Reckoning

by Shakir Rashaan

  “Wait a minute; what guest are you talking about? Who came to see you?”

  “Let’s just say, we had a mutual problem that needed to be taken care of.” She grinned at me, springing the trap I wanted her to fall into. “In exchange for my services, Lynch would get me into minimum security and a better work detail, and I could serve my sentence in peace and tranquility.”

  I almost felt sorry for her. She had no idea that Sarge had already confessed to his part in the conspiracy and was summarily being arrested and charged as such. He even gave up the information as to where the money came from that he was paid to pull this whole thing off. The only thing he didn’t give up was the person who financed this situation, which apparently was aimed at getting back at me for something else I must have done to them in a former life.

  I would soon realize how accurate I actually was.

  I kept listening to her ramblings as I continued to take notes. There was still one other last bit of information that I needed to close the loophole and really get into hunting mode: who was the person that set all of this in motion?

  “So, basically you killed Kacie, but what I’m not understanding is why? Outside of the perks, what the fuck was really in it for you? Or were you manipulated into thinking that you were getting some sick joy out of watching me squirm?” I was getting impatient, although I didn’t exactly show it. I was already weary of her long-winded tactics and nearly had half a mind to go back to Sarge and press him for the name so I could go back to Atlanta and finish this once and for all.

  Simone looked as exasperated as I was. “Look, my life is done already, all right? I’m not getting out of here anyway; I’ll be serving life now, thanks to the fucking murder I committed, so what the fuck does it matter if I take the mystery out of things and let you deal with the consequences?”

  “Well, then, put me out of my misery, Simone. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “The person who had been visiting me was a woman. She looked about as slick and slimy as a politician, and she talked that way, too. She came at me with this thing; told me that Lynch was in on it.” Simone took a breath to work through her thoughts. “She said that you fucked her life up and she wanted revenge for what you took from her. She didn’t want it to be an easy mark, so that’s how Karrion got brought into the mix.”

  The more she talked, the more she tripped different memories I had over the events of the past year. The players came into clearer focus, and I almost wanted to shout to the high heavens once I realized another ghost from my past—this time, my recent past—was hell-bent on taking me out.

  I remembered Karrion from a little over a year ago, during Kacie’s sentencing phase of her trial. He begged the court to be lenient, that he couldn’t live without her and that she wasn’t a bad person. But that wasn’t the man that I dealt with and nearly got killed fighting. Once my mind began to process that day at the trial again as she rambled, I recognized his facial features. They were a little more chiseled and harder-edged than the softer submissive that I remembered in that courtroom.

  He must have put on a lot of weight and muscle while she was in prison. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing; the way he fought me, he resembled a rabid dog who couldn’t be stopped, but he could be controlled. The way I saw it, he was being controlled by someone else, especially when Kacie was now dead.

  He was convinced by someone that I, and everyone around me, was directly responsible for the death of his Domina, and that person also convinced him that they had a shared plight, and that together, they could make us all pay for taking her away from him. At the same time, the long-sought revenge would come full circle.

  “We’ve been planning this for months, Dom, and she’s been behind the scenes, pulling all the strings.” She cackled with her laughter, which only sent chills up my spine. “She said you would be late to the party, trying to focus more on the case than the underlying layers that still pointed back toward you. I wasn’t shocked, though; you picked up on everything a lot quicker than she said you would. I half expected everyone around you to be dead before you figured it all out. Bravo, bravo.”

  The more she talked, the more clues she gave up. She’s been behind the scenes…she’s been pulling all the strings.

  I wanted to curse as loudly as I could. I really played myself by thinking that she would have left well enough alone and lived happily ever after with her congressman husband. Something must have happened to change the game so drastically to where she needed to come for me like this. If I were to guess, it might have had something to do with the six-figure payment I guessed she wasn’t able to explain away when it disappeared from their accounts.

  Veronica fucking Emerson.

  Simone stopped in the midst of her monologue to recognize my revelation. “Well, I’ll be damned, he figured that out, too. So, how does it feel to fuck over another woman, Dom? I honestly don’t feel so bad now; for a while, I thought I was the only one. It’s nice to have some company for a change.”

  “Yeah, you’re about to have company, all right. I’m going to see to it that you two are cellmates for the next few decades.” The anger in my body was really about to boil over, and I was hours away from where I needed to be to quell that anger. “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

  “Please, spare me the outrage. You didn’t have a problem letting me rot in here for the next ten-to-twenty. Now, thanks to you, I won’t ever see the light of day. All you had to do was tell the damn judge that I was worthy of a lighter sentence.” I knew what she wanted, but I wasn’t about to give it to her, either. Dragging out an old argument didn’t do anyone any good, and it was going to do nothing but waste more time. “You still couldn’t see past your own selfishness, and look where it’s gotten you. If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up burying someone else who’s close to you.”

  My cell phone rang as she continued to rant, and I stepped away from her to answer it. “Law.”

  “It seems we have some unfinished business, you and me.”

  I gritted my teeth so hard I felt like I was going to need caps before too long. “How the fuck did you get my number?”

  “Dom! We’re outside of the—” I heard Natasha’s voice screaming over his earpiece before I heard a smack and then an uncomfortable silence. I heard another woman’s voice, but I couldn’t make it out before he pulled the phone away.

  “Well, that was unfortunate.” Karrion’s calm tone worried me more than I wanted to admit to. Usually when people were calm like that, they already had the plan mapped out in their head as to what they were going to do next. “So, now that I have your attention, I think it’s time you and I finished this, don’t you agree?”

  Simone was yelling in the background, obviously pissed that I’d ignored her completely. “Dom, get back over here, dammit! We’re not done talking yet! Dom! DOM!”

  I really didn’t give a fuck about her anymore; she’d given me what I wanted and there was no more use for her. There was nothing else left for her to say, and I wasn’t worried about a reprisal from her anymore, either. By this time next week, she would be in a maximum-security location where they only let prisoners out for an hour a day to keep them from going completely insane.

  If I was a lesser man, I’d have someone take her out. Hell, it would be considered an act of mercy, as far as I was concerned. She no longer served a purpose on this earth, and this would mark the second time that she had been responsible for the death of someone close to me.

  If anything happened to Natasha, she was going to beg me to kill her to keep from suffering the torture I would have planned for her. I was done being the nice guy. What worried me more was the other woman whose voice I heard when Natasha tried to tell me where she was. That made matters worse.

  “Tell me who you have first, and then I’ll let you know if you think you can get on my level to finish whatever business you think we have.”

  The next thing I heard was
the panicked screams of sajira’s voice sounding off in my ears. Karrion pulled the phone away once again, this time his voice giving off a bit more urgency to his repeated question. “So, are you ready to finish this, or do you need more convincing?”

  The only thing that mattered now was finding Karrion and erasing him from the map. He might not have realized what he’d started, but he was about to find out how pissed off he’d made me. “Name the place and time, bitch, and I’ll make sure to show up so I can personally punch your boarding pass to the hereafter.”

  “Not if I don’t send you there first, overnight express shipping.”

  “Stop flapping your gums and tell me where you are. I think you’re as tired of playing these hide-and-seek games as I am. If you think you’re ready, show me if you’re about that life, because I don’t think you are.”

  He was really testing the limits of my patience. There was some silence on the phone before he spoke again, and this time, there was no hesitation in his cadence. “If you think I’m going to make it that easy for you, you’re dumber than you look. But when you do figure it out, make sure you come alone, or your bitch and her friend will be awaiting you in hell.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “Are you sure that’s where she is? Dom, I need you to think this through.”

  Niki tried to sound like the voice of reason as I got into the city just before nightfall. I was relieved that I made it under the cover of darkness; it served as the perfect backdrop for the massacre that was about to ensue.

  Ty tried to pick up on the “find my iPhone” app that was on Natasha’s phone to give me an idea of where she was, but to no avail. He mentioned that her phone was turned off, only revealing the last location before the phone no longer transmitted.

  He heard the tension in my voice and had the same words for me to try and think before I reacted, but there was no way for me to do that. All that mattered to me was finding my girl and sajira in one piece and finding Karrion before leaving him in a heap of broken pieces.

  Ramesses was beside himself, yelling at the detail that was supposed to keep sajira in their sight. The response felt like something out of a scene from Mission: Impossible: they were taken out by someone with tranquilizer darts and took sajira in seconds. They never had a chance.

  Ty tried his best to keep the both of us from going off half-cocked into a situation that we weren’t equipped to handle. This was becoming more problematic than I originally intended. I needed backup if I was going to get out of this alive.

  “Listen, unless we have another way to find them, this is going to feel like finding a needle in a virtual haystack.” Ty rubbed his hands over his face in frustration, unsure of what he could do to alleviate the stress of the situation. “I mean, tech can only go so far as long as it’s functional and powered. Even the locator apps can go but so far.”

  Ramesses snapped his fingers. “Ty, pull up the radar from my office. I think I have the needle you’re looking for.”

  I forgot about the tracking chips! Karrion was going to be in for the shock of his life!

  A couple of clicks later, and sajira’s sensor popped up on the screen. Pin-point accuracy to the damn room in the house where they were being held.

  I couldn’t get out of the office fast enough!

  “Listen, D, I need you to make sure that you know what you’re doing, okay? If what Simone said was true, then Veronica might have a few people in your way before you even get to Karrion.” He might have been right about that, but I had a few tricks up my sleeve, too. Karrion might have said come alone, but he was working off the premise that I was hoping he would do the same thing.

  By the time I got to the address that was given to me, it was a pretty damn good guess that not only was Karrion not alone, but from the information on the owner of the house, I would be able to kill two birds with one stone.

  This was starting to play out like some weird drama, and I wasn’t about to be the Pyrrhic hero, either. The way I saw it, if I planned this right, there should be minimal casualties and that should be about it. One wrong move and I’d lose more than what I bargained for.

  My cell phone rang before I hit the gate, and I picked it up without a care of who it was. “Law.”

  “Sir, where is my sis? I need to know where to send units so You don’t have to do this.” Niki’s voice sang through my earpiece, but the sing-song I was used to was replaced by cold-as-ice professionalism. “You’re not one hundred percent, my Sir. i don’t want anything to happen to You or Natasha.”

  “I can’t tell you where they are, Niki.”

  “They?”

  “He had someone grab sajira, too. I assume for added insurance.”

  “Oh my God. Sir, You’re going to need backup—”

  “Trust Me, baby girl, I have backup. Everything is under control, and I promise I’ll bring them both back alive. I’ll call you once it’s over.”

  Niki’s pleas to tell her where Natasha was continued to go unanswered, eventually meeting the dead air of a disconnected phone call. I couldn’t risk the chance of her bringing the boys yet, not until I was able to take care of business. I also couldn’t risk Karrion following through on the threat to kill the girls if he had a hint of law enforcement being in the area.

  I had to do this off the grid; there was no other choice in the matter.

  He was expecting to see me alone, and that’s exactly what he was going to get.

  At least, that’s what I was going to make him believe he was going to get.

  I drove to the front gate, waiting for the security guard to open it. Well, actually, I wasn’t exactly waiting, so to speak. I only needed the guard to see my car long enough to open the gate and come through, which wouldn’t have tripped the alarm system, for starters, and he wouldn’t have had a chance to warn the other guards near the house.

  One quick squeeze of the trigger from the eyes lurking in the shadows made quick work of him.

  One moment, he was trying to figure out why I was on the grounds. The next moment, he was on the ground, never to rise again, his carotid artery pierced deep enough to have him bleed out in seconds.

  Once inside, I drove to the front of the house, parking my car in the driveway before getting out of the car. I tapped my ear for a minute before I headed for the front door, meeting one of Veronica’s bodyguards before I even got to knock.

  Seconds later, he felt a sting right around the lapel of his coat.

  A few seconds after that, he was a heap on the ground as the wound began to seep, staining his coat and the shirt underneath.

  “One down, D. Got about seven more to go on the inside.” I heard V12’s voice loud and clear in my earpiece, letting me know my Guardian Angel would be on my shoulder the entire way. “I see two on the stairs. You take one, I got the other one.”

  “Bet.”

  I pulled one of my guns out, screwing the silencer on as soon as I had the chance to move. The less noise I could make, the better the chances were I could get Natasha and sajira out alive.

  I saw the first gunman at the top of the stairs before he saw me. Before he could pull his gun, I already had the sights trained on his neck. A quick squeeze of the trigger and he went down easy, sounding like a sack of potatoes hitting the ground.

  The second guard came running to find out what happened to his buddy. He got hit in mid-stride, with the only sound I heard was glass cracking from the bullet coming through the window from V12’s vantage point. “Three more in the hallway, near the bedroom, D. I see your girl and Ramesses’s girl and another female in there, but I don’t see the mark.”

  “I got you, bruh. I have a feeling he’s in the cut, waiting for me to find him again.” I was not about to go for the bullshit again. “Check your scope near the bedroom; there’s gotta be a heat signature close by.”

  I pulled close to the bedroom door, noticing the other three that my sniper saw through the heat scopes. I threw a flash grenade, no longer worrying about noise in th
e immense estate, waiting for the men to react to it before I started firing again.

  Their screams were enough to draw Karrion out from his hiding place, but before I could get to him, he slipped inside the bedroom door. He had the advantage, at least for the moment, as V12 made quick work of the other men still reeling from the effects of the grenade. “He’s all yours, D. Happy hunting.”

  I opened the door to the bedroom, waiting a few seconds before entering inside, and to my surprise, Karrion was standing in the middle of the room with this slick grin on his face. Now that I had a chance to get a look at him, I slowly understood how he was able to get the drop on me and overpower me when I was at Ty’s. He was a lot bigger, more muscular, than I’d counted on from my memory.

  I still could take him in a straight-up brawl, but my body wasn’t completely healed from our last encounter, and trying to engage like that would be a fool’s mission. I had hoped to be able to appeal to his rational mind, but there were two problems with that plan, and one of them didn’t look at all happy to see me.

  Veronica sat in the room with him, and Natasha and sajira were on the bed not far from where Veronica was sitting. In Veronica’s hand was a small .22-caliber handgun; not tremendously large or powerful, but it was enough to get the job done if it was aimed at the right area. “I really didn’t think you would be stupid enough to really show up by yourself like that, but considering my guards are presumed dead, I think I underestimated you, Law.”

  “Yeah, I’m just full of surprises tonight, huh?”

  “I think you might want to put the gun down, cuteness. I’d hate to be the one to take your girl out after you came all this way to make sure she didn’t die. Hell, I wonder what your partner would say if he found out you caused his girl to die, too.” Her eyes were wild, looking in Natasha’s direction as she pulled the slider back to load a bullet in the chamber. Her eyes darted toward sajira before she spoke again. “Do you want to take the chance that I’m a bad shot, Dom?