The situation was starting to take on a life of its own now. Considering Lohyna played all her cards close to the vest, while her ex-husband was always out and proud and flaunting every possible relationship he could with the exception of Kendyl, this had the potential to get complicated from a legal perspective.
Could Kraven have found out that Kendyl was trying to leave him for his ex-wife? If that was the case, could his temper and jealousy have gotten the best of him and he had something bad happen to her? The flip side of the equation had me even more disturbed: could Lohyna have found out about Kendyl being involved with her ex-husband and had her own fit of rage, too? Especially when sirius is the connective piece to her, which could easily make her the more viable person of interest.
The thing that made the whole situation a little harder to sort through was sirius’s relationships to everyone involved. He was protecting someone, that much was for certain, but the question was who, exactly? It could be Lohyna, considering the innuendo was pointing in her direction, but it could also be someone else entirely. The other thing was that he could be protecting Serena, too, but what would have been the point of that?
I was still convinced of my original premise that landed Kraven’s sociopathic streak squarely in the crosshairs of the suspicions I had about who had something to do with the harm that was caused to Kendyl.
I had to take my emotions out of the situation to be able to figure this out objectively, and the only way I would be able to do that was to have the chance to freestyle at home or in my office where I could have a clearer head. Having the girls with me would help out even more, to have them as sounding boards.
Lohyna got into a bit of a monologue, waxing poetic about her history, almost like she was pining away for a time gone by. “When I met Neal, I was in a dark place. I was sick of the scene in Houston; I’d just gotten out of a bad relationship with a guy who I thought was able to be real with Me. I almost thought I was destined to be alone…and then I met Him.”
I sat down next to her, trying to listen more closely to what she was saying. What I’d learned while on the force was that when people were at their most vulnerable, they were also their most authentic. The truth felt like a weight being lifted from the soul during those moments, and I wanted desperately to have that truth set her free, while simultaneously burying her ex-husband, once and for all.
“I knew everything He was being accused of before I got with Him, but like most fools, I took the attitude of ‘He didn’t do anything to Me, so it doesn’t matter what He did; it’s all hearsay anyway.’ ” I saw the tears falling from her eyes as the pains of the past began to show themselves clearly in hindsight. “I was so engrossed by His presence, His money, His influence in business circles…I chose to be blinded by the truth. The things that He did; the things I chose not to see that caused us to leave the one place I could call home before we came to Atlanta. Do You ever feel like You have time to make things right, Dominic?”
That question shook me to my core. All the time I put in with the department, all the times when I felt like I was making a difference, only to realize that I wasn’t doing anything for anyone. Everything came flooding back into my mind from places that I thought I’d locked away from my consciousness. I didn’t know how to answer her question; the one thing that came rushing to the surface was the time that was robbed from me to make things right with Sherrie.
Lohyna looked entranced, not caring whether I answered her questions or not. She continued to purge, each word looking like links in the chain that were breaking as she spoke them into existence. Words that no longer held her hostage as she continued to garner the strength to free herself. “I didn’t want to think He was a bad man, didn’t want to think that He was the monster that the ones who hated him most thought He was. He still had His fan club; You know how it is in the community. But at the end of the day, I chose to be with Him. I’m not sure if I regret it now or not, but I know I have as much to blame in a lot of what happened by not saying anything. I’ll have to live with that until I leave this existence.”
“My Lady, what’s done is done. What You can do is help a girl who, I assume, was as much into You as You were into her.” I found my voice, using it to my best advantage while she was amiable and compliant. “I can’t prove that Your ex had something to do with what happened to diamante, but I think You can help me. Will you help Me, My Lady? Maybe You can find some redemption for those other girls You couldn’t find the strength to help by doing this now? Please?”
Lohyna turned to me, wiping the tears from her eyes and offering a smile that shone brighter than the merciless summer sun we were trying to keep from being scorched by. “Dominic, I will do whatever it takes to help You. If I find out He had anything to do with what happened to My diamante, I’ll bury Him before You get the chance to arrest Him.”
EIGHTEEN
“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! YOU CAN’T DO THIS!!!!! ARRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!”
All I had to do was follow the screams and thuds down to the Cage and I would find out everything I needed to know about what was about to go down with Kraven’s wannabe heavy who called himself threatening Neferterri and the girls.
The reason I said he was a wannabe was simple: he really wasn’t about that life. One look at him from the pictures that V12 sent to me and I could tell he wasn’t about that life. He looked like Jason Bateman but without hair, and Jason Bateman could never be confused with being a hard-core badass. If anything, he had no business being in Kraven’s employ, but soon we would all find out the backstory. There was always a backstory.
After I left Lohyna’s house, I stopped by the house to check on them, ensuring them that Kraven’s efforts would not go unnoticed or without reprisal, either. It was best to have them all at one location from a logistical standpoint; we didn’t want to have resources stretched too thin in case Kraven decided that he thought he was the second coming of Al Capone. Ramesses was a lot of things, but when it came to his family, D/s or otherwise, he was part Rottweiler, part Pharaoh hound, and no force on earth would be able to stop him. That was the reason for the Ghost Squad protocol in the first place: to keep him from getting his hands dirty.
Neferterri was pissed that she had to even go through the protective detail to begin with. She was probably more hot-tempered than her husband was; the difference between them was she didn’t give two fucks if she unleashed her anger. Ramesses was the more diplomatic of the two, but he was an unmovable object when it came to the safety of the people in his life. Hell, he even had someone keeping an eye on amani, their male submissive. Based on the incident that happened on the private island last year, I knew he could handle himself if someone tried to come for him, but again, what the Master of the House wanted, the Master of the House got.
shamise and sajira didn’t mind the detail too much. With those two, they saw the extra protection as romantic; they were wired funny like that, and knowing shamise, she would have them entertained and occupied in such a fashion that they wouldn’t mind following them anywhere they wanted to go.
Remember that nonsense I was tripping about with the GPS trackers? I understood the method to his madness once I saw all the trackers showing up on the radar in Ramesses’s office. The ultimate security measure, but something that took the ultimate sacrifice of trust and privacy. That’s not something to be taken lightly, but considering all of the submissives had been branded and collared, I didn’t think a silly thing like a tracking chip implanted under the skin would be asking too much. Even the kids were tagged.
I wasn’t on that level yet, but I damn sure wanted to be in time.
Before I headed over to Lohyna’s house, I was with Ramesses getting the information on the “threat.” Turned out, he wasn’t much of a threat at all. His name was Tom Logan; typical name for someone who, like I said, was trying to be about that life, but didn’t have what it took to be about that life. He didn’t even have enough presence of mind to at least get rid of the burner he used, b
ut it didn’t take much to find him anyway. He thought we wouldn’t be able to find him, or at least, that’s what his handler must have told him.
Bad career move, partner.
The way he ended up getting caught was almost comical; he stayed around the area where he made the call. Another rookie mistake, and I probably was sounding like a broken record, but he wasn’t about that life. When they found him, as I understand it, he stuck out like a sore thumb; about six feet three inches, bald with a goatee and mustache, but he was slightly built, and easy to take. According to Illmatic, one of the other boys on the Squad, Logan almost shit his clothes when he approached.
Considering they picked him up in Duluth, yeah, that might have had something to do with it.
J-Roc couldn’t stop laughing over the phone as he gave me the rundown on what happened on the drive back to the office. He said Logan tried to bribe them with the money he got for doing the gig. When I found out how much the job was for, I almost wanted to laugh myself, but that would be cruel. Kraven must have been in dire straits to pull bargain-basement pricing to get this fool, or dude was that far out of sorts that he was willing to do it for the low like that. Five thousand dollars? Come on, son!
That would almost be an insult, and on top of that, he didn’t even get the job done right.
The scene in front of me once I got into the Cage, it looked like I had missed a lot of the action. That was fine; it looked like Sigma was warming up with some of the things he was using to get the guy to talk. If I wondered why Ramesses wanted Sigma brought in for this, I didn’t have to wonder anymore. Dude had tools and moved like Huck from Scandal, except he wasn’t all stalker-creepy-looking and shit like that.
Sigma wasted no time getting into the questions he needed to ask, and from the way dude was screaming, the answers would come fast and furious. “I’m sure you’re wondering how this is going to work, and I’m inclined to oblige you. I’m going to ask questions, and you’re going to answer them. My boss wants to know who sent you for him, and before you decide to want to be all hero and such—”
Sigma took a bolt cutter and clipped off Logan’s index finger like it was made out of cardboard. Hearing the bone crunch and then snap was enough to make me want to hurl, but I kept myself in check, even though blood spurted from the open wound. The howl from him was ear-piercing; it was easy to guess that he was definitely going to sing the blues, whether he wanted to or not.
“So, now that you know I’m serious, who sent you?”
“Oh, fuck, you cut my finger off!”
“Focus, Logan, or you’ll see another one come off just as quickly. Who sent you?”
Logan took deep breaths, glaring at Sigma once he had a chance to calm down a little from the initial pain surge. That didn’t take long, as Sigma went for the middle finger of the hand where he’d severed the index finger. Logan yelled for him not to cut the other finger, but it was too late. This time, he screamed out for dear life, the bass in his voice damn near gone at this point. If he kept this up, he was bound not to have too many fingers left, if he didn’t bleed out first.
“You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that, but I’m not the patient type, and I’m not wrapped too tight when I’m in situations like this, so, I’m going to ask you one last time…who was the person who sent you to threaten my boss?” Sigma was still calm and stone-cold serious about every word he was saying to Logan. “Now, before you go into shock, it might be in your best interest to go ahead and give me the answer I want. It might mean the difference between you going home patched up or you going home to glory. Which one would you prefer?”
“All right, all right! Segal is his name, dammit! He told me the guy wouldn’t do anything to me, that all I had to do was threaten him and make it sound convincing.” Logan did what he could to talk while he still had the wherewithal to do so. The look in his eyes gave him away; he was fading fast, and he was certain to lose consciousness. “He wanted the guy I threatened to drop his pursuit of some case against him or something. That’s all I know, fuck…I’m serious, that’s all I know!”
Sigma took the bolt cutter and began wiping the blood off the blades. He grabbed the first aid kit nearby and began to tend to the open wounds. It was like the monster that he had turned into moments before had switched off or something. “It’s a shame that you had to lose an extra finger because you just insisted on being so stubborn, Mr. Logan. It’s one thing to explain to your boss how you lost one finger, but two? It’s going to be a real doozy of a story, I think.”
Before too long, the rest of the Squad had the area cleaned and cleared out like nothing had happened in the hours before. Sigma walked over to where Ramesses and I stood, maintaining eye contact the entire time he stood there. “I wasn’t sure how quickly he would give up the name, but I figured after J-Roc told me what happened in the van, I didn’t think I would have to break a sweat. He should be fine, though; I’m not sure what your endgame would be to keep him from talking. He obviously wasn’t built for this.”
Ramesses took a look at Logan, stroking his beard as he normally did when he needed to ponder something. It couldn’t have been much to ponder; based on the information we dug up on him, he was nothing more than a nomad, with no family ties whatsoever. No one in the city would miss him, we were sure of that, which also meant Kraven was as sure as we were of that fact. That was a cause for concern in my mind; he might be on to our methods, and that was something I couldn’t allow.
Ramesses’s cell phone rang. When he checked the caller ID, a perplexed look showed up on his face. “Kraven, such a coincidence that you’re calling me. Is there something that I can do for you?”
“Ramesses, I believe the proper question to ask is, given the circumstances, what can you do to help yourself out of a rather fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into?” Kraven’s voice sounded nearly as smug as he did earlier when I ran into him at the police station. “After all, you’re putting yourself at great risk with the moves that you’re making against me. You might find yourself losing a great deal more coming after me.”
Ramesses placed the phone near where Logan was still writhing in pain and whimpering, so Kraven could get an earful of what took place. “Does it sound like I’m worried about the consequences of making moves against you, Kraven? This piece of shit you hired threatened to come after my wife and our submissives. You might find yourself losing a great deal more trying to play gangster.”
“Oh, you think I’m playing gangster, Sir?” Kraven had gone from smug to dismissive, nearly laughing over the phone at what he perceived as an empty threat. “You don’t get to where I’ve gotten without learning a few things and picking up some friends in low places. Did you ever think for a moment that I might have planted that piss-poor excuse for a hit man out there for you to collect and torture? That man means nothing to me, and I’ll prove it.”
Ramesses and I looked at each other for a second or two, glancing over at Sigma as he’d already read between the lines of what Kraven was driving at.
The next thing we knew, Logan began to seize, frothing at the mouth and going into convulsions. Sigma rushed to where he lay, trying to administer CPR and calm the convulsions as best he could, but in a couple of minutes, Sigma shook his head, and all we heard was the sickening laughter of an absolute nutcase.
“Oh my goodness, I wish I could be there to see your faces right now. That was a poison I had him ingest, under the guise of alcohol that he wanted to drink before he went through with the phone call he made to you. I knew he was yellow, but damn.” Kraven couldn’t contain his amusement. “Now, if you’re really wanting to play this game, Ramesses, I suggest you throw away that decorum of yours. It won’t get you anywhere, and it might get someone else killed, if you’re not careful.”
Realizing that Logan was the only real connection we had to Kraven’s threats against Ramesses, there was no way we could really go after him on legalities. Even the skip trace that was recording the conversation wouldn’t co
mpletely hold up in court. The case would be paper-thin, and he might be able to countersue for defamation, which could put the compounds at risk. There was silence on our end as we tried to quietly figure out what the next move was.
Sigma felt something for a moment, and once he looked down, he silently got my attention. I signaled to Ramesses what the new development was, and once he got a quick glimpse, he gave the thumbs-up signal and allowed the rest of the monologue to continue.
“See, that’s the problem with you, Ramesses, you have a code that you have to live by. That’s what makes you vulnerable and weak.” Kraven continued to spout off at the mouth. “It makes you really predictable, which was how I was able to set things up with ol’ Tom down there. He was the perfect mark, and he was expendable, too. If I really wanted to be cutthroat, I could have done something much more devastating, if I wanted to.”
I wanted badly to wipe the look on his face that I imagined he had. He honestly thought he had the upper hand. I was wondering if he had the balls to actually try to be a badass in person, instead of trying to play hard over the phone. I saw his file, studied it in its entirety: he truly wasn’t about that life. He had the money to look the part, but he didn’t have the connections that he thought he had. “Paper Don” was the exact description I had for his behavior.
Kraven decided to try and add insult to injury, trying to go for the jugular. “Of course, all of this can go away without issue if you simply drop the case. I’d hate for something bad to happen to NEBU; I really like the place. It couldn’t be anywhere nearly as popular as it could be if you allowed some of the other elements into the membership, but I guess no situation is perfect.”
Reckoning Page 12