this one as well. Any calls to 911 will have a delayed response until we call an all clear. Justin knows that if anything goes wrong, this becomes a small war.

  The clock shows four-twenty one, less than ten minutes to go.

  "Let's do a final AV check," Lena suggests.

  "Go," Justin agrees.

  She runs through all their names and each responds with their voices muffled behind their masks. Everyone can hear the audio check. "Video is good too," she announces.

  There's nothing else to do after that. It takes everything I have not to just start begging Justin not to do this, to let his men handle it. I want to grab a mic and tell him how much I love him and what he means to me. Earlier I told him all of this, so it's not that I haven’t had the chance. I just want to tell him that I love him one more time, just in case, and I can't in front of the team.

  "Warrior?" I hear him call over the line.

  "I'm here?"

  There's a slight pause. Everyone is listening.

  "Keep your beautiful eyes on us, Warrior. I love you."

  My knees buckle. "I love you, Baby. Be safe."

  Only silence follows, everyone steadying their nerves and envisioning a successful outcome.

  "Go on one," Justin says. "Three, two, one."

  There are two guards sitting on the front porch, neither expecting anything at this time of the morning. Several of the team are looking right at them as they both lay back and go to sleep. That's not what happened, of course, but that's exactly what it looks like on screen.

  All screens are suddenly jumping and bouncing as the men quietly run on the house. The first two men at the door kneel and spray aerosol cans under the bottom.

  Malcolm is the third to reach the door, picking the lock while the other two are still emptying their cans.

  We watch from another angle as he pulls the door open wide, stepping out of the way for the next line of men with their M16's aimed for their approach. There's a body just inside the door, an inner guard just as Justin had anticipated. One of the men still on his knees uses a silenced weapon to tap a hole into the unconscious guard's forehead.

  Three gone, and no one else even knows they're coming yet.

  My eye catches a red blinking light on one of our screens as the team begins filing through the front door. I let it draw my attention and it turns out to be a number on a long list. "What the hell is this?" I ask, pointing. Its way more familiar than I want it to be.

  Lena gives me only the tiniest bit of her attention, until she sees what I'm pointing at, then it's quickly the only thing that matters. "Ho-ly shit!"

  My heart drops into my stomach. "What? What the hell is it?" I feel my panic rising at the look on her face.

  "Miguel Warez's current cell phone. And that," she points, "is the same burner phone that we've been tracking since it almost got Justin killed when it tipped Trisha's boyfriend off."

  I'm about to scream for her to warn them, but she's already on it. "Justin! They know!"

  "How?" Justin whispers urgently.

  "The burner phone just called Warez!"

  There is no hesitation from Justin. He orders everyone into evasive positions and they react instantly. On screen, from every view we see soldiers quickly separating into different rooms on the first floor, not something they would ever normally do. They vanish into the shadows and dark corners, dragging the dead guard out of the way, and in seconds it's as if they're not even there, maybe they never were.

  "They're coming!" one of them whispers.

  "Let them get as far as possible," someone replies. "Keep the bodies away from the hall." I believe that’s Garrett, already making decisions and passing orders calmly under stress.

  I need to scream. I want Justin out of there—now!

  The first piece of shit hits the bottom of the stairs with a shaky gun out in front of him. He doesn’t look like a professional at all as he passes by two soldiers without even detecting them and cuts into the living room where he's instantly, soundlessly, shot in the head.

  They drag his body deeper into the room out of the way.

  A second man stops halfway down the stairs, calling for his partner and not getting a reply. He yells up the stairs in Spanish and someone yells back at him.

  "He wants to go back up," Lena tells me. "But he's been ordered to keep going."

  He descends the remaining steps and turns in the opposite direction that his partner had gone, hoping it's safer the other way. It isn't. He's in a room with Justin and Garrett now. It terrifies him that he can't see anyone and his hands are shaking so violently that it's amazing he hasn't popped off an accidental shot. Without knowing it, he's moving closer and closer to Garrett, who shows incredible restraint waiting for the clear shot. When he's close enough, Garrett grabs the guy’s gun and pulls it straight out of his hands. His bewildered jaw drops toward the floor and Garrett shoots him through his open mouth up into his brain.

  No one else follows.

  "They won't send anyone else down now," Justin whispers. "They know we own the first floor. They'll dig a few guys in on the second floor and move everyone else up to the third."

  Malcolm confirms, "I hear them moving now."

  "Let's put gas and smoke on the second," Justin orders.

  I know this is about to get crazy, you can sense it—as if it isn’t already well into the land of the bizarre. But it is going to get worse.

  Should it be this quiet right now?

  Malcolm and another of the men quietly move half way up the stairs. Everyone else is waiting in the hall. They pull the pins o
n the cans each of them holds in their hand and then toss their cans up into the second floor as the cans begin to spew two different shades of fog.

  Gunfire erupts, the first of the night without any silencers. It won't be long now before 911 calls start going out from the neighbors. Bullets hit the back wall behind the base of the stairs and pieces of sheetrock and dust explode in the air on the first floor, mixing with the chemical fog now blowing down from above.

  Justin patiently holds his team.

  Two loud thumps follow as the guards upstairs succumb to the gas, but there's also the sound of breaking glass.

  Our team takes the stairs, leaving one man behind to keep the first floor secure, firing into the cloud as they climb. Someone was smart enough to break a window and stick his head out for air is and still returning fire blindly into the smoke. It’s a dumbass move; he has nowhere to go.

  White hot metal screams by Justin's camera and my body goes numb. Their fire concentrates on the back of the room where the shooter is trying to hide in the smoke. We can see where the chemicals are escaping out a large hole in one of the open rooms and the men simply aim for that.

  Debris is flying everywhere and shouts of panic waft down from the third story. There's muzzle flare all over with mini explosions of splintering wood. Someone howls in pain, and I check all cameras, praying it's not one of ours—that it's not Justin.

  It's so fucking hard to see with the dust and smoke everywhere.

  They keep shooting, the screams come again and then stop with an eerie quickness. They're no longer taking fire, at least not for the moment. Justin charges through the fog to confirm they've killed the shooter.

  My heart stops until I can make out the body slumped against the wall under the broken window.

  Damn him—and thank Christ!

  Malcolm and Garrett each find one of the gassed, unconscious shooters in separate rooms. Pop! Pop!

  Not just unconscious anymore!

  They find another door that's closed and locked from the inside despite it being perforated with bullet holes. Garrett kicks it in, but it won't swing all the way open. A pair of legs are blocking it. It's a small, filthy looking bathroom with two women laying on a blood-soaked floor, their blank eyes staring up at the camera.

  For a foolish moment I feel bad for them. Then I notice the semi-automatics in their hands and I realize how close they came to ambushing Justin and his men.

  "The second floor is ours," Justin whispers.

  Upstairs, they're shouting and cursing at each other, voices mixed with fear and anger. They begin breaking every window in every room so they can't be gassed out.

  "Come on up you gringo fuck," one of them shouts down in a very heavy accent.

  Don't do it!

  I just want them out of there now. Enough danger. Enough risk. This is too intense.

  Justin uses hand signals at this point, directing his men to stand in a line straight up the hallway, each facing to the opposite side of the house. He puts himself at the bottom of the next flight of stairs along with Garrett, and he starts counting down from three.

  No, no, no, no! Don't!

  One!

  They begin shooting up through the ceiling as dust rains down on them. At the same time, Justin and Garrett run the stairs.

  On the third floor it's a hail of bullets dividing the house into two and Justin charges through the middle of it like a mad man. His team has distracted everyone and pushed them out of the hallway into the rooms.

  Their precision is incredible. None of them can see Justin or Garrett, relying completely on the trust that Justin will go only where he should as their bullets form an aisle.

  Justin fires left and Garrett right, barely a step behind him.

  People are running in circles and diving into corners, anything to get away from the blizzard of metal that is shredding everything in its path. Wood from the floor is bursting straight up into the air like tiny, volcanic eruptions.

  Most of them are so enthralled with the exploding floor that they never see Justin and Garrett run by. They don't realize that hot burning ripping through their bodies came straight at them through the open doors in front of them.

  Several people do see them, raising their guns up and firing wildly.

  It brings my entire world into a churning tunnel, losing sight of everything around me but Justin's camera. When they shoot at him it's as if they're shooting at me.

  Before they reach the end of the hall, Justin shouts, "NOW!"

  His men move up from the second floor without question, charging the stairs and picking up their fire again as soon as they hit the top.

  Justin and Garrett are tucked into the bottom corners at the end of the hall. They only take a shot when someone tries to run from their room, careful that they don't hit their own men moving toward them.

  Holes are blowing through the walls as the people inside the rooms take un-aimed shots, not caring who they hit.

  It's fucking chaos.

  As Justin's men move toward him, there is quiet in their wake. By the time they reach him, there is no more gunfire, just burnt gunpowder, dirt, and the moans of the wounded.

  There's no break. The calls have gone in and the police can't be held off much longer. "Find him!" Justin demands. "If he's not dead yet, save him for us. Kill anything else still moving."

  They need to be careful; some are only wounded and perfectly capable of squeezing off another round.

  With no fear and no hesitation, Justin moves from person to person. If they're not dead, he fixes that. If he's not sure, he makes sure. There are so many more people up there than I expected. They had flooded the third floor like roaches running from the light.

  Garrett is just like him, ruthless. He grabs a body lying face down on the floor to roll it over and see if it's dead and it moans in pain as soon as he touches it. He yanks it over and Jesse Simpson is staring up at him. There's a hole in the floor under him and a matching one in his stomach. His shirt is soaked through and sticking to him.

  "Got him," Garrett says.

  When Jesse hears him speak, he opens his eyes and tries to focus on his face. "Mark?" His eyes are already fading.

  "No," Garrett growls in disgust, kicking him in his gut right near the bullet wound as Justin joins his side.

  "Christ—you look just like him!" Jesse tells them, wincing in pain as he tries to laugh like a smart ass.

  Beside me, Lena gets a text. "Justin, dispatch in sixty seconds," she says. I'd nearly forgotten she was here with me. It's longer than we could have hoped for. A fucking war had broken out; the neighbors have to be freaking out.

  No making him beg or repent.

  No snarky one liners.

  No jarring his memory about their mother.

  Justin and Garrett both simply aim at his head and simultaneously pull their triggers, sending Jesse Simpson into oblivion.

  CHAPTER XIV

  "You're not kidding? Tell me you're not fucking teasing us. Don't even tease me about something like this, Charity," Jennifer squeals. "My heart couldn't take it."

  Her exaggerated drama kills me.

  Clarice and Kathy lean back in their chairs with bright smiles on their faces, ready to watch the slut-fest begin like a show with Lynda and Jennifer as the stars. Their escapades are legendary.

  Lynda has yet to attempt to lift her jaw off the table. Her shock has run too deep. "He has a brother?" she asks, bewildered.

  "That's what she just said," Jennifer agrees loudly.

  Trisha is smiling, but there's a heavy concern in her expression. She knows us better than the others do and it touches her heart enough to stifle her laugh. "How is Justin?" she asks. "He must have been stunned."

  "He was," I admit softly, sharing her sense of compassion. "Something none of you would have ever known about is JP's relationship with his mother. He never talked about it with anyone." They all stare at me, waiting for details that I can't give them. "There was no relationship with her, not
since he was small. She had left him and his father. But as women, sometimes we have our reasons—and our secrets. We can bury our tragedies and make them our burdens much better than any man ever could."

  I'm sure each of them understands what I mean in her own way, but I can really see the understanding in Trisha's eyes. She's come so far, but there's still such a long way to go.

  "JP knows her secrets now, no more burdens, no more hiding. And with it came a half-brother who didn't know any more than JP did," I tell them.

  "The brother didn't know about him either?" Trisha asks, sounding devastated.

  I shake my head. "No. Neither one of them ever knew until now."

  "Jesus Christ!" Clarice breathes. "That's an awful lot on them all at once."

  Everyone nods to agree with her.

  "So, I wanted you girls to know all this for a reason, obviously," I begin again. "Garrett will be here this afternoon, at the office, and he'll probably be coming a lot since they are trying to get to know each other. He's staying here in the city with us for now."

  "Staying with you?" Lynda asks. I see the twinkle in her eyes, trying to lighten the mood. "If you swing a threesome with hot brothers... Girl I'm telling you there had better be video or I will scratch your eyes out."

  "And his name is Garrett—GAWD!" Jennifer gushes.

  They're too freaking funny. "If the rumors start, I just wanted you ladies to know the truth." It's not everything, but that's the only half of the truth that they need to know.

  "If the rumors say that I'm sleeping with the boss’s brother," Jennifer says with a wink. "They might be true."

  "You haven't even seen him yet," Kathy complains.

  "Is he hot?" Jennifer asks me quickly.

  "He's very good looking," I answer. "He has a little bit of Justin in his looks, they have the same eyes."

  "Fucking sold!" she exclaims.

  I let them have their fun over lunch. They managed to keep a heavy issue light. They may have crossed the line at a few points, but nothing really unexpected from them.

  We're back at the office when Garrett arrives and reception calls for me to come get him and see him in. He looks very handsome in black dress pants and a dark grey shirt.