by Sonia Belier
“Val, what’s the update?” He rose up from the bed as if nothing happened and walked towards his brother.
“Well, I have a team lined up so we can get our goods from the apartment. But obviously the trouble will be going undetected by Rex. I still haven’t quite figured that one out yet.”
“Simple. We’ll arm ourselves. If we don’t go there defenseless Rex and his boys will be less tempted to start something.”
“You want to start a firefight Fate? Are you serious? That’s extremely stupid.”
Fate’s irritation was mounting.
He clenched his jaw firmly and looked at me briefly before walking a bit closer to his brother.
“So what’s your bright idea this time huh? Better be good because we’re up shits creek without a paddle.”
There was a brief silence and Valor cleared his throat before he spoke.
Everyone was on edge. The weight of the feeling in the room crushed me against the bed.
“We have to work with Rex Rodham.”
Fate flipped.
I didn’t know who this Rex guy was but the mention of working with him seemed to set him off the edge.
“Are you fucking kidding me Valor? After everything we’ve been through to establish the Hatton Operation, you suggest that we cave to our biggest competitor, who is likely trying to kill us might I add? You have officially fucking lost the plot my brother. If this is the only way forward that you see, I’m gonna have to get off this ride.”
“Wait a minute Fate, maybe Valor has a point” I shouldn’t be interjecting, I shouldn’t be interjecting, I shouldn’t be interjecting…
“No Ada, let him speak. I want to hear what his bright plan is for once. Go on Fate. Let’s hear it.”
Waiting for something to abruptly escalate, I slowly made my way towards the door behind me, tiptoeing as lightly against the tile as I could.
“My bright plan is that we get out of this business altogether Valor. Sell all of our loot. Never go on another heist again. Retire young and live under the damn radar. If we push this and trust the man that’s been wanting to see us fail for five years, there’s a chance we will never be able to do that.”
“So you want to betray your brother Fate.”
There was nothing that could prepare me for what Valor did.
Without even blinking, he swiftly drew a gun from a holster in his blazer. His aim was locked precisely on Fate.
“Valor don’t!” I thought for a swift second to jump in the middle of the brother’s feud. After all, it was largely started by my meddling.
“Stay out of this Ada!!”
The echo of Valor’s voice was so loud, it permeated through the walls and vaulted ceilings in the mansion.
“I’m out Valor. It’s done. You’re gonna have to handle this on your own. The loot is yours.” Fate raised his hands in the air as he spoke, and Valor lowered his gun.
“Are you really walking out on everything we’ve done?!”
“Good luck Valor.”
Fate grabbed my hand and guided me swiftly out of the estate.
I didn’t know what to make of any of it, and I wasn’t going to ask Fate.
“Where are we going? We definitely can’t stay here anymore right?”
“No, we’re not staying here. I’m taking you to our safe house in Brooklyn.” Fate led me to his Bentley and we both climbed in. At this point I’d given up trying to make sense of anything. I just wanted to be out of this madness.
The drive from Long Island was quiet. Occasionally, I glanced over at Fate. His eyes were red, his muscles tensed. They glimmered in the faint light of other cars headlights. I had a strong feeling that we might never see Valor again.
“You can’t go back to Columbia Ada. It’s too dangerous. Especially if Alex is there.”
“I had no idea she was trouble. I thought…” I took a pause as I remembered how excited I was to be starting my new teaching job. And in a matter of two days, any joy that I felt was suddenly wiped away. “…I thought she was just my assistant. Just how big is this Rex guy? Has he even been surveilling me?”
“Rex Rodham was a Don in the Mafia. When drugs and crime became too boring and risky for him, he took up the same trade as me and Valor; stealing high priced items from foreign countries. He saw that me and my brother were the biggest in the business and naturally he’s been trying to push us out for years. The fat lard ass…”
Was I allowed to say my life was a movie now?
Yeah, definitely a movie…
One I wasn’t making a killing from.
“Now imagine how I feel knowing that Valor wants to work with this guy.”
“What if something happens to him Fate?”
“He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
Just like that the Hatton brothers disbanded, leaving me and Fate to go into hiding.
Chapter 5
Fate
It’s been five months since I started laying low in Brooklyn with Ada. Heard nothing from Valor and I preferred it that way. It was still a hard pill for me to swallow, thinking that my brother betrayed me. So I tried not to think about it.
I kept my own stash of money from our heists but took on a new contracting job to decrease any suspicion. Ada started a tutoring company.
I was a somewhat normal man again.
Cute.
Ada should’ve been coming back to the apartment any minute and as always, I waited for her in the front of the building. With a gun on my holster. There was never I time where I felt too safe.
“Look at this handsome gentleman waiting for me outside the building! Hey Fate, how was your day?” Housewife material. Maybe. She sure was practicing if anything. My stomach wrenched just thinking about settling down.
“Let’s get inside first, then we’ll talk.” I didn’t want to be abrasive to her, but she was so naïve about literally everything that nothing would make sense to her unless I was mean about it. That was just the nature of our relationship.
She’d gotten a lot happier since distancing from the Hatton Operation. Not that I cared, it was just something I noticed.
I watched her as she walked up the stairs and to our apartment.
“Okay we’re inside. Can I talk now Mr. Hatton?”
“Go for it princess.”
“Ha ha, very funny. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I got some Broadway tickets for us as a present from one of my students. You interested in going?”
Broadway?
She definitely had the wrong Hatton brother. What did I look like, some Renaissance man?
I looked up at her face. She was beaming. Her skin was glowing. Never realized before how pretty she was. It convinced me.
“Sure. Sounds like fun.”
“Wait a minute…did you say it sounds like fun?? Wow Fate, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say the word fun since I met you. Are you feeling okay?”
Oh she was a funny one huh?
“Just because I’m always alert doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy myself from time to time.”
“You sound oh so convincing with that deep, bored voice of yours.” She laughed hysterically and swung her arm to my chest. I grabbed it before it made any contact.
Pulling her close to me, I whispered in her ear.
“If you don’t believe me, I can show you.”
I kissed her hard, closing our bodies into each other so she couldn’t move. Any bit of resistance I could feel from her made me hold her harder. The warmth from her jacket heated my cold fingertips, but I wanted to feel her skin. And that damned jacked was in my way.
Rolling it off of her skin, it fell to the floor next to our feet.
Her lips were soft and mine were rough. She didn’t seem to mind though at the rate that she continued kissing me.
“When I first saw you, if you were anyone else I would’ve been livid at you figuring out how to get into the crawl space. But you grew on me pretty fast. Caused me a lot of trouble
little lady.”
“Little ole’ me cause you trouble? That’s interesting…”
Just as she was fixing her hand on my belt buckle, my phone rang.
Shit, can’t I get a break for one second?
Ada backed off and walked toward the kitchen as I reached into my pocket to answer my phone.
“Fate I need to talk to you. Do you have a minute?”
It was Valor, and his voice sounded shaken and staggered on the other end of the line.
“What’s wrong Valor? What the hell did you get yourself into now?” I was panicked but I kept my cool. Even though it was five months since I’d heard anything from him, I trusted he would use his brain in dealing with Rex.
Boy was I wrong.
“I’m a little tied up. You see…Rex, he…He set me up.”
If my fist could fly through the phone I would’ve given my brother the toughest punch to his face he’s ever felt.
“I told you that we couldn’t trust him! I fucking told you! What kind of shit did you get yourself into huh? Just how bad is it?!”
The dramatic exhale into the phone was enough to answer the question.
Valor was in very deep shit.
“So um, listen closely. Rex and I made a deal in exchange for a truce. He’ll cease his attempt to fucking try to murder us and all we have to do is give him all of our loot.”
“Valor, I told you. I’m done with that life. I want nothing to do with it. Listen to me, if we sell that loot ourselves and go dark like I’ve been doing, nothing else will matter. Don’t you get it? It’s only a matter of time before that pig turns on you! Use your brain Valor!”
“The deal is done Fate. I’ve already signed off on it.”
“So fucking what!! You think we owe Rodham?! Listen to your brother Val. Get the hell out of there!”
The feeling of Ada’s hand on my shoulder gave me reassurance. I peered over to the side to see her nodding her head in confirmation with what I was saying. I could only hope my Valor would agree.
He was quiet for a moment, and my nerves hit me.
Was someone listening to our conversation?
“You’re right. I need to go. I’ll call you later.” And he hung up without saying another word.
The conversation was strange but I knew my brother. I decided not to worry. We’d been in these situations before.
He was a fighter.
Ada looked at me with a puzzled expression, the long coils of her hair covering parts of her eyes. “Will Valor be okay? It didn’t sound too good on the phone.”
“I don’t know. I can say that I have this feeling that he’ll be back. I don’t know…call it a twin’s intuition.”
Valor knew exactly what he needed to do to get out of that shitty situation. And he was the brains of our operation after all. Up until now, everything we did was based on one of his smart ideas. There was no reason to believe he wouldn’t come through now.
Now that I had a slight bit more faith and a much better mood after quickly thinking it over, I turned to Ada. She’d been through hell and high water these past months.
Albeit, it was her decision to break that cabinet.
I trusted her now. She’d proven her loyalty to me. There was not a doubt that this woman could be trusted. And now I could let my guard down.
“About that Broadway show, when was it?”
“Tonight.”
“Well let’s get going already before we miss it!” I grabbed her by the waist and spun her around finally feeling a bit light-hearted for what seemed like the first time.
So this was the effect that Ada had on me.
It didn’t take us long to get to the theater on 53rd street and line up to get in. It was night time and the line for entry was long. Normally that would’ve pissed me off. I’m not one to wait around to see folks flying through the air and singing on stage. But I figured I would give it a try. I set out in my head to be a “softer” Fate, if that was possible anyway.
“Have you ever been on Broadway? I’ve been a few times. I thought it might be a good way for us to get our minds off of everything that’s been going on.”
Ada was right.
We were kind of forced together with no rhyme or reason and it felt like life had been on overdrive since then. Even I could agree that this would be a good release.
“I went once with Valor when we were teenagers. Our parents forced us to go and get ‘cultured’. You could guess we didn’t wait around in that entry line too much.”
Ada laughed as we walked gingerly while the line slowly moved.
“Why didn’t you wind up going? I know those tickets must’ve been expensive!”
“It was cold as hell that day. The dead of winter and we were going to see Cats. I laugh just thinking about it. By the time I couldn’t feel my toes anymore, I turned around and caught Val thinking the same thing. We nodded at each other and high tailed it out of there. No way I was losing all my toes to see Cats. Sure it’s a classic, but so were my eleven-year-old feet.”
A couple of people waiting in line overheard the story and chuckled quietly along with Ada.
I could get used to this “being normal” thing.
“Now I wanna hear Valor tell his side of the story. You two are a trip I swear.”
I held her hand and it felt right.
Acting cold and calculating was the only way I was used to being in my life. All of the sudden, that manner of defense was unnecessary.
It was finally our turn to hand in our tickets at the booth. There was a well-dressed older woman taking the tickets.
“My, you two look absolutely lovely tonight, I hope you enjoy Cats!”
“Thank you ma’am!” Ada responded and guided me to the theater entrance doors.
“Damn, so it looks like I finally have to see it after all. Life just comes around full circle eh?” It was a moment I wish I could share with Valor. But we’d make the most of it.
The theater reminded me of our estate back on Long Island. It was grand.
“Fate, let’s hurry up to our seats. It’s really crowded in here.”
I followed Ada as she expertly navigated through the theater, passed eager crowds and to our seat.
This was a date right? It had to be a date. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how I would end it.
We got back to the apartment at midnight, and Ada threw her jacket on the couch.
“That was such a good play! I hope you enjoyed it Fate. I know it’s not really your cup of tea.”
I didn’t realize that Ada was wearing a tight black dress until I actually looked. It hugged her hips and made gentle creases along the rim of her chest. Damn, I should’ve got a look sooner.
“Yeah, it was great.” I continued looking her body up and down. I wanted to run my hands down her sexy long legs.
“Fate, are you even listening??”
“Yeah, yeah I am. Hey, I didn’t tell you, but you look amazing tonight. That dress is pretty fucking hot.”
Her cheeks turned red and she moved to cover herself. She was acting innocent but we both knew there was nothing innocent about her.
I didn’t see the point in wasting time anymore. I wanted her since the first moment I saw her. Getting a glimpse at Ada made me realize that I needed her gentleness in my life. I had no fear admitting it.
“You know we have some unfinished business, right?”
“I was waiting for you to say something about that. Come here big guy.”
There was barely a feeling of her small hand against the firmness of my back underneath my shirt. What I did feel made my body clench. Who knew such a light touch could feel so damn good. She dragged her nails against my skin and I jumped at the feeling of the slight pain. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was trying to seduce me.
I grabbed her arm behind my back and pushed her to the nearest wall in the apartment, pinning her arms high above her head.
“Don’t think you’ll be in control of the situat
ion here babe. Fate Hatton is always in control.”
Letting my left arm fall to my waist, I regained my grip on both of her arms with my right hand. I used my free hand to grab her chin and push it to the side. I bit her neck and she winced at the pain. The bitter iron taste of the blood egged me further. If this is what Vampires did all day, they certainly had it good in my book.
My body towered over her tiny frame. She was defenseless against the weight of me.
As I ran my tongue along her neck, the jumbled taste of sweat, perfume and skin stung my palette and numb my senses.
If just the taste of her neck could do this me, then I wondered what else her body could do…
I picked her up, letting her wrap her legs around my waist and carried her to the bedroom. She put all her trust in me in that moment and I was on a mission to be her knight.
When we got into the bedroom I placed her gently on the bed.
“Fate, be gentle with me.” Lust was just dripping from her voice despite the innocence of her words.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” And I worked to release her supple body from the constriction of that black dress. She gave me a bit of help getting it over her chest. Damn it was hard, but I didn’t mind the extra effort to get the prize.
It was the first time I remember saying anything like that to a woman. Her pleasure, safety and satisfaction relied on me.
When her dress was off Ada wasted no time undoing my clothing. She dragged me down on top of her and wrapped her legs around my bare back. It was warm. Comforting. I never felt any sensation this pointed.
“I think I’m falling for you Fate. I-I don’t know how to stop it. Should we really even be doing this?”
“Don’t try to stop. I want you to trust me tonight. Let everything come out.”
Take your time with her Fate.
But that was near impossible with the way Ada enticed me. She didn’t know it, but her slight resistance broke every ounce of guard that I had.
She made idle circles on my back as I continued to kiss her. I worked my way along her chest, spending enough time on each mound to see the sunrise. She mewled quietly. Almost like she was holding herself back from enjoying it.