Zeke winced at the pathetic mess standing in front of him. “Honestly,” he said, standing from his chair, weapon in hand, “you should be thanking me. I’m clearly about to do you a favor.”
Moses nodded, agreeing.
“I’ll never understand how you pulled a hot chick like Abrianna. But I guess there’s no accounting for taste.”
Moses dropped to his knees.
Roach and Gunner released his arms and stood back at Zeke’s head nod.
“I know. I know. I’m such a fuck-up. I know.” Moses wept.
“Finally. Something we can agree on.” Zeke placed the barrel of the gun against Moses’s forehead. He experienced a small surprise when Moses leaned into the gun.
“Do it,” he sobbed. “Just do it.”
Zeke shook his head and pulled the trigger.
24
Abrianna’s gut had officially turned into a butterfly conservatory. She couldn’t believe that she was going to work as a highly paid escort.
“Holy shit,” Shawn gasped as they entered through the private gates of the massive Beaux-Arts estate. It was the type of home that belonged in Robb Report and Architectural Digest. “Oh my damn. We’ve died and gone to heaven,” he exclaimed, scooting up in his seat and pressing his face against the window. “The house that pussy built,” he grumbled.
Abrianna smacked his arm.
“Owww! That hurt.”
“Be on your best behavior,” Abrianna warned.
“Or what? You’re going to put me in the hospital too?”
“I might.”
“Whatever, girl.” He hand-pressed his vintage Culture Club T-shirt and even raked his fingers through his flat hair. “How do I look?”
“What the hell are you nervous for?”
“I’m not.” He shrugged. “It’s just that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
She rolled her eyes. The car rolled to a stop, and she looked up at the beautiful home with a chill seeping into her bones. Abrianna wasn’t impressed by the moneyed class. She’d learned early about the kinds of evil that dwelled behind limestone walls, in secret bedrooms. The fact that she was reduced to this gnawed at her.
By the time the driver opened her door, she was well on her way to becoming a human Popsicle from the car’s freezing air conditioner. Nonetheless, she accepted the driver’s hand and stepped out onto the stone driveway. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, ma’am,” he responded with a tip of his hat.
Shawn raced around the Bentley to offer an escort.
Her glacial stare leveled him.
“What? We might as well get into character,” Shawn reasoned.
Giving in, she looped her arm through his and they marched to the door. It opened as Shawn lifted his hand to knock, and an expressionless older African-American butler, complete with black tails and gloves, nodded in greeting.
“Ms. Parker, we’ve been expecting you.”
She stiffened and then forced herself to relax.
“Please. Come in,” the butler added.
Shawn shifted a look in her direction, clearly asking whether she was sure she wanted to do this.
She wasn’t, but she nodded anyway. After crossing the threshold, her hand tightened on Shawn’s arm.
“Follow me,” the butler instructed after closing the front door.
They fell in line behind him. While Abrianna focused on the coming meeting with Madam Nevaeh, Shawn oohed and ahhed over everything from the marble floors to the twelve-foot ceiling.
“How many rooms are in this place?” Shawn asked.
“Thirteen,” the butler answered without breaking his stride.
Shawn repeated the number under his breath and then asked, “So that makes this how many square feet?”
“Ten thousand, three hundred,” a female’s voice floated out to them, just as they stepped into a sitting room.
Abrianna’s gaze swung to the right just as a six-foot, redheaded beauty stood from a gold sofa stuffed to the max with varied throw pillows. She glided toward them in a startlingly white silk robe with feathers fringing each wrist. Nevaeh’s red hair was piled with loose curls at the top except for the few tendrils strategically framing her face.
“Hello, Bree,” she said, flashing a brilliant smile that actually reached her eyes. “I’m so happy you accepted my offer.”
Abrianna opened her mouth to respond, but Shawn cut her off. “Whoa. Nobody is accepting anything just yet. We’re here to negotiate.”
Despite being annoyed, Abrianna snapped her mouth shut and allowed Shawn to lead.
Seeing her reaction, Madam Nevaeh swung her gaze between Abrianna and Shawn. “And you are?” she asked, sizing him up.
“Shawn.” He offered his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
The madam was slow to place her hand into his. “You happen to have a last name?”
“Not one that’s important for these negotiations,” he said.
Her smile shaved off a few inches, but there was clearly a willingness to play this game out. “Would you care to sit down?” She gestured for them to select from a variety of chairs and sofas in her pristine salon.
“Henry,” she said, catching the attention of the marble-faced butler. “Would you tell Juanita to bring us some tea?”
“Certainly, madam.” He bowed and exited the room almost majestically.
When Madam Nevaeh saw that her guests were still standing, she insisted. “Please, sit.”
Finally, Abrianna and Shawn selected two armchairs on opposite sides of a small table while Madam Nevaeh returned to her spot on the sofa. Once she was settled, a golden-haired Yorkie sprang out of nowhere into her lap. It was likely that Abrianna hadn’t noticed him since his fur matched the sofa and the throw pillows.
“Now. This is highly unusual,” Madam Nevaeh began. “But what exactly is it that you want to negotiate?”
Since Abrianna had no idea, she shifted her gaze over to her friend.
Shawn got straight to the point. “Maybe you should lay out exactly what is expected of Ms. Parker and exactly how long she’d be required to work for you to clear her debt.”
A stout, middle-aged woman entered the salon with a tray of teacups. Shawn and Abrianna took theirs and then went through a two-minute ritual preparing their cups. The whole time, Abrianna felt the weight of the madam’s stare.
When everyone’s drink had been taken care of, the host resumed the conversation.
“Let me cut to the chase. I already own you. Your debt with Zeke has been paid, and if you try to renege, we already know what the consequence will be, don’t we?”
Shawn was unfazed. “Run game on someone else. Bree never owed Zeke a dime, and slavery is illegal in America, at least the last time I checked. If you already paid the man, then he just hustled you out of eighty thousand dollars—but a woman who can live like this, in this town, is no fool. I doubt that you paid that man a dime yet. Now. My friend here heard of a job opportunity to come work for you, and if the terms are to her liking, the person you will be paying is her. Then she, if she chooses to, will pay Zeke.” He stopped and sipped his tea.
Abrianna, impressed, swung her gaze to Madam Nevaeh. A rose-colored flush swept up the madam’s neck and brightened her cheeks.
“I must say, Shawn, you’re as clever as you are pretty.”
“Thank you.”
“All right.” She reached for a scone from the small saucer and handed it to the Yorkie in her lap. “My girls make on average seven to ten thousand a night. Some have made more.” Nevaeh cocked her head. “Stand up,” she ordered. “Let me have a good look at you.”
For some reason, Abrianna looked at Shawn. When he nodded, she stood.
“Don’t be shy. Step forward and spin around,” she ordered.
With a deep breath, Abrianna tried to stop the amount of curse words racing through her head. She didn’t want to do this shit, but she pulled herself together and spun around.
“You are a stunningly beautiful woman, Abrianna, but I suspect that you already know that.” Nevaeh sighed. “Twenty years ago, you would have definitely given me a run for my money. Just stunning.”
“She is,” Shawn agreed.
Abrianna heard the words, but they didn’t penetrate. Such praise rarely really did. She never saw what they saw anyway. She certainly never felt beautiful. She came from an ugly place and she’d done ugly things—horrible things. And this wasn’t any different.
“Look, it’s no secret that I’ve wanted you to work for me for some time. A partnership between us would be very beneficial to both of us. But like I was saying, my girls can make ten grand a night—sometimes more. Hook the right john and there could be extras in the form of gifts: jewelry, cars—condos.”
“This is just temporary. I’m not looking to become a full-time mistress,” Abrianna informed her.
“A lot of my girls have found that they had no idea what they wanted until it was presented to them. The same could be true for you.”
“I doubt that.”
“We’ll see.”
Returning to her seat, Abrianna gulped down the rest of her tea while wrestling with shame. During that time, she missed portions of the conversation exchanged between Madam Nevaeh and Shawn. Only when they leveled their eyes at her did she look up to their expectant gazes.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that,” she confessed.
“This weekend,” the madam said. “Are you available?”
“I—uh—”
“Because I’m hosting an important event. A lot of rich and powerful men in D.C., especially from the Hill, will be there. I don’t see why it can’t be your stunning debut.”
“This weekend?” This train was taking off fast. If she was going to back out, now was the time to do it. Stripping was one thing; being a high-priced prostitute was another. But then how else was she going to make that kind of money quickly? Unbidden, Craig Avery’s evil face flashed in her head. Suddenly, the cool room felt like a sweltering sauna. Her heart raced, and her hands went numb and clammy.
“You do . . . investigate all of your clients, right?” Shawn cut in while Abrianna struggled to find her voice. “No weirdoes or sexual deviants.”
“I don’t deal with riffraff, if that’s what you mean. She will only be dealing with the top-of-the-line clientele, I assure you.”
The room fell silent while their gazes drifted toward Abrianna again. As much as she wanted to run out screaming, she knew what she had to do.
“Yeah. Sure. This weekend is fine.”
“Excellent.” The sparkle returned to Madam Nevaeh’s eyes as she reached over the Yorkie’s head to pick up a small bell that sat next to the plate of scones.
Shawn and Abrianna exchanged glances. She could tell that, even after his hardball negotiation, he hadn’t changed his mind about her doing this.
With her morning high crashing her to the ground in epic fashion, her doubts doubled and then tripled within seconds. In that short time, Angel entered the salon, beaming.
The dog barked excitedly and then leapt out of Madam Nevaeh’s arms and raced to Angel.
“Baby!” Madam Nevaeh huffed before tossing an unfinished scone back onto the China saucer. Smiling, Angel bent and scooped the barking dog up in her arms.
“Hey, Baby. How are you? Have you missed me?” Angel made kissy noises while Baby licked her face.
Nevaeh rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever.” She took a deep breath and returned her attention to the matter at hand. “Another thing: I’d prefer that you use a classier name than Autumn Breeze. Stripper names are . . . cheap and unbecoming. Besides, you have such a beautiful name, Abrianna. I’d prefer if you use it.”
“No. It’s just . . .”
“I insist,” she said.
Despite the smile, it was clear she meant business and that her name really wasn’t up for discussion. Given that she was completely at Nevaeh’s mercy, Abrianna agreed.
“Excellent!”
“Angel, dear. I’m placing Abrianna in your hands. You can pick something out for her from Desiree’s closet. They are about the same size, I think.”
“Yes, madam. My pleasure.” Angel beamed at Abrianna. “Welcome to the family.”
25
Kadir wasn’t technically violating the terms of his parole by logging on to his neighborhood public library’s computer to research his old nemesis, T4S. The public library was one of the exceptions in his probation.
Though he’d been curious about the security firm before his talk with Ghost, he had convinced himself to put the company in his rearview. But he could no longer do that. What unfolded on the screen was his worst nightmare. The size of the company stunned him. It had quadrupled in six years, apparently with the aid of the federal government, and had become a quasi-government entity with far-reaching and terrifying powers. T4S’s hand was in everything and was literally everywhere in the world.
Its paramilitary expansion concerned him the most. They not only sent elite soldiers into hot zones around the world, but had expanded in the arms development industry by leaps and bounds. The outsourcing of military and security functions signified the country’s loss of oversight—and what was worse, the company was almost completely immune to prosecution. The crimes on human rights piled up around the world—unpunished. The lawlessness planted seeds of revolt, or what the U.S. government called terrorism.
Kadir clicked on a few links and discovered that the man leading T4S’s research and development was Dr. Charles H. Zacher. While there had been companies like Soldier Nanotechnologies, which worked to develop devices that could help soldiers in the field detect such threats as chemical warfare, T4S’s Dr. Zacher was singularly focused on creating soldiers who could better withstand the rigors of war. The sci-fi notion of a super soldier.
Seven years ago, Dr. Zacher had introduced the notion of a thought helmet: military helmets that formed pre-speech thoughts into quantifiable bits of information and beamed them to others. Silent Talk, Zacher had called it. It would enable battlefield communication between soldiers without giving anything away to the enemy. A few years later, Dr. Zacher had stated that he, along with two other scientists, was developing a drug that would allow the actual soldier to have this ability without the use of a special helmet, since a helmet could always be stolen from a fallen soldier. If the soldier were provided the ability, it would revolutionize the battlefield.
“‘Cognitive technology threat warning system’?” Kadir read. “What a whack job.”
The hours rolled by as he read article after article with growing anxiety.
Deep down, you know that you’re still a true believer. Ghost’s voice echoed inside his head.
“Excuse me, sir. But we will be closing in five minutes,” the librarian told him.
“Oh, okay. Thanks.” Kadir glanced at his watch, surprised by how much time had passed. He printed a couple of the articles and then left the library, his head flooded with disturbing information. Climbing into his car, he failed to convince himself that he no longer cared what these crooks were up to. Because he did. Only there wasn’t anything that he could do about it.
Or could he?
Special Agent Bell had to make a decision. Follow Kahlifa to his next destination or flash his credentials at the librarian and find out what the ex-con had been so engrossed with on the computer.
“This is ridiculous,” Roland complained. “Dude was probably just looking for a job.”
Bell laughed. “You don’t know Kahlifa like I do.” He climbed out of the car.
Roland groaned and exited the passenger side and followed. “Do you know who you remind me of?”
“I’m afraid to guess.” Bell pulled on the library’s door and discovered it was already locked. He knocked on the glass.
“That cop in that French book Les Misérables,” Roland said.
Bell frowned. “What?”
Roland snapped his fingers. “Javert! That
was his name.”
“Please say that you’re kidding.”
“Nah. I’m for real, man. Dude really had it in for Jean Valjean, the book’s main protagonist. Javert just couldn’t believe that a criminal could change, so he basically chased the damn man all over creation to bring him in. That’s your same issue with Kahlifa.”
“What in the hell are you doing reading French literature?”
Roland shrugged. “You’re not going to shame me because I’m cultured.”
The librarian reached the door and opened it. “I’m sorry, but we’re closed.”
Bell flashed his credentials. “I need to see the computer that that last guy who was in here a few minutes ago used.”
Surprised, the woman blinked a few times and then stepped back. “Sure. Of course.”
The agents entered and followed her to the rows of terminals.
“It was this one,” she said, pointing.
“Thank you, ma’am. This should just take a few minutes.”
“No problem. I’ll leave you to it,” she said and scampered off.
Roland sighed. “I’m telling you, you’re obsessed.”
“Hot damn. Take a look at this,” Bell gloated, pointing toward the terminal’s history cache. “Kahlifa was researching T4S. The same security firm that he hacked that landed him in jail. Now what do you have to say?”
Mild surprise rippled across Roland’s otherwise bored expression. “I’d say . . . that it’s not illegal to read articles in a public library. And that it doesn’t prove anything.”
“You just can’t admit when you’re wrong, can you?”
“I don’t have to. I’m never wrong.”
“You are, and I’m going to prove it!”
Kadir had planned to go home. However, he drove past his apartment building and didn’t stop driving until he arrived at the Stallion Gentlemen’s Club. After parking, he sat in his car and contemplated going in. Doing so could do more harm than good.
There was no question that he wanted to see Autumn Breeze again, but he didn’t want her to think that he was turning into a stalker. You are stalking her.
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