by Linda Verji
She turned to face him. “Vance is missing too?”
Nic was silent for a moment then he nodded. “Yeah. But we’re doing everything we can to find both of them. Just give me a little more time.”
Was there no end to this rollercoaster? As soon as they got something in control, something else veered off the road.
“I want to be in there with you,” she said. When he opened his mouth to protest, she cut him off. “I might be able to help.”
After a brief pensive moment, Nic nodded curtly and turned. She followed him back down the stairs and to the room where he’d come from.
“You already know Diego, Rafaél and Brett.” Nic acknowledged the men spread out in various positions around the living room. He pointed to the stiff-backed Asian gentleman seated on the corner couch. “That’s Park.”
Each of the other men in the room glanced at Melanie then gave Nic a pointed look. But it was Park’s hard-eyed, angry, look that had her goose-bumps rising. Nic returned his glare with a raised eyebrow, as if daring him to protest.
After a brief match of stares with unspoken tension behind them, the older man inclined as if in surrender then said, “We’ve got eyes on The Section and his haunts down here.”
“It better not be the locals,” said Rafaél. “We still don’t know if it was one of them who tipped off Vance and his boys about the raids.”
“It probably was,” Park agreed. “But we’ve shut them out. It’s all DEA and FBI from here on out.”
“What about planes, trains and buses?” Brett asked. “I know I’d try to get the fuck out of Dodge if there was so much heat on me.”
“Covered,” Park said shortly.
“Vance won’t get out.” Nic shook his head. “His ego won’t let him run. I bet he’s lying low somewhere within the city limits sniffing around for someone to take out.”
“Have you tried Real Grace Chapel?” Melanie piped out. The room went completely silent as all five men turned their eyes towards her. Talk about intimidating. Clearing her throat, she said, “Big Ray used to attend service there and there were rumors that he was using the back of the church as a trap house.”
There was silence as her information sunk in, then Rafaél whistled. “A church as a trap house. Why am I not surprised?”
“I’ll get people on it.” Park turned to Nic. “Find Marcus quickly. I might need you to go in for Vance in case these clowns mess up again.”
The more these men spoke, the clearer it became that either they had the every single law enforcement agency in their pockets or they were law enforcement. The realization hit Melanie like a ton of bricks. Could it be? Could Nic be a cop? Even as she kept her ear to the conversation, her mind sorted through everything she knew so far about him.
The Nic she knew nine years ago would never have become a criminal. His being undercover made much more sense. It explained why he’d dropped off the face of the earth, and his reluctance to share anything about his whereabouts for the last nine years. Now she understood his friendship with Brett, who was a straighter arrow than anyone else Melanie knew, and would never consort with criminals.
The puzzle pieces didn’t fit in as neatly as she would’ve liked them to, and she still had questions about the article she’d read. But the more she thought about it, the surer she was about who – what-Nic was.
By the time Park, Brett and Diego left to help with the searches, it was early dawn. Melanie should’ve been sleepy, but she was brimming with questions. As soon as Rafaél left the room, she burst out, “You’re a cop.”
Damn it. Nic had feared that she might figure it out when he let her in the meeting, but he’d hoped that she was too wrapped up in Marcus and Vance to connect the dots. Well, there went that hope.
“You’re a cop, aren’t you?” Melanie repeated. He considered not coming clean, but then she said, “Don’t. Don’t lie to me Nic. I deserve the truth.”
“Yes,” Nic answered simply.
He expected her to start with the questions immediately, but instead she plopped onto the red couch alongside the one he was seated on. “I’ll need a minute.”
She dragged one of the throw pillows between her thighs as she took deep breaths. Finally her eyes met his. “Okay, tell me.”
Where to start? Nic’s leaned back in his seat. The beginning.
“I didn’t know who my grandfather was until I got to the army,” he started. “One night Park turned up at our camp in Iraq and broke it to me that I was José Cabrera’s grandson…”
Park had begun a campaign to convince Nic to help them take down his grandfather. Nic had stubbornly refused. The sting was long-term, in Columbia, and as much as he didn’t know his grandfather from Adam, it felt wrong to set up family. Until the night, he and Melanie got arrested.
Melanie had no idea just how much trouble she’d been in.
“It was no accident that the cops appeared at the alleyway,” Nic explained. Her eyes widened with shock when he added, “They were watching Marcus and looking for any reason to pick him up. He had managed what few had; get close to RayRay, Vance and by extension, Big Ray. Being young, the cops assumed that once they had him in custody they could break him and use him to get inside Big Ray’s organization.”
Marcus was to be arrested that night. His running had thrown a kink in the works. But Melanie’s possession of the gun had given them a new angle to work. If they pushed Melanie hard enough, her brother would break. It was either he go down or Melanie go down. Either way, one of the Daniel siblings was going down that night. Like the proverbial godmother, Park had swooped in to the rescue. But his help came at a price.
Nic finished, “The choice came down to you or my grandfather.”
Silence eclipsed the room as his story sunk in. She stared at him for so long, not saying anything he began to panic that maybe she didn’t believe his story.
Then she said, “You chose me.” Her eyes were spiked with sadness as she added, “You chose me. All this time I’ve been blaming you for leaving, when it’s all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is.” She drew her hand over her mouth as a film of moisture filled her eyes. “It’s my fault.”
“Lanie,” Nic moved from his seat to hers, sidling next to her. When he took her hand in his, she tried to snatch it back, he held strong. “It isn’t your fault.”
“It is.” A tear drop collected at the edge of her eye then slipped down her cheek. She brushed her palm over it but another one slid down from her other eye. “You had to give up your own dreams, your life… for me.”
He lifted her hand and touched his lips to the back of it. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Nic, you shouldn’t have,” she murmured.
And let you go down? The thought was untenable now as it’d had been then. He slung his arm around her shoulder and drew her closer to him.
Resting her head on his shoulder, she said, “I’m so sorry, Nic.”
Nic set his temple on the top of her head and rubbed his hand up and down her arm. He didn’t want to talk about how much they’d lost, how many years they’d lost because of one night. This is what he needed; to hold her close and pretend that none of it had happened.
They sat like that for a while, each lost in their thoughts but still holding onto each other. That is until duty called. His phone beeped.
Nic swiped the screen to reveal a message from Brett. Might have a lead on the kid.
“Lanie, I have to leave.”
She lifted her face and her gaze to meet his. “To find Marcus?”
“Yeah, but Diego will be here in case you need something.” He placed a finger under her chin and bent for a quick kiss before he stood up.
“Nic,” she stopped him by grasping his wrist. When he glanced down at her, she said, “Be safe.”
Despite Nic’s reassurances, guilt clawed at Melanie relentlessly, battling with her worry for Marcus. Nic’s revelation about the reason he’d
left had turned her thoughts and emotions on their head. To think that she’d branded him a coward for leaving as he had. The way she’d cussed him out when he’d reappeared in her life. The way she’d punished him with her words over and over again. All that time she was the one who deserved punishment.
She’d ruined his life. She’d as good as sent him to prison in her place! Nine years without parole. No amount of apologizing could ever make up for what she’d done to him. And as if that wasn’t enough, she’d gotten herself into another fix, forcing him to drop whatever he was doing to come to her rescue again. She and her family were like an anchor around his neck, taking him down at every turn.
He would’ve been better off if he’d never known her.
“Do I have to eat this?” Sly interrupted her thoughts. He was holding up a slice of pineapple. The disgusted look on his face said it might as well have been a slice of crap. He stuck out his tongue. “It’s cutting my tongue.”
“Here.” She pushed a plate full of apple slices across the metallic table to his side. “Have these instead.”
The offensive fruit gone, her nephew dug into the rest of his breakfast ravenously. They were seated on the brick paver patio. Beyond the patio, a well manicured lawn stretched out to the stone fence that bordered the whole estate.
“Can I watch TV after I’m done?” Sly asked as he stuffed a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Melanie corrected automatically. “And we’ll ask Diego when you’re done.”
Diego was nowhere to be seen, but she had a feeling that that was an illusion, and he was closer than she thought. It was confirmed when she found the breakfast she’d set out for him gone, and the TV in the den conveniently tuned in to a cartoon.
Lunch time passed without Nic coming back or even sending word about the status of the search. Though she hid it from Sly, Melanie was a bundle of anxious nerves. She stood at the den’s windows looking at parking lot waiting for someone – anyone – to drive in. Yet when it happened, she was still surprised.
Her heart jolted when the gates slid open soundlessly. It thumped harder when the car Nic had brought them in last night cruised into the compound. By the time both the passenger and driver-side doors opened, she was holding her breath. Immediate happiness suffused her when she saw him step from the passenger side.
Her excitement seeped into her voice when she turned to her nephew. “Sly, your dad’s here.”
CHAPTER 20
“Marcus.” Melanie met her brother at the door with an embrace. “You scared me.” She slapped his bald head. “Don’t do it again.”
“Sss.” Marcus hissed in pain as he rubbed his head. “Glad to see you too, Thuggette. And if you’d told me you and old boy were behind the break out I wouldn’t have run.”
“Where d’you go?” Melanie asked, but Marcus had attention had slipped downwards to the little boy next to her clinging to her hand like it was a lifeline.
“What’s good l’il man,” Marcus greeted his son for the first time in six years. Sly didn’t return the greeting. He edged closer to Melanie while staring upwards at his father goggle-eyed.
Stroking his head, Melanie urged, “Say hi to your dad.”
“Hi,” Sly mumbled.
“Damn.” Marcus smiled. “You’ve grown since the last time I saw you. You gon’ give your old man a hug?”
Sly pressed his body to the side of Melanie’s and clung harder to her hand. Disappointment flashed on Marcus’s face and his smiled dimmed. Feeling bad for both of them, Melanie reassured her brother, “He just needs a minute.”
“That’s a’ight.” Marcus said with forced cheer. His gaze slipped away from Melanie and Sly to take a slow tour of the foyer. “So this is where you’ve been staying?”
“Yeah, but just since yesterday.” She shot him a glare. “Cause we were waiting for someone’s tired ass to stop running.”
“Sorry about that.” Marcus offered her a sheepish grin. “Nic told me they had the plane ready and everything.”
“He did?” Melanie said as her gaze slipped past the open front door to the parking lot where Nic, Diego and Rafaél were talking.
“Yeah, he did.” Marcus nodded. “I didn’t even know he was in this with you all this time. How d’you find him?”
“More like he found me.” When her brother gave her a querying look. Melanie sighed. “It’s a long story.”
She led the way to the den. Once her brother was seated, she updated him on Nic’s appearance in her car and everything that had happened after that. “I couldn’t tell you what was going down because I was scared that someone in there might overhear and then mess it all up.”
“I get that.” Marcus gave her an easy nod, then he pronounced, “But it’s still your fault I knocked Theo out.”
Melanie protested, “How is it my fault that you’re too rowdy to wait for an explanation?”
“I’m not rowdy. I’m careful,” Her brother defended himself. “We were cool ‘cause he helped me with Vance’s boys. But the other night, he springs out this bullsh-”
“Marcus.” Melanie cast an eye towards Sly whose attention was on the TV and warned, “Kid in the room.”
“My bad.” Marcus revised, “The other night Theo tells me you sent him then he springs this break out plan on me. And I’m thinking he must be high on bad crack ‘cause one; You’re too straight to send someone to break me out. Two; I only got three months. Do I look fool enough to be trying stunts that could get me more time? Three; nobody’s stupid enough to think they can pull a Scofield in SQ. That bitch is tighter than a virgin.”
At that cuss, Melanie gave him the eye. “Marcus.”
“My bad,” he apologized. “But I bet little man knows more cusses than you think.”
Melanie kissed her teeth. “No he doesn’t.”
Marcus offered her a knowing look then continued, “I should’a told Theo good luck and I’ma good where I’m at. But I thought he was just fuc-“ He cut himself off. Throwing a look in Sly’s direction, he revised, “I thought he was playing so I said ha ha, come up with a good plan and I’m in.” He shook his head as if still shocked at Theo’s daring. “Never thought he’d take me seriously.”
Melanie laughed. “I still don’t get why you knocked him out.”
“Yo, we’re on work detail then suddenly the guard tells me ‘now’. I’m like nigga what you talking about. Dude says, it’s time to run. Next thing I know, Theo’s dragging me down the bay into a speed boat, screaming that we need to run. Gunshots sounding behind us, dogs barking… Man, it was crazy.”
His dramatic tone and widened eyes had Melanie chuckling. Even Sly managed a small smile. Melanie teased, “I bet you were so scared.”
“It’s not funny, Mel,” Marcus said though a reluctant smile tugged at the side of his lips. “I had no fuc-no idea what was going on and I was too panicked to think straight so I ran with him. But as soon I was thinking straight, I knocked that clown’s ass out. I figured that he had to be a plant from Vance sent to break me out then kill me.”
“Where d’you go afterwards?”
“I thought of going back but I knew it was too late,” Marcus explained. “I didn’t know how to find you either ‘cept for the school and the store. But by the time I got to Berkeley it was too late for either to be open. So I hid out at the park until today.”
“You slept at the park?”
“It ain’t that bad.” Marcus shrugged. “I figured the cops would be watching Darlene’s. But if I mingled with the parents at Sly’s school during evening pick-up, I could slip into your car while no one was watching. Instead Nic turned up. Shit! I didn’t even recognize old boy until he reintroduced himself. He looks nothing like he used…” His words faded as his gaze skipped to the doorway.
Melanie turned her head in time to see Nic walking into the room.
Her heart skipped a beat and her lips lifted in an instinctive smile. “Hey.”
“Hey
.” He smiled back. “Can we talk?”
As soon as she stood up, Sly whipped his head towards her. His gaze darted towards his father then back to her. He hopped to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Melanie asked.
He shot Marcus another look. “With you.”
Her instinct was to protect him. But the last thing she wanted was to encourage his fear of Marcus. She shook her head. “Boy, sit down. Stay and watch TV with your dad. I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”
Looking close to tears, Sly nodded and settled back on the carpeted floor.
Melanie followed Nic from the den and through the archway that led to the second living room. As soon as they were out of the view of Marcus and Sly, she stepped into his arms. “Thank you for bringing him back safely.”
He smiled as his arms encircled her waist. “You should be thanking Rafaél, not me, for spotting him.”
“But you’re the one who sent Rafaél.” She rose on tiptoes and pressed her lips to him. “Thank you.”
“Any time.” He bent his head for another kiss. This one was deeper than the last; more passionate. Gathering her close and lifting her until her breast pressed against the planes of his chest, he suckled on her lips. They exchanged a tongue-stroking kiss so hot that by the time he released her, she had a hard time catching her breath.
When she could finally breathe again, she asked, “You wanted to talk?”
“Yeah.” He ran a finger down her cheek. “Now that we’ve found Marcus, we need to get you out of here. We’ve got clearance to fly you out tomorrow morning. I hope that’s okay with you.”
“That’s okay.” She pressed her face to the base of his throat and inhaled his scent. It was a combination of his favorite aftershave and his own heady masculine scent. She kissed his throat then pulled back far enough to see his face. “What about Vance?”
“We’re still searching for him,” he said. “But you don’t have to worry about him giving you trouble in New York. We’ve got him cornered here and even if he somehow gets there, Diego will be there to keep an eye out.”