by Jory Strong
A dark-suited man arrived minutes later, intense, looking exactly like what he was, a Fed, of the Homeland Security variety. He wasn’t alone, though the guy who accompanied him had a whole different vibe. With the muscles and buzz cut he could pass for former military, the flat, hard eyes said Special Forces or mercenary.
Niall felt the first, sharp stab of foreboding, at just how expensive this call was going to be. “Didn’t know you were bringing a friend.”
“This is Desmond.”
Irish. The sharp blade of foreboding sliced deeper into Niall’s gut. He moved to the bar, pouring drinks before they claimed their seats.
The burn of the liquor met the cool of rage and determination. He would do what it took to protect his family. “You wanted the face-to-face.”
“You’ve got a mess that needs cleaning up. We can bring the necessary pressure to bear and you can deliver a personal warning to complement our actions. Unless you’ve left evidence around, then the best we can do is get you out of the country ahead of an arrest.”
“We’re not worried about evidence.” The guns Denis had used were long gone and he’d personally watched as Cathal burned the only evidence that proved they’d known who the guilty were. “What do you want?”
“Desmond, inside your organization, pursuing our interests, starting now.”
Niall glanced at the cold-eyed man who’d accompanied the Homeland Security handler. “Done.”
Twenty-five
Derrick was too restless to remain at the shop, though he needed to catch up on his drawing. He’d planned on spending the rest of the day doing just that, but this environment just wasn’t conducive to concentration. Or maybe it was the gnawing suspicion that Emilio hadn’t told him the truth. That he was giving up too easily.
He didn’t want to go home. Home was where his sheets smelled like Quinn. It was gaping emptiness.
And the bong.
Mustn’t forget the bong and the little stash of weed.
Well, he wasn’t throwing it away.
Derrick shuddered at the very thought. Waste not. Want not. He’d ration it out and then when it was gone. No more.
He brushed his hands together for emphasis.
“You okay over there?” Bryce asked. “You’re talking to yourself more than usual.”
“I think better when I verbalize.”
Jamaal laughed. “Maybe he’s falling out of love this time. Rosy glow he’s had going the last couple of days says he’s met someone.”
“Shit,” Bryce muttered. “Be better all-around if he stuck to sex and forgot about relationships.”
“Says the man who likes to see his girlfriends wearing dog collars,” Derrick said. “Probably so the tags identify them, requiring less strain on the brain.”
Jamaal snorted. “He might have you there, Bryce.”
Derrick shrugged into his jacket. “And on that note, I’m gone. Behave yourselves.”
“Stay out of trouble,” Bryce called after him, making him smile. Oh, they had their run-ins, but now that he was on the other side of that disastrous thing with—no, no, no, the man didn’t even deserve to have his name acknowledged—Derrick felt guilty for letting Bryce down.
Well, that Derrick was no more. He brushed his hands together again for emphasis.
The new Derrick could be relied on. He swung a leg over the bike, thinking about Emilio. There was more than one way to get an answer.
His heart fluttered in his chest as he thought about the family albums and photographs on the wall of Emilio’s parents’ house. Did he dare?
Of course he did. Emilio’s mother had always been very nice to him. No sleepovers of course. No public displays of affection. Her acceptance of her son’s sexuality was the don’t ask, don’t tell variety of a flexible Catholic. But she was a law-abiding woman, and besides, he had no intention of even mentioning the law.
He’d tell her the same thing he’d told Emilio, that this was for a book. He’d ask if she’d seen Marc Ruiz around. And if the answer was yes, he’d find out what Marc was up to, who he hung out with and where he might be found. Simple. And if it gave him a reason to call Quinn…
Devine. Superb.
He pulled the bike out into traffic and gunned it.
*
Sleepy shouted with glee when the asshole who’d been asking about him crossed turf lines into his hood.
Next to him, Puppy turned in his seat, high-fiving Drooler in the back. “He’s ours now.”
Oh yeah. He was theirs.
Sleepy risked getting closer. “Gotta make this quick.” Not everybody on the street could be trusted not to snitch, though they wouldn’t do it openly.
He passed his gun to Puppy. “Soon as he parks the bike, you two get out, convince him to get in the car.”
His hands were sweating against the steering wheel. Everybody knew his car. Couldn’t be helped. He’d told Jacko this was going down. He’d lose respect if he didn’t do it now. Besides, he owed this to Lucky.
The bike slid into a tight spot. He hit the gas, pulling alongside with enough room for his crew to get out.
A punch to the gut bent Derrick over with a cry, muffled by the helmet. Drooler shoved him into the backseat, holding him down with a body slam while Puppy got in the front seat and turned around to help.
Sleepy accelerated, leaving rubber on the road and slamming the doors shut with Derrick fighting in the back and Puppy using the gun to hit whatever he could. Nobody bothered to tell the motherfucker to stop struggling. It wouldn’t matter whether he did or not.
A glance over his shoulder and Sleepy smiled. He knew just where to take this loser, and when they got done, they could leave the body where it dropped.
*
Eamon fought to remain impassive as he eased the vessel the changeling had stolen into its berth while a couple of slips away, Myk did the same with the boat they’d used in their search. It had to be bad if his second had come personally with the news.
“Tell me,” Eamon said, tossing Rhys the boat line.
“There was an incident at Aesirs.”
“Etaín.”
“Yes. She encountered Laura Chevenier and her daughters. By all accounts the woman provoked what happened with mention of Etaín’s mother, and hints that she knew where she could be found. It escalated to the point of violence.”
“Etaín stripped her mind of the information?”
“Yes.”
“You witnessed it?”
“Yes.”
Farrell began whimpering on the floor of the small boat where he lay bound by magic, dry now because of that same magic, after throwing himself into the ocean when Eamon finally caught up to him. Fear had driven the changeling to the act. Farrell’s own tie to the elements whispering sweet seduction, offering a watery embrace along with visions of gills and tail, if only he shed his humanity.
Worry gripped Eamon at wondering what promises had whispered through Etaín’s mind. He caught Rhys’s glance at where Etaín’s ink was hidden by clothing, though his second didn’t say what all of those close to him were thinking, that it might not be safe to allow Etaín to live.
“Where is she?”
“She’s on her way to speak with the Cur, Anton.”
He could guess her intentions, but Rhys’s expression said this wasn’t the last of what had brought him here.
“Cathal?”
“There was an attack at his home by someone armed with a grenade launcher. Thankfully the garage door had closed far enough to make it plausible to witnesses that he’d gotten into the house and far enough away from the blast to survive it. He’ll be at the estate shortly.”
“Take Farrell. Confine him. Call me or have Liam do it when Etaín arrives at her destination. It’s time I collect my intended.” Before she forced him to render judgment.
The order was given in the cool tones of a lord, though there was no hiding the truth of his emotions from his second. Pain blurred into anger, a deep hurt that mad
e it feel as though his heart had been cleaved in two because apparently she still did not feel enough for him to care how her choices affected him, about the message that he might read into them, that his needs as man and lord weren’t important.
Pity and compassion warred in Rhys’s eyes. Efficiency, and the desire to let Eamon retain his pride, won out. “Yes, Lord.”
*
Quinn couldn’t shake the panic. For the first time since leaving law enforcement, he wished he’d made a sideways move instead of getting out, a move that would give him a light and a siren to cut through traffic and make San Francisco pedestrians get the hell out of the crosswalks.
He called Derrick’s cell again. Repeating the action a block later.
Something was wrong. One minute he’d been laughing, playing Uno with his family, working his way toward the big reveal, and the next…
He’d felt like his world was about to go dark. He couldn’t get out of the house quickly enough, couldn’t get back to the city as fast as his gut screamed for him to do it.
“Answer, damn it. Answer.”
Another call went straight to voicemail.
Close to Derrick’s apartment his instincts screamed Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. Except this didn’t feel like where he needed to be and that made no fucking sense. Neither did Derrick’s leaving work after being adamant when they’d talked on the phone earlier that he was staying late at Stylin’ Ink so he could catch up on his artwork. Unless…
A low growl emanated without conscious thought. Mine!
Shit, not more of this. He tried to shake the weirdness off, the same way he’d finally managed to do about what had happened with the jewelry.
Just some kind of post-traumatic-stress thing going on. Five years undercover with the Aryan Brotherhood had been five years of living hell.
A parking place opened up and he claimed it, screeching to a halt, hand going to the ignition key. Stalling out there because everything inside him said going up to Derrick’s place was time he couldn’t afford to waste.
I’m going fucking nuts. He scrubbed his hands over his face before checking for traffic and jerking the steering wheel sideways to pull back onto the street. He headed in the direction his gut told him to go.
For a split second he thought about calling Sean as backup. Then dismissed it.
He rubbed the back of his neck, hating the truth that cut into his thoughts like a sharp knife. If this was about work, he’d call Sean in a heartbeat, no hesitation. He’d lived on his instincts for a lot of years. That’s what being behind bars reduced a man to, especially a cop undercover. And the times he wasn’t in prison, he’d been living a lie twenty-four seven, which was just another kind of incarceration.
All day long he’d had those flashes of possessiveness and battled the need to check in, see Derrick for himself, like some kind of school girl with a crush. They hadn’t made plans to see one another. Hadn’t made promises.
For all he knew Derrick was out with someone else. Maybe bar hopping. And that was a big part of why he didn’t call Sean.
Just go with it, he told himself, putting himself on autopilot, a part of him absolutely positive his instincts would lead him to Derrick.
*
Nice,” Etaín said when they arrived at Greg’s place.
It was a tri-level town house. An end unit in a neighborhood where it was easy to imagine parents feeling safe as they walked with their kids to the park a block away, or the library a little bit farther, or to the lake down the road.
High ceilings gave the place an open, airy feeling. At the nursery room doorway, Greg stopped to introduce his obviously pregnant wife, Monique, and, DeAngelo, the toddler-aged boy she was reading to.
“You’re Captain Chevenier’s daughter,” Monique said.
The question produced the hollow twang of pulled heart strings. “You know him?”
“No. I’ve just been following the news about the Harlequin Rapist. I recognized your name.”
She shot her husband a look, momma bear not wanting any threat in her home. “I hope this means Anton is intending to do the right thing.”
“This way,” Greg said without offering a response, leading Etaín into a living room with a built-in fireplace and a wall taken up by a big-screen TV.
Anton sat on the couch. He didn’t stand as Etaín approached.
“I’m not seeing no drawing tablet. I ain’t seeing your kit either, the one I know for sure you have with you when you’re planning to lay down some ink.”
“I said when I called it was to talk.” She was close enough to extend her hand for the shake they usually exchanged.
He reached into the crevice between couch cushions and pulled a gun out instead.
The eyes on her palms blazed.
Greg threw his hands up. “Whoa, whoa, Anton. This is crazy. What are you doing, man?”
“I went by the funeral home,” Anton said, directing his answer at her. “Paid my respects to Kelvin’s mamma and heard about you visiting him at the hospital.”
His eyes flicked to her hands then back up to meet hers. His expression hardened. “Now you’re here, and I’m thinking it’s because you’re working for the cops, seeing as how my cousin picked you up not too far from where your daddy works.”
“Leave,” Greg said, muscling his way between her and Anton.
She didn’t know whether it was directed at her or his cousin, but sweat rolled down her back because she could now feel a hint of magic, as though Liam was about to emerge from shadow. She shivered at where that would lead.
“It’s okay,” she said, fingertips touching Greg’s back. “Anton and I understand each other. Maybe it’d be better if you weren’t in the room for this.”
“You sure?” Disbelief. Respect. Fear.
“I’m sure.”
Still he hesitated, as if torn between doing what felt right and what was important for his own family, his survival.
“I’m sure,” she repeated, demonstrating it by moving out from behind him to sit in a chair far enough away from Anton that he wouldn’t feel threatened.
Greg left. Liam slid into view, forming like a genie escaping through a sliver-thin shadow in a corner of the room, shimmering there then blinking away when Anton glanced over his shoulder. “Cops outside waiting for me?”
“Not that I know of.” She leaned forward, forearms on her knees, hands in a loose clasp. “For the record, coming here was my choice. What the cops asked me to do, I’ve already done.”
“Seeing what was in Kelvin’s head.” He shoved the gun into his waistband at the middle of his back and sat on the couch, a couple of places and a coffee table’s distance away.
“You don’t seem freaked.”
He shrugged. “Had a great grandmother came over from Haiti. Used to tell us kids about voodoo and shit, kept us in line because she was a true believer and we was afraid she’d put a spell on us.”
He matched his pose to hers, leaning forward also meaning an easy draw if he pulled the gun again. Given the blazing heat in the centers of her palms, she wondered idly who could do the most damage if they went for their respective weapons.
“What’s going down, Etaín? Why you here?”
“Because I care what happened to Kelvin and the others. Especially Vontae. I used to run with him, way back when.”
“Yeah, I heard about you being a wild child.”
She shrugged. “More rebellious than wild. While you were paying your respects did you hear that Kelvin brought his wife and his baby around to the shop a couple months ago? It hurts to think of him dead because he was trying to do something good and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s a chance of the same thing happening with any drive-by.”
“You thinking I had something to do with the shootings in Oakland today?”
“Did you?”
“You don’t have no fear, do you?”
“You baited that hook, not me. I was only making a point. Rumor has it you’re
trying to take over the Curs and you’ve got big plans.”
He laughed. “Vontae’s granny ain’t never liked me. You know how the Curs started out? Just a bunch of brothers who liked to ride and wanted to make their own rules.”
“And now?”
“Time will tell. You wondering if what happened at the bar is on me? All that killing payback for something I did or ordered done?”
“You baiting the hook again?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Naw. Just trying to figure you out.”
“That’s easy enough.” She turned her wrists, the stylized eyes becoming visible. “All I want is to find out who was behind the slaughter and pass the information on to Detective Ordoñes, so the guilty will hopefully be arrested and that’ll keep the street violence from escalating.”
His gaze settled on her palms. “Kelvin didn’t see anything?”
“Nothing that identifies the shooters.”
“How many were there?”
“Five.” The police hadn’t offered a number to the public.
“That a solid number?”
“If there were more, I can’t know it.”
“The only way this ends is when those responsible have paid for it.”
“And jail time isn’t good enough?”
“It could be.”
“I’m listening.”
“I know who ordered it done.”
“But you can’t find him.”
Anton smiled. “That’s right. I can’t. But I’m betting you can.”
“Who’s responsible?”
“He ain’t local so it’s going to take you a little digging to find out which gang he most likely pulled his crew from. Maybe that’s where daddy or big brother comes in, or maybe you play that detective for information.” His eyes flicked down to her hands. “Then you pay some folks a little visit, same as you intended for me, and see what’s inside their heads. Find his crew, find him.”
“Give me the name.”
“We in this together or we ain’t in it at all. I’m no snitch. But I’m willing to cut a deal with my friend Etaín, who says she cares about Kelvin and Vontae and the others, meaning my sister too, who wasn’t guilty of anything but trying to earn some money so she could make a better life for herself. You want to give the crew over to the cops, I can go with that. But I want the guy who ordered it.”