by S. K. Lessly
She waited a beat then asked, “And the person that sent them?”
“Well, I left one of the members of the kill team alive so I could beat information out of him. He told me who had sent him, and to make a long story short, I found the person responsible. But I didn’t get revenge like you’re thinking.”
“No, I understand what you had to do. You had to break the cycle. You couldn’t afford to start a revenge war. You had to stop the connection to you just in case he had shared your information with someone else.”
“Exactly. I did what I had to do and I took care of him, but I did it in a way that would never connect his death to me. It appeared to be an accident or something to that effect. Actually, I think I set up one of his enemies and made his disappearance look like they had something to do with it.” I further explained, “That was hard to do because I wanted him to know who was sending him to hell. But I stayed disciplined and did it the right way.”
“What about the person who ratted you out?”
I laughed bitterly. “Well, that was a different story. I took my revenge out on that person. But before I did, I exposed them to the right people. I proved how vulnerable Clandestine Operations of the DIA were when it came to our protection and safety.”
“The person who ratted you out was part of the DIA?”
“Yup.”
“Holy shit.”
I added, “This person was the reason why the DSO was created. And it’s the reason why very few people know it exists. The work we do is covered completely. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I work hard every day to keep us safe. I have security measures on top of security measures in place that no one else knows about. I do my best to make sure that everyone is safe from going through the shit I had to deal with.”
“Okay, and what about our families?” Misty asked me. “How do we keep our families safe and do our jobs at the same time? I understand that we can put security teams on our families, and those teams would do what they were trained to do, but it’s different. You know we would give a different level effort than strangers would. You Cooper boys have each other. Me, I…”
“Wait, now. Hold on a second. Don’t you dare say what I think you were going to say. Do you honestly believe that you and your parents wouldn’t have the same protection as we would? You think that when we do our rounds and check in with Ma and Pops that one of us doesn’t call or stop by your parents’ house to check on them?”
“Shane…”
“No, Misty. It’s time you understand just how important you are to us and to this family. Just how you were thinking about Sweets and Lili, it’s the exact same way we think about your parents and most of all, you. When you’re not around, we look out for your mom and dad just as thoroughly and carefully as we look out for our own because your parents are our family. Do you know how many trips our parents have been on together? It’s been countless times if you need your memory refreshed. They’ve been to the house on many occasions without you, I should add, and my parents have been to your family’s house too.”
“Shane—” she began again, her voice strained a bit.
I cut her off. “And do you remember how your father saved Josh by taking care of Sweets? I mean Dr. King was out of town, Misty. No, not just out of town. He was out of the country and he did everything he could to make sure Sweets had the best care and the best people taking care of her. From the doctors to the nurses, hell, even the orderlies were scrutinized. I was told he called every day, countless times a day to check up on her vitals and her overall care. He was constantly having meetings with the doctor that was taking care of her to make sure he stayed in the loop.
Your mom worked to get the best medicine to Sweets to help her body heal faster. Things that her team had been working on that she knew would help. Baby, that is something that family’s do for each other. Can we prevent everything? No, and I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that it won’t be easy for someone to come after us. And by chance if someone did decide to come after us for anything, do you have any idea the hell that would be unleashed on them? No one would be safe. No one.”
Misty was quiet for a while and I let the silence linger. I was doing my usual again, counting to ten to relax my mind. To hear that she didn’t think that she and her family weren’t considered a part of our family bothered the hell out of me. My parents treated her as if she were their own. My sister and brothers felt the same. I had very deep feelings for Misty. However, she didn’t know it and that kind of bothered me. I would protect her with my life ten times over. I would do the same for her parents too.
Finally, she broke the silence and asked me, her voice soft and low, “Did anyone ever tell you that you have anger issues?”
I smiled in spite of myself. “I’ve heard that.”
“Shane, I know you guys have my back and my family’s back but—”
“No, Grace,” I said sharply, using her real name to bring my point home. “No buts. We have your back period. It’s high time you understood that. It might not be said often, but it’s there, understand?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled. “Good, now get some rest. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good night, Misty.”
“Wait. Shane?”
“What?”
Misty paused a beat before she said, “Even though I didn’t tell you all that happened the other night…”
“Yeah…”
“I just want you to know that last night you were there for me the way I needed you to be and I appreciate it. Thank you.”
Damn! I exhaled before I replied, my voice equally low, raspy, and gruff, “It was my pleasure, Misty. Truly, my pleasure.”
Interlude Three: One week ago
The frenzy of the arrivals area of Reagan International Airport, one of the oldest airports in the D.C. area, did nothing to slow her down. She moved with a purpose; her gait relaxed even though her eyes continued to survey her surroundings. Only when she exited the airport did she stop to take a breath. It had been years since she’d been in the States. As she looked around, she couldn’t help the frown that developed on her face. She definitely didn’t miss the place.
As she expected, summer in D.C, hadn’t changed over the years. It was still hot and unbearably humid. The decision to pack her jacket away was one of the best ones she’d made so far. The woman slid her black tinted Valentino sunglasses from the top of her head onto her eyes. The stubborn strands of hair that fell from her tight ponytail started to stick to her face.
“Damn humidity,” she cursed and looked down at her clothes. She had on a form-fitting sleeveless black button down shirt, black skinny jeans, and black stilettos, which for this weather were too much. She couldn’t wait to get to her apartment and out of this heat.
She looked around, taking in the bank of cabs in front of her, and moved into the direction of one pulling up to the curb. The cab driver opened his trunk and placed her luggage inside as she climbed into the back of the car.
The woman pulled out her cell phone, turned it on, and waited for the phone to load.
“Where to, Miss?” the cabbie asked in heavily accented English.
Without taking her eyes off her phone, she replied in rapid Arabic an address she hadn’t recited in a long time, “2895 P Street Northwest, Georgetown.”
She missed the cab driver’s shocked reaction before he put the car in drive and peeled from the airport curb. She had been distracted, anxious ever since her phone call from Cupid. She wasn’t sure why she was back in the States, and from his tone, whatever the reason was, she knew she wouldn’t like it. She hated this place. There were too many bad memories that she wanted to forget. There were people a part of a past that no longer had room in her memory.
Once her phone was fully loaded, she dialed a number from memory and placed it to her ear. She waited a beat before she heard a cold but familiar voice state her name as his greeting.
Without preamble, the heavily accented Russian voice on the other end told her exactly what he needed. As he spoke, she could feel the blood literally drain from her face. She knew it was going to be bad. That was evident in his reluctance when they last spoke. What she didn’t expect was this.
When the man finished his instructions, she asked more rhetorically more than anything else, “So he survived?”
Cupid answered, “Apparently.”
Emily Parsons closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath.
“Is that going to be a problem for you?” he asked.
Without hesitation, she replied confidently, “No, of course not.”
“Good, I didn’t think so. I am willing to overlook your failure this one time. Make it up to me.”
“Yes, of course. Anything for you, Cupid. You know that.”
“Good, good…”
“Time frame?” she asked, finding a newfound surge of energy coursing through her body.
“Right now I want you to observe. Stay in the shadows and just watch and study. Find weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Find him and you’ll find her. That shouldn’t be hard. Start there.”
Emily sunk deeper into her seat, biting back the bile that was threatening to paint the inside of the cab.
Cupid gave her additional instructions he wanted her to do, told her he’d be in touch, and disconnected the call.
Emily didn’t move for at least a few minutes. She stared out over the city, her mind a thousand miles away. She had drifted back there to that moment when she’d made the decision to pull the trigger. It was in that moment when her heart stopped beating and she became the woman she was today. She remembered watching the shock, fear, and anger explode in his blue eyes as he lay there in his own blood. She remembered him reaching for her, trying to speak, but couldn’t. For years she wondered what he’d been trying say, she knew whatever it was, it wasn’t good. She felt so guilty for doing what she’d done. It was necessary, however, to save him for far more hurt than he could’ve handled.
“So, you’re alive,” she said, finally removing the phone from her ear. She recalled a picture of Joshua Cooper she had kept in her phone to remind her of what she had lost. She stared into his handsome face and smiled.
He was beautiful back then and no doubt he still was. Looks like his were legendary and very rare. She touched the screen with her fingertip and traced his face and his body. Her body shivered slightly at the memory of that body of his. The nights of pure passion haunted her night after night. She had chased that feeling of contentment she’d had with Josh ever since, but she could never find it.
She smiled slightly. If she played her cards right, maybe she’d get to experience that feeling once again. “Yeah, that would be nice, really nice.”
Chapter Eleven
Shane
An egregious sound of a car horn behind me snapped me out of a fantastic daydream. After I looked into my rearview mirror at the source of the sound, I looked up at the traffic light ahead. Sure enough it was green. Damn, I wasn’t paying any attention at all. My mind was still on the vivid dream I’d had about Misty last night.
It was a gloomy Monday morning, and I was on my way to work. I had hoped that the weather wasn’t indicative of how my day was going to go. So far, it wasn’t looking very promising. First, I had received a phone call from my boss announcing that a meeting was scheduled for some time today, but didn’t give me a time. I didn’t have a uniform in my office. Therefore, I had to drive home from my parents’ house to get my uniform before I went into work, which was an ordeal in D.C. traffic. Then, to top everything off, I was still trying to recover from one of the most vivid sexual dreams of my life.
I felt like I was in high school all over again. I had awakened this morning horny as fuck, my dick hard as steel as images of a naked Misty danced behind my eyelids. The dream shook me to my core, and even after I took care of old Willy Wonka, it did nothing for my appetite for her.
Feeling a wee bit guilty for holding up traffic, I switched my focus on the opposing traffic waiting for a window to make the left turn. The opportunity to go came, and just as I lifted my foot off the gas to make a left through the light, the person behind me started honking again. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the driver animatedly flapping his arms, signaling for me to go.
“Oh, are you in a hurry?” I asked as if the driver could hear me and waited just until the light turned red before I darted through the intersection.
The ass behind me got caught at the light and I rolled down my window and flipped him off. I know that was juvenile, but I didn’t give a shit. I was in a mood. Normally, I wouldn’t be petty like that. A friendly honk to get a person’s attention when the light changed was normal. It happened all the time. But whenever a driver became aggressive with the honking, it irritated the hell out of me. Two things that pissed me off about that driver besides the honking was how he kept flapping his arms at me as if I were an idiot and he had interrupted me while I was daydreaming about my woman.
Damn. I shook my head, a slight grin lifting my bearded cheeks. My woman… She may not have been fully aware of her title, but it described exactly who she was to me—mine. Ironically, when she and I first met, the idea of us being together was highly improbable.
Josh had told Malcolm and me about this new female partner of his and how talented and skillful she was at almost everything she did. Naturally, we figured he meant she was talented between the sheets. So we asked bone-headed questions in attempt to find out if she was hot, how big her tits and ass were, and whether or not she was a good lay.
Josh acted very indignant when we asked him about Misty. He told us how he would never sleep with his partner because it was unprofessional. He then added that it wasn’t like that between them and that he respected her and blah, blah, blah. We figured that was bullshit of course and took that to mean that Misty wasn’t very attractive. So you could imagine my surprise when my dick came to attention the moment I saw her.
Misty was not only gorgeous, she was also so full of life, wild, and carefree. She was funny, smart, and she could speak at least two different languages that I knew of, which by the way, was sexy as hell. In a nutshell, this woman was walking, talking sex; it oozed from her pores, and I was completely in lust over her. She was also bat-shit crazy, but I thought it added to her charm.
Since the day I met her, I was completely infatuated with Misty King; that was evident. The only reason why I didn’t make a move on her was because of my little brother. Josh was extremely protective and possessive of Misty. I figured that despite what he had said about them not being a thing, they were a thing. You couldn’t tell what that thing was, though. One minute they would have argued like an old married couple and then the next minute, they’d have their arms around each other cracking jokes. I figured if Josh hadn’t made his play on Misty yet, it would be soon. Being the best big brother that I was, I didn’t look at her as potential prey anymore. Until the day that all changed, and all I could think about was her.
It was about a month or so ago, I was having Sunday dinner at my parent’s home, something that I hadn’t done in weeks because of work. Usually dinner consisted of me and my siblings, if we were in town, our significant others, Misty and her date. We’d have great conversation, enjoy my mother’s and Sweet’s amazing cooking, and my bros and I would take a bet to see how long it would take to make Misty’s date cry; it was a great time. After dinner, I would usually take advantage of my parent’s backyard and stroll along the beach, letting the sounds of the waves crashing against the packed sand drown, out the issues in my mind.
This particular Sunday wasn’t any different from any other one, except for the dinner attendees. Misty and I happened to be dateless that night. Casey and I were done by then, and I wasn’t sure why Misty didn’t have someone hanging on her that night. Dinner was still entertaining and afterwards,
I walked along the coast for about a mile trying to figure out the direction my life was going.
My caseload was piling up and one case in particular was giving me the blues. Casey was still giving me the blues too despite our unpleasant breakup. She couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of who I was. On top of that, I had random women who were trying desperately to sink their claws into me; all of which wanted me to be something and someone that I wasn’t. I was at my limit and vowed to keep my distance from the opposite sex for a while.
I remembered looking out over the vast ocean, taking in the view of the empty dusk sky. As always, it was a beautiful sight behold as the day fell away, bringing on a night sky splattered with glittering stars. After a few seconds of inhaling a few deep breaths, I started moving again toward my destination a few yards ahead of me.
There was a large formation of rocks that started on the beach and jutted out into the ocean. The rock cluster was about waist high on land, and I was sure it grew in height as it plummeted out into the ocean, stretching at least one hundred meters into the Atlantic. The rocks were leveled on the top and used by the locals as a rocky boardwalk. Some of the neighboring residents of the area would walk along the edge and throw rocks into the ocean. Others would throw in a line and hope to catch fish. I would simply sit there and let the mist of the ocean waves rinse my thoughts away.
I was looking forward to doing just that, sitting on the rough rocks alone in my thoughts. But as I looked out into the distance, I saw someone had beaten me to my spot. There was a very familiar figure sitting on the section of the rocks that rested on the beach far enough away from the ocean to stay dry from the spray of waves crashing against it.
When I got closer, I smiled. However, I had caught a glimpse of her face and it instantly brought my guard up.
“Misty, you all right?” I called out to her.
She turned sharply to face me, startled by the sound of my voice.
I froze. The view that was in front of me stole my breath away for at least ten seconds. Despite the harried expression on her face, she looked absolutely stunning. Her features were soft against the dimming sky; her eyes were filled with this sadness that tugged at me, calling to that protective gene I possessed.