by Brook Wilder
She was going through the same mental gymnastics, he knew. But he didn’t want to talk about it, especially when she was spewing some crap about needing to go to the police with their information. Like fucking hell that was happening. He didn’t need them botching the investigation. The Caracals were smart, they were clever. As much as he hated to admit it they were good at running and hiding when they felt threatened and, so far, they had no idea how much the Pharaohs knew about what was going on and he intended to keep it that way as long as possible.
But, as he sipped his coffee and watched the steam rise into the air, pulling out his keys to unlock the bar, he couldn’t deny that Hanna did have a point as well. They needed a way to get Isabelle out in the open. So far she’d used others to do her work for her because she was smart. She wouldn't give up that perfect cover easy either. She’d at least played her hand when it came to that, they knew what to expect now, for the most part. He hoped that meant she couldn’t surprise them again.
He walked into the bar and Amber was already there, working on the opening duties.
“The world must be ending if you’re up this early,” she said.
“It feels like it is,” he groaned, rubbing his head.
He’d sent Hanna to go get some cigarettes from the gas station so they could stagger their entries into the bar. The last thing they needed was someone making a comment or focusing in on that little tidbit of information. Their night together would stay between them. They both silently decided that on the way from the coffee house and parted ways from there. It was better this way, as well.He wanted to talk with Amber without Hanna somehow getting in the way. She had a way of not agreeing with most of what came out of his mouth, even if it ended up being a good idea in the end. She was also a smooth talker, he wasn’t going to risk that either.
He took a breath and leaned over the bar to look his sister in the eye as best he could.
“We need a way to draw out Isabelle,” he said plainly when he walked up to the bar.
“Is that what has you up this early?” she asked.
“I’m serious. That’s our big weakness right now. She’s good at hiding and we need to get her somewhere a little more vulnerable,” he said.
“For what purpose?” she asked, setting down the glass she pretended to be engrossed in drying.
“I want to talk with her,” he sighed. “I know plenty of the guys would love to just gung ho and get in cuffs and tied to a chair but she’s our sister. We need to figure out what’s going on here.”
“They’ll say you’re going soft because she’s family.”
He knew by “they” she meant Rick. But he held some sway over the other members. He was big, he was tough, he didn’t take no for an answer. If Roarke made too many wrong moves then he could easily swoop in a take his spot. But Roarke wasn’t about to give that possibility any real merit or chance. He’d snuff that out if it came to it. Right now, he knew what he needed to do.
“What the fuck do I care what they say? They do what I tell them,” he said.
“And what do you want me to do with all this info.”
“She’s going to trust you more than me…”
“So I’m bait.”
It wasn’t the best plan he had. It might not even be a good one. But Amber was a lot more likely to draw Isabelle out to talk than he ever would be. They were both girls, the only girls in a house full of macho men trying to prove they could earn their spot in the gang. Isabelle may have secretly hated Roarke, but her feelings for her sister were genuine, he was sure of that.
He wished he had a better way of presenting it, or had talked it out a little more to try and convince her. But it was the best they had. And when she sighed, he knew he’d won that argument.
Chapter 13
“I think it sounds dangerous and stupid,” Amber said as she busied herself with work behind the bar.
They’d opened an hour ago but no one ever came in until at least noon. It gave Roarke a perfect window to try and talk sense into Amber. When Hanna eventually arrived, a plastic bag from the gas station in hand, he knew he had even more chance of backing her into a corner. Not that he liked forcing his family to do anything, but this was important. He’d ran around ragged for weeks trying to sort this all and an opportunity was waiting right there in the form of Amber. But she was too stubborn to see it.
“We’d watch you, we’d keep you safe,” Roarke said, trying to stop himself from banging his fists on the table to get her to see reason.
“Great, so you’ll have a sniper on my baby sister,” she said.
He dropped his face into the counter and groaned loudly. No part of this day was going the way he wanted.
“Isabelle is dangerous,” Hanna said. “You have to understand that. She called in a hit on that poor delivery boy and is, apparently, keeping girls hostage and messing with their heads just to fuck with your brother.”
“She’s still family,” Amber said, putting a hand on her hip the way their mother used to do when she was making a point to her children.
“She is. We’re not saying we’re going to just come out and hurt her--”
“What do you know about it anyway?” Amber cut her off, rounding on Hanna. “You showed up less than two months ago and suddenly you’re like my brother’s walking, talking conscience.
Roarke lifted his head at that, daring his eyes to only briefly pass over Hanna’s face, avoiding her gaze. Her face went blotchy red and, for once, she was speechless. He’d have to take notes on how Amber got her to lose the ability to spit out her comebacks. In the meantime, however, he focused in on his sister.
“None of us like the position we’re in,” he said. “Something seriously fucked up is going on. We can all agree--”
“How do you know they’re not forcing her to do this? Maybe she just fell in with the wrong group of people.”
“We’re the wrong group of people, Amber,” Roarke said. “We’re the kids who got detention and convinced you to shoplift gum when you didn’t have a couple of dollars on you. Kidnapping girls with the Caracals? That’s another level entirely.”
“That doesn’t mean we turn on her.”
“No, but we have to get intel and figure out what the hell happened and how we fix that. We don’t get that without you. She won’t talk to me. I doubt she’ll talk to Gramps. You’re the only one of us I think she ever really liked.”
Amber closed her eyes and sighed. The tendons in her neck and the veins in her forehead were showing just how irritated she was but she opened her eyes to the same steely scowl she had before. He wanted to punch something.
“The answer is no.”
He went outside to put a sizable dent in the metal garbage can in the alley.
***
“You can’t force people to do things.”
“Fuck, I wish I could.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Roarke and Hanna were back to sitting at some sports bar in town, neutral territory where they could avoid looking at any of the gang members. They hadn’t discussed their situation yet and the last thing Roarke wanted was to compound the issue of getting ahold of Isabelle with suspicious looks from others and Rick’s knowing stares. Amber was a talker, he didn’t doubt she’d shared her thoughts on it all with at least a few of them. He wondered how many of his members were talking behind his back.
This was how Isabelle was going to win. She knew him better than anyone, he realized. He always thought they had trouble connecting. She was so much smarter, so much brighter. But she was watching him the entire time. She figured out ways to dismantle him, get under his skin, and he hadn’t even seen her face or heard her voice in over a month.
“I just need people to bury the feelings they think they have,” he said, throwing back a shot from a questionably clean one ounce glass.
“What does that mean?”
“Amber loves someone who I don’t think ever existed in the first place. Isabelle was wearing a mask
for all of us, like a fucking sociopath. And Amber won’t see that,” he said.
“Or maybe she has hope that this one is the mask, that there’s something within Isabelle that’s the sister she loved and protected all those years,” Hanna said.
He wanted to laugh. He never pegged her for the overly romantic in these things. She was a Caracal herself once. Maybe that’s why she left: she was too idealistic for them. She’d met Isabelle briefly the night she vanished, there’s no way she could care that much. But he found it hard believe that she would be so set on the possibility that anyone was inherently good, even Isabelle.
He ordered another shot. Hanna watched from the side, eyes steady and judging. He ignored her.
“You’ve tried for two days to convince her, it’s not happening,” she said. “We need to move on to plan B.”
“Your brilliant plan of leaking info to the cops? I don’t think so,” he snorted.
“Why do you think you’re the only one with a plan that will work? No one gets hurt with this plan,” she said.
“Except we all go to jail. We’re not exactly a neutral party.”
She shook her head in exasperation, turning to stare at the back of the bar and the TVs overhead showing reruns from some football game earlier in the week. He wasn’t blind. He knew there were flaws in his plan, but he’d rather follow the most direct route at getting the information he needed, than to run around and leave a trail of breadcrumbs. But when there were so many moving parts, and those moving parts didn’t want to cooperate, he wanted to put his fist through the first wall he could see. If it were Rick or Mouse, he’d give them a few punches to the head until they said yes. He couldn’t do the same when it came to his sister.
“And now on the 6 o’clock news…”
The sports cut over to the news network and the last shred of interest or attention Roarke had in the bar was gone. He threw back his new shot and hoped it started working soon because he didn’t want to hear about another person finding Jesus in the toasted crust of their sandwich or a cat up a tree somehow saved by a fucking toddler.
Maybe if he got drunk enough he could wake up in an alternative universe where none of this was happening. He’d seen it on the Discovery Channel, other timelines and worlds and all that sci-fi shit. Maybe the trick to seeping yourself away into a parallel dimension was getting so drunk you fell into your own black hole as your mind imploded. He could give it a shot today and see what happened.
“Roarke,” Hanna hissed, punctuating it with a hit to his elbow.
“What?” he snapped.
She pointed to the news.
“Isabelle Withers, 21, turned herself into the police today in exchange for a plea bargain that would provide them with information on the organized crime group the Pharaohs. The offer comes at a considerable time after several women were reported missing, believed to have been forced into a human trafficking ring…”
“What the hell?” he nearly shouted, standing up so fast that his chair shot out from under him.
Hanna shushed him and watched more of the segment but all he could see and hear was red. She’d gone to the cops, she was offering him up on a platter to clear her name of all that she’d done. Why?
***
The sudden change in attitude from Isabelle unsettled Hanna. The personality profile she’d been amending over the past few weeks as things unfolded was now completely useless. The girl was impossible to pin down or predict. That much was clear at this point. Trying to beat her to possible moves wasn’t going to be something that worked. Roarke was right, this girl was a quite predator and a little too smart for any of them.
“Before you rip me a new one, let me explain,” Amber said when Roarke and Hanna came bursting into the bar.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded. “Did you know?”
“I didn’t know she was going to do that.”
“What do you mean?” Hanna asked.
Amber paused, looking around the bar at the gang members who were now watching them. She nodded to the back room and quickly scurried over, removing her apron and tossing it to the bar-back to take over. She pushed the pair of them inside and followed them in, locking the door behind them.
“I talked to her--”
“You what?!”
“Lower your voice Roarke, Christ.”
She forced him to sit down in one of the metal folding chairs. He immediately tried to spring up but both Hanna and Amber held him down. She kneeled in front of him, hands pressing down on his knees, looking him in the eyes. Hanna had to admit she was brave but she saw the waves of fear there. She was ready to put Roarke into whatever kind of headlock was needed to make sure he didn’t do anything incredibly stupid.
“I didn’t want you interfering,” she said. “Your goons would fuck up your plan and we both know it. I saw her myself. She spun this story that she’s scared you’ll hurt her, that you’ll do anything for revenge. She figured it was better to cut her losses this way and get the police’s protection--”
“She’s going to need it now.”
“Roarke, shut up,” Amber ordered. “I’m not sure what her game is here, or if I believe her, but it’s done now. She went to the police so she has a leg up on us that way.”
“This is why I wanted to do this my way--”
“You mean your controlling way? You can’t decide everything on your own and expect everyone to just agree with you.”
They went back and forth for a while. Hanna watched. She understood Amber’s position and was, if she was honest, more than a little proud that she managed to go after Isabelle herself. It’s something she would have done if she could. She also knew that Isabelle was going to go to the police whether she’d talked to Amber or not. As much as she knew Roarke wanted to blame that turn of events on her sister going rogue, Isabelle was a planner, not a reactor. If anything she just gave Amber a few days warning before she did it.
It still left them in a difficult position and with Roarke incredibly pissed off, fuming from his chair. She’d have to deal with calming him down later. Maybe he’d actually see sense for once. All it took was a massive blow to his pride and his ability to predict a situation that had now proved it would be contained.
“This is a mess,” he said.
They were back at his apartment. He was slouched on the couch with tightly balled fists and white knuckles.
“I know you don’t want to hear this--”
“Then keep it to yourself.”
“But I think we need to beat her at her own game.”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?”
“I’m saying we go with plan B.”
“Surprise, surprise.”
“I’m serious.”
She stood up and stepped in front of him, forcing him to look at her. He pouted like a child but she pressed on.
“If we had gone with my plan from the beginning we would have beaten her at her own game,” she said.
“What do you want? A congratulatory handshake? The right to say ‘I told you so’?” he said. She let out a long sigh.
“We’ve got nothing to lose now by leaking this stuff to the police. She’s already informing on us, maybe as we speak. The best thing we can do is give them some counter intelligence,” she said. “A lot of your friends could go to jail. You could. And then who’s going to help these missing girls?”
She watched the cogs in his head turn and she knew she was going to win this round. He was tired, he was confused, and Isabelle had already proved that her original plan had been right on the money when it came to getting one step ahead. So when he looked up and gave her a nod that looked like it was the most painful thing in the world for him to give, she tried not to look to happy about it.
She needed to get on the phone with James immediately.
Chapter 14
Hanna walked with her bag out of the convenience store and tried to tuck it as hidden away as she could under her jacket. It probably looke
d like she had snuck something into the bag and was trying to make a breakaway on robbing them--or that she just didn’t want the entire world to see what brand of tampons she bought. She didn’t care either way as she tucked the bag snug under her arm, hiding the contents of it from wandering eyes on the street.
She managed to shake Roarke for the first time in days. It seemed they were constantly around each other. She didn’t exactly seek him out, but they always managed to be sitting together at the bar or she’d end up at his apartment. Their hands would brush, their knees would sit next to each other, touching, while they were at the bar top. They didn’t dare go any farther than that and she wondered if he could feel the electricity the way she could. She wasn’t sure how well she’d be able to resist it now that she had a taste for what was waiting beyond the mental block of discipline.