Dirty Empire: A Dark Romance

by K. D Clark

“Come in,” I say.

  She peeks her head in. “Are you ready?”

  I stand from the bed and smooth out my clothes. I’m dressed down in a simple pair of soft shorts and a t-shirt. My hair is still damp from the shower, but I’ve thrown it up in a bun anyway. It would be a mess to deal with once I took it down. I don't care how I look at this point. There are more critical things unfolding.

  “Yep,” I tell Isabella, slipping on my sandals and throwing my purse over my shoulder. The bag is handmade and beautiful. One that Maverick had bought for me at the market. I feel like I’m was starting to fit into the Tahiti culture. It’s sad to think I might be leaving it all behind.

  I follow Isabella out to the car. We both get into the back of the SUV. Mike’s in the driver's seat.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he says.

  “Good morning.”

  Isabella gives him instructions, and he starts to drive.

  “Are you nervous?” she asks me.

  I shake my head. “I’m excited to see my baby.”

  Isabella has been excellent this week. Once I told her the news, she went out of her way to find me a good doctor. I thought about inviting Maverick to come along, but I still don't know what’s going on with us. I can’t keep putting my time and energy into him. Instead, I have to focus on myself and the child growing inside of me. Maverick needs space to deal with whatever is going on in his head, and I’m giving that to him. I also have no desire to drag someone along to something they don't care about. It hurt a little to think that this baby could be Maverick’s, and he was missing the first doctor’s appointment, but that’s something he’d have to live with, not me.

  We pull up to a white building and get out of the SUV. The inside is clean and tidy, just like a doctor's office in America. Isabella took care of all the paperwork, so all I have to do is go back to a room. She sits in the corner of the room in a chair that I’m sure is usually reserved for dads. Once I’m situated, the doctor comes in. She’s tall for a woman, standing close to six feet. Her skin is the same color as Isabella’s, and she has a bright smile on her face.

  “Hi, Hazel. I’m Dr. Raina. It’s nice to meet you.” She sticks her hand out, and I shake it.

  “It’s nice to meet you too. Thank you for fitting me in. I know you’re very busy.”

  At least that’s what Isabella has told me.

  Dr. Raina waves it off. “Anything for Mr. Stapleton.”

  I raise an eyebrow at Isabella. So she’d dropped Maverick’s name to get me an appointment here. Isabella refuses to make eye contact with me. Dr. Raina goes through a list of questions with me, asking about my medical history and if I’m a smoker, etc. Then she starts the exam.

  “Wow, it seems like you’re pretty far along. You didn't notice any symptoms?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “My periods have always been irregular, and I haven’t been sick or anything.”

  “You’re lucky. Most women can be pretty sick in the beginning. I want you to start taking prenatal vitamins immediately.”

  “Got it.”

  “Alright, well, let's do an ultrasound and see what we can see.”

  Butterflies fill my stomach as Dr. Raina squirts the goo on my stomach and turns the lights off. It takes a moment for anything to appear on the screen.

  “There’s your baby,” Dr. Raina says, pointing to a small white bean floating on the screen.

  “Oh my gosh, she’s so small,” I say.

  “It’s too early to tell the gender, but I do say that women have an intuition about this kind of thing.”

  Everything starts to feel real as I look at the screen. In several months I’ll be holding my newborn baby in my arms. She would call me Mom, and I would give her the world. Dr. Raina turns a knob on the machine, and the sound of a heartbeat fills the room. A tear rolls down my cheek. I couldn’t care less about the potential of this baby having Miles’s DNA because she’s my baby. The baby I never thought I’d be able to have.

  “Would you like a copy?” Dr. Raina asks, referring to the ultrasound.

  I nod my head. She turns the lights back on and gives me a tissue to wipe the goo off my stomach. She hands me two copies of the photos, and I put them in my purse. When I get home, I will hang them on my wall so I could see her every single morning.

  Chapter Fourteen: Loose Ends

  Maverick

  As I walk back through the new building for the energy company, my cell phone vibrates. The building is coming along great. Demolition is over, which means walls are going up, and I can envision some of the layout. I pull my phone out of my pocket. The incoming call is from a private number.

  “This is Maverick,” I answer.

  “I’ve lost millions because of you.”

  I don't recognize the voice on the other end of the line, but whoever it is, has some balls to come at me.

  “You’re a dead man walking.”

  “Oh, yeah? According to who?” I ask.

  “According to me. You put me on blast. We had a good operation flowing.”

  Who the fuck is this? I try to wrack my brain to come up with an answer. I always have enemies, but none that I can think of that I’d attacked recently. Then it hit me; the sting operation with Miles. It fucked a lot of people over. I put the arms trafficking business on blast. If someone were making a deal with Vladimir, they would have been fucked over since he was spending time in prison. They might not have known that Vladimir was in on the whole thing. Son of a bitch.

  “All you had to do was keep your mouth shut.”

  “Who the fuck is this?” I grit out. My fist clenched at my side. This shit is why I want out of the business. People like this who pop up, think they’re tough, and can take me on. They’re fools and inconvenient.

  “Careful. Watch your step. I have people in positions that you don’t know about. And I know about your little girlfriend too. The rescue.”

  So he must have had some involvement with either Miles or Vladimir. Maybe Vladimir fucked him over, and the blame was falling to me. Either way, the fact that the underworld is aware of my relationship with Hazel only served to piss me further off. The last thing I needed was a weakness.

  “Bring it on. I’ll be waiting,” I say.

  Click. The line silenced. My hands were shaking. Who the fuck is this? I stood there for a moment staring at the phone. What the hell was that about?

  I storm out of the building, stepping around tools and walking past construction workers.

  The black market industry is a dark and dangerous world at times. I knew that going straight would take some effort, but I didn't expect a hit this soon. I wasn’t quite sure how to react to this situation.

  Should I be alarmed? Or was it someone just trying to rattle me?

  Threats were one thing, but since he knew about Hazel, I can’t sit back and see how this panned out. I have to stop this before it becomes an issue. I’m in no position to go to war with anyone right now, especially over something I probably have nothing to do with. Once outside, I get into my car and call Mike.

  “Boss,” he answers on the first ring.

  “I just received an interesting phone call, actually a threat, from a private number. The voice was disguised with some kind of voice app.”

  “I’ll get Freddy to run some triangulation diagnostics on your number, and I should be able to pinpoint the origin of the call. I’ll call you back shortly,” Mike replies.

  I hang up and head back to the house. Whoever this was, he has to be an amateur. Anyone with some skin in the game would attack first. Threats were meaningless without action. You never want to give your opponent a heads up. It’s how Miles was able to storm onto my property.

  Meet me in my office; I texted Mike before walking into the house. On my way to my office, I spot Hazel sitting at the dining room table. Her legs are pulled up on the chair. She’s wearing a pair of shorts that show off her tan legs. In front of her is a laptop and a notebook. She looks hard at work as if
she’s planning something. She is probably planning to get away from me. I can’t blame her. She’s in danger right now, and she doesn't even know it. She would be safer away from me, away from all this bullshit.

  I get to my office and sit in the chair. A few minutes later, Mike walks in.

  “We got a pin on the call. It came from a warehouse in L.A., and the phone is unregistered. But I ran some scans on calls to and from the number, and it appears that a guy named Brighton Gentry is attached to the number. A run of this guy tells me he’s a political figure but not currently holding office because he’s been called to the stand in the trafficking trial. He has associations to a now-dead man, Miles Devereaux. If I had to guess, it's not Brighton who called, it's one of his goons.”

  Fuck. Just another way that Miles is haunting me from beyond the grave.

  “Keep digging, get me everything you can on this guy. I need you to take the lead on this one. Come up with a plan quickly and fill me in on the plane.”

  Mike nods and leaves the office. I know I’ll have to nip this situation in the bud.

  A light knock sounds at the door. Too light to be one of my security men.

  “Come in,” I boom. The door opens, and Hazel hesitantly steps inside. She threads her fingers together like she isn’t sure if she should be here. The scent of her body wash fills the air, and it makes my shoulders relax a little bit. I miss that smell.

  “Hey, Mav. Is something wrong?” she asks, seeing the disdain on my face.

  “I have a small problem to take care of.”

  “What kind of problem?” She takes a seat across from me. It’s the closest we’ve been to each other in a while, but it’s still too far apart. I want to lift her and place her on my lap, but I don't think she’d go for that.

  “I got a call from an old enemy… A threat. Someone named Brighton.”

  She never asked me about my dirty business, but if she did, I’d answer all her questions. When did I start to answer to a barely five-feet tall woman?

  “Brighton? I know that name. I think he did some work for Miles,” she says. I nod. So Miles and Brighton worked close enough together that Hazel knew him. That was saying something, considering she hadn’t even been aware of what Miles did for a living.

  “I’ve got to go to L.A. tonight. I will be back tomorrow. I know exactly where this guy is. I’m going to take care of him,” I growl.

  Her beautiful blue eyes widen. “What if something happens?”

  “Nothing is going to happen.”

  “You don’t know that. If something happens to you, what am I supposed to do?” she asks.

  The question takes me off guard. She made it clear that she was ready to walk away if I pushed her, but just because she could turn her back doesn't mean she wanted to. Hope blooms in my chest.

  “I mean what if-” she tries to backtrack, but I won’t let her.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  My eyes shift to her stomach. There seems to be a bit of roundness to it, but I could just be imagining it. My son or daughter could be in there. It hits me like a freight train. Holy shit.

  “Maverick, I need you to keep your cool.”

  “How was the appointment?” I ask her.

  She looked taken aback, as if unaware that I knew about her first appointment. “It was fine. The baby is fine. I didn't think you’d want to go considering…”

  “I want to go from now on. To all the appointments.” It’s the first time I’ve mentioned the future since coming back from vacation.

  She nods.

  Standing from the desk, I straighten my suit jacket. “I have to handle this. It shouldn't take me long.”

  “Maverick-”

  “No, Hazel. You don’t know these guys. They won’t stop until it’s done. I have to do it now. You only got a taste of it with Miles.”

  Tears well up in her eyes. Fuck, I hit the wrong nerve.

  “Look. Sorry, I didn't mean to bring that up. I have to go. It has to be done.”

  She stands from the desk and strides out the door, slamming it harder than necessary.

  I head up to my room, grabbed a bag, two handguns, and my cell phone. Time for heads to roll. I call my pilot, telling him to meet me at the terminal.

  “We’re taking a trip to L.A.,” I declared.

  This punk is going to get the message loud and clear.

  My game face was on. I intended to serve final notice to this Brighton guy and send a message that I was not to be played with. On my way to L.A., I reached out to a couple of my “friends” to meet me at the GPS coordinates where Brighton was located. On the plane, Mike fills me in on the details. I’ve allowed him to take the lead on this and come up with a plan to scare the shit out of this guy. I’ve got too much on my mind right now to think clearly. As the plane touched down in L.A., I was met by a black SUV and four tall secret-service type men.

  One of the men, wearing black gloves, extended his hand. “Sir. Let’s take care of this business.”

  I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket and hand the man a wad of cash. “This should be more than enough.”

  I could have sent these men to take care of the “issue” for me. But this was personal. I wanted Brighton to see my face and know without a doubt that Maverick Stapleton was not out of the business yet.

  I hit the road along with the four men. The driver exited the private terminal heading north on the 405 freeway. After weaving through heavy traffic, he got off at Sepulveda Boulevard and snaked west into the warehouse district. The district is littered with warehouses on each side of every street. Most of the warehouses are vandalized with graffiti and look dilapidated on the outside.

  Our tires squeal a little through an alleyway and then halt at warehouse “B” where Brighton is supposed to be. My new crew and I lock and load our weapons. Mike delivers information to me through an earpiece I’m wearing. Freddy has been able to hack into the surveillance equipment in the warehouse, so I have eyes and ears on Brighton and his associates.

  “Okay, Mav, there looks to be six men with him. There are two AK-47’s, three 45-calibers, and two 9-MMS. They are at the South end of the building in an office. You’re going to come in through the north door. There is a keypad lock on the door. Press 2-7-7-5 to enter.”

  I signaled to the men to move toward the door. Hands on their guns, they walked to the door. Freddy had disabled the outside cameras. I slipped on my black gloves and pressed the code to enter. Single file, my men entered like ninjas. They survey the outlay of the building. They listened to Mike’s instructions. The coast was clear. The inside of the building resembled an inventory warehouse. There were rows of shelving approximately eight-feet high stretching across the floor from north to south. They filtered out in a southward direction toward the offices as they reached the door. I gave the signal to halt. I peeked around the shelving. Men were in the office. I made the call for a bold move.

  “Mike, we are straight up to the door. No circling around. I want this punk to know I’m not afraid of him or his small-time goons,” I grunted.

  Giving the head nod to my men, I instructed them to put their weapons on their sides and out of sight. As they neared the door, one of Brighton’s men caught wind of us, drawing his gun.

  “Boss, we’ve got company,” the man told Brighton. He matched my height and size. Unlike Miles, if it came down to hand to hand combat, Brighton might be a challenge. Brighton pivoted like lightning and stepped behind the table. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, obviously not expecting a fight today. The door to the office was cracked open, so I forced it open with the toe of my black boot. Brighton’s men pointed their barrels at my men and me.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Brighton spat.

  I stood in stark silence as my four men flanked me in pairs on either side.

  “Maverick Stapleton. From my understanding, we have a disagreement?”

  Brighton’s countenance changed. He’d never anticipated me finding him. He’d und
erestimated me.

  “I’d suggest you tell your goons to put their weapons down before this gets ugly,” I say.

  Brighton gestured to his team to put their weapons away. Mike had been instructed to hack into the warehouse’s intercom system. Upon my signal, I would let them know the building was infiltrated. Any sudden movements would cause an immediate open fire. I closed the gap between Brighton and me. My four men followed suit, pushing forward with me.

  One of Brighton’s men made the grave mistake of stepping between Brighton and me.

  “Stand down, bitch!” my guy sternly pronounced as he pistol-slapped the man down. The man stumbled back, blood dripping from his now cut lip.

  I prompted Mike to speak. His voice boomed over the intercom. “This building is crawling with men. Tell your guys to exit through the back door immediately, or we will kill this bitch.”

  The screens in the office came on, showing several men holding a woman with a bag over her head and guns pointed at her. Brighton recognized the person to be his little sister, his only living relative whom he’d raised since childhood. Little did he know I was bluffing. The woman was one of my team members dressed like her. A trick. Any other time I might feel bad, but he brought Hazel into this. If he was going to threaten my family, I don't have a problem threatening his. The monitor went off.

  “It’s cool,” I say quietly. “You guys go. I got this.”

  Brighton’s men looked to him for permission. When Brighton nodded, my men walked them out the back door.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Five gunshots rang out.

  Brighton’s face was as red as a tomato. His hands balled into fists at his side. I walked further into the office and slid one finger across the dusty table.

  “I lost millions because of your stupidity. The money that Miles brought to pay for the guns that was my fucking money,” he gritted out.

  I shook my head. “Tsk, tsk. It looks like you picked a bad business partner.”

  He lunged. I grabbed his right hand and slammed his face into the glass wall.

  “Listen to me! You fucked with the wrong guy on the wrong day. If I ever hear from you, of you, or even get the feeling you’ve got my name in your mouth, I will decapitate that sister of yours and pull your fucking heart out with my bare hands.”