by S. K. Lessly
“You’re serious?” I looked deeply into his eyes, the heaviness in them making my heart skip.
“Yes, I am. Baby, we really need to talk,” he stressed to me. He brought his hands to my face and kissed me again. This time his tongue began to dance with mine and it wasn’t the two step either. I tried my best to keep my hands at his waist, but the way he was kissing me caused me to travel my hands along his body. He took all of me with this kiss, and I let him.
“Shane!” I gasped, finally getting myself together and pulling back from him. I swallowed multiple times and tried to calm my breathing as best as I could.
I lifted my sated eyelids and found his still closed. “I agree. We need to talk,” I said. “But do you think it’s the right time for this?”
Shane opened his eyes and touched his thumb against my chin. He stayed quiet for a spell just staring at me or rather staring right through me. His fingers and knuckles danced along my face.
“Shane?” I called to him.
He blinked a few times, his eyes finally focusing on me. “Yes, it’s time. Tonight’s a good time as any. You just make sure you’re there. I’ll make the time.” He reached in his expanded pants pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “The keys to my apartment are on this ring. Grab some clothes tonight, and I’ll see you later.”
Completely shocked out of my mind, I watched Shane place two shiny, silver, carved metal pieces in my hand. I began to protest this when I felt his phone vibrate against me. Shane bent down and kissed me before he let me go. He turned his back to me and headed to the back of his truck as he pulled out his phone.
“Cooper…”
Can you say holy fuck boys and girls?
I shook my head while I examined the keys in my hand. Yeah, he and I definitely needed to talk. However, right now, I couldn’t think about Shane or my out-of-control feelings for him. I left him talking on his phone and walked quickly to the front entrance of the building.
Getting through security was easy enough. I always managed to have my ID, gun, and knife out and ready for the metal detectors. The guards were pretty good at their jobs because they were marines, fresh from overseas. That’s why they were so good. They knew who I was and I knew them from back when I served. Regardless of them knowing me, they never let me slide though security and I never expected them to let me.
Just as I walked through the detectors and picked up my phone, I realized that I hadn’t checked it in a while. I brought my phone out of sleep mode. I had only one missed call and it was from Sweets. I dialed her number, but her phone went straight to voicemail. Um, that wasn’t supposed to happen. I dialed her again, thinking that someone was calling the same time I was or my call just dropped. But my second attempt resulted in the same. It went straight to voicemail.
Damn it! She knew the rules.
She was never allowed to turn off her cell phone. Just in case she went into labor or her psycho husband needed to keep track of her whereabouts. Nickels or Junior needed to be able to locate her using her phone too.
I didn’t panic, though. If she was out getting something to eat, she could be with her boo anyway. I dialed Josh’s number just to check.
“What?!” he barked his greeting.
“Wow. Hello to you too?”
“What do you want, Misty? I’m kinda busy.”
Even though he was always surly with me, I could tell he was still in his feelings. The little baby was still pouting from the Simon thing. I didn’t care nonetheless. I decided to add to his attitude. It’s what I did.
“Is Sweets withholding sex from you again? Everyone can tell when you’re in the dog house by how grumpy you get.”
“Are you serious right now? Misty, you are a piece of work,” he said bitterly.
I smiled to myself. “I sure am. Is Sweets with you?”
“No, she isn’t. You do know we don’t spend every single waking moment together?” he retorted.
I laughed. “Actually, I don’t know that. You two are connected at the hip.”
“Have you called her cell?”
I heard the slight worry in his voice as he asked his question. What I didn’t want to do was get him worked up. Sure, I was getting worried, but Josh worrying was another level that I didn’t want to deal with right now.
“No, not yet,” I lied before I tried to divert him a little. “I figured I’d try her keeper first.”
“Then I suggest you use the little bit of common sense you have and call her cell,” he replied before he hung up on me.
I smiled briefly, but that smile was short lived.
It wasn’t strange for Sweets to go out to lunch alone. I just didn’t like the tone in Nickels’ voice when he spoke and I did not like that her cell was off.
I grabbed the next elevator and plotted my next move on the ride up to my floor. The first stop was my office. Maybe Sweets was waiting for me there. I opened my door and stuck my head inside. It was empty. Next, I went to her office and did the same. No such luck. She wasn’t there either. I decided to try Geek City, which was my affectionate name for the IT room where Nickels and Junior’s team was located.
Having Nickels and Junior on the team was heaven sent. Junior was already bad-ass, but Nickels and his genius was like having one thousand Juniors wrapped into one person. When you added Sweets and her brain power and knack for thinking outside of the box, this team was unstoppable. No bad guy could hide from us when those three were on the case. Nickels and Junior had the capability to do anything they wanted with their lives. They could be out in the world making a difference by inventing things and creating new technologies. For all we knew, they could be billionaires by now.
What I loved about these two were their attitudes. One day I asked Nickels, if he would rather be out creating new tech stuff instead of putting away scum. He told me that there ain’t nothing like finding some terrorist or a terrorist plot and watching us go to work taking them out. He added that it was more fulfilling than anything else; saving lives and keeping America safe.
His stock went up for me after that day. I had already grilled and tested Junior years ago, so I already knew he was down for the cause. It was refreshing to see Nickels was on the same vibe.
I located my caped crusaders in the IT room. The room consisted of ten other techs, monitors everywhere, wires, and cords. No one paid attention to me as I walked in because all of the geeks had their eyes glued to their monitors. There was loud rock music playing in the background. The smell of freshly popped popcorn, freshly brewed coffee, and feet filled the air.
Nickels and Junior were on the other side of the room. They were huddled together, looking at this twenty-five-inch monitor, whispering amongst themselves conspiratorially. I smiled and started creeping up behind them when I heard one of them mention Sweet’s name in a tone that made a chill run up my spine.
“What did you say about Sweets?” I asked, announcing my presence.
Nickels and Junior jumped clear out of their skin and looked over at me.
Did I mention that these two geniuses were idiots too?
Nickels closed the screen they’d been monitoring as if I hadn’t seen the specs of one of our secret facilities called Hell on Earth. He thought he was clever by bringing up some black screen with a computer code on it. Junior, and his bright self, moved away from Nickels and started looking at some website on his laptop.
Junior was the one that spoke. “I don’t know—” he started to say, but was cut off sharply for some reason.
Maybe it was the fact that I was gripping him tight by his hair with his head yanked back forcefully. Yes, maybe that had caused him to choke on his sentence. With the same quickness that I’d used to grab him, I pulled out my sharp knife from inside my jacket pocket. I clicked the thing open and laid the smooth razor sharp edge on his jugular.
I leaned into him and got close to his ear. “What were you going to say?” I whispered calmly.
Of course he was gasping and choking at this poin
t so I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying to me.
I raised my voice to the other idiot behind me, “Start talking. And please note that I will have time to slit his throat and then throw this knife right into your back as you’re running away, pissing your pants. Say I won’t.”
Nickels understood the predicament they were in and started running his mouth. When he mentioned what was going on at Hell on Earth and that Sweets was there, I literally ran for the elevators.
I made it to my baby, revved the engine, and peeled out of my parking space without running anyone over. I hoped traffic would be nice to me this morning. I didn’t want to have to kill anyone on the road. I needed to save all of my energy to kill that son of a bitch. Nickels had told me that an alarm had gone off at one of our security facilities we used to keep high-profile prisoners called Hell on Earth.
The alarm went off due to a specific code that was used to enter the facility. He explained that the code used had belonged to Sweets. He thought it was odd she’d be there. He couldn’t think of any reason why she would be there except for one. One of the prisoners currently residing in Hell was her ex, Noah. But that was absurd. There was no reason why she would go there to see that son of a bitch. Besides, Josh would lose his mind if he found out. Instead of Nickels’ silly ass calling Josh or me for that matter, to let us know where Sweets was, he decided to confirm who she was going to see. That’s when he said he’d found someone digging around in the mainframe of the facility.
Still, nothing went off in his brain and I understood that too. There was a total of thirty men and women working this facility. Usually, there were about ten to twelve guards with eight on duty in the dungeon watching the prisoners and the rest were monitoring the feeds around the building and inside the facility. This team would rotate out every twelve hours to stay fresh. It wasn’t odd to find the security team in the facility’s system. They could be doing a number of things like system maintenance, reviewing security camera feeds, and other tasks.
When Nickels realized that something may be wrong, was when the place suddenly shut down. All of the computers in the place shut down, the lights went out, and the security locks for the doors between level one and the street were turned off. The prisoner level was on a different server and that wasn’t touched. This also didn’t cause Nickels to react. What did was when he confirmed Sweets was there to see Noah and he was in one of the interrogation rooms on level one.
The son of a bitch was trying to escape. That was the only conclusion I came to. If that was the case, and he was successful at getting away, it could only mean one thing: he had inside help.
Fuck!
I kicked up my speed and raced through the busy streets.
A shit storm was coming. I could feel it in my bones. From Cupid gunning after Josh, and now this? I tried to focus on one thing, which was getting to the facility. I guess I was just as stupid as Nickels and Junior because I did not call Josh. No way, not unless it was absolutely necessary.
“Please don’t make it necessary.”
*********
Kenya
Noah was slouched in his chair until his eyes fell on me. He then shot up in surprise and quickly recovered. He replaced his surprise look with one of his signature charming smiles.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Noah Baxter announced.
He sat at a large metal table with his chained hands folded in front of him. He didn’t flinch when I didn’t respond or return his smile. I merely stood there and took in the man that used to haunt me in my dreams and in real life for years.
Noah was dressed in a gray button down short sleeve shirt and pants. It was nothing spectacular or expensive as he was accustomed to wearing. No matter the smirk on his face, I could see the arrogance and power he once had was gone.
Back when I knew Noah, he was all about appearances on all levels. He stayed groomed; his hair was always cut, beard or mustache—if he chose to grow one—was trimmed to perfection. He got manicures, pedicures, and had his teeth whitened as often as three times a month.
Noah used to dress and accent his body in the latest clothes, shoes, and the most expensive accessories money could buy. The man screamed money, but as I looked into his hollow eyes, I couldn’t find a trace of the man I once knew. The hair on his head had grown into a large nappy fro. His facial hair was long with traces of gray bunched in different areas of his beard. He still seemed to have his weight and height, but to me, it looked as if he had diminished in stature over the years.
When I decided to come here to talk to Noah I didn’t think about how I would react when I saw him. It’d been a very long time and the last time I saw him was the day I escaped from his car. Noah’s dark eyes roamed mine and moved from my face down my body and stopped at my belly. His eyes then widened and so did his smile.
“Looks like someone’s been busy.”
I took a deep breath and walked past Davies into the room.
“Has the prisoner been secured?” Davies asked.
At first I thought he was talking to me. I looked back at him surprised and started to ask him what the hell he was talking about.
Then a loud high voice in the room responded, “Yes, sir.”
I jumped, startled and whipped my head to find a tall thin man standing next to Noah. I hadn’t noticed him standing there a minute ago. That was a sign that I should’ve gotten my ass out of there.
The man next to Noah was dressed in jeans and a button down blue and black plaid shirt. His hair was black and pulled back in a ponytail. He had dark eyes that, at the moment, appeared to be scrutinizing me.
“All right, Crasse, you’re dismissed. I got it from here.”
“Sir?” Crasse croaked, seemingly surprised. He stepped forward slightly, looking from me to Davies.
“You heard me. Go make your rounds. I’ll let you know if I need you.”
I noticed the man’s body tense slightly before he started for us. I tensed up myself, hearing Misty and Lili in my head drilling me to be ready for anything. Watching this man, I felt something was off with him. I backed up to put space between us and kept my eyes glued on him.
He gave me a weird look before he passed me. Then as he walked out of the door, he gave me one last look before Davies closed it in his face.
I looked back at Davies and gave him a look that showed my utmost gratitude for his presence and wilderment from what just happened. I mean, what the hell was that about? Davies didn’t outwardly show me he understood what was in my eyes, but I saw a look pass in his own eyes that gave me comfort nonetheless.
I brought my attention back to Noah. Davies walked up to the table and pulled the chair out for me. I smiled up at him and sat down.
“Listen up, Baxter. This lady has some questions for you. You’ll do well to answer them. I don’t have to tell you how important it is that you cooperate.”
Davies’ gruff and hard voice filled the silence in the room and I scrutinized Noah. I knew for me the tone of Davies’ voice sent chills of fear in my body, but Noah just sat there watching me. I met his gaze and did my best not to show fear myself.
“Do you understand, Baxter?” Davies asked.
Without moving his eyes, Noah replied, “Yeah, I understand.”
“Mrs. Cooper, ask your questions.”
I stayed quiet a moment longer trying to decide what to ask first.
Noah, obviously taking my hesitation to mean something else entirely or to maybe get under my skin, asked, “How’ve you been? You’re looking good. Not as good the last time you and I were together but…”
Asshole…
I took a deep breath and started the questioning, getting right to the point. “I won’t keep you, Noah. I just have a few questions I need to ask.”
Noah leaned back against his chair and spoke as if I hadn’t said a thing to him. “All seriousness, Kenya. You really do look good. Damn, good in fact. Pregnancy looks good on you. Hell, if I had known you would look this good, I would h
ave knocked you up instead of—”
“Have you heard of anyone by the name of Dennis Simon?” I asked in a rush to cut him off. I could feel the bile bubbling up into my throat at his words. I fought it down.
He ignored my question, and instead said, “Seriously, Kenya. I mean you were beautiful back then but now…” He shook his head. “Damn.”
I closed my eyes and clenched my fists underneath the table until my nails dug into my palm. With every sound he made and breath he took in, I felt myself falling back into a past I never wanted to relive again. But I was. My chest rose and fell in a pace I seemed to be unable to control.
I shouldn’t be here. My calm was slipping as this asshole spoke. I couldn’t do this and I was foolish to think that I could. His scent…that scent that used to haunt me in my dreams, permeated the space around me. It was filling my lungs, choking me as if his hands were wrapped around my neck, squeezing me, cutting off my lifeline.
I opened my eyes and saw Noah watching me, smiling at me. His lips started moving, but I couldn’t hear him. The rush of my blood pressure surging through my body was drowning him out. Finally, I was done with this shit.
I growled slamming my hand down on the table. “Damn it, Noah! Shut the fuck up!”
Noah froze, his fake smile plastered on his face. I felt Davies come close to me, and I put my hand up to stop him from speaking.
I narrowed my eyes on Noah. “I didn’t come here for your bullshit. I came to get some answers to some important questions. But if you’re going to be a fucking ass wipe about it, I’ll just let my husband know how our meeting went and just how cooperative you were.” I stood. “I’m sure he’ll especially enjoy the knocked-up comment.”
Davies pulled my chair back for me, and I turned to face him. I could see the worry in his face. I was sure he could see the fear in mine. I gave him a weak smile and headed for the door.
“Wait! Okay… Damn,” Noah spoke to my back.
I turned and looked at him. The little bit of arrogance he’d held in his eyes was gone now. Noah looked from Davies back to me.
“Sit back down, Kenya,” he commanded.