The Proviso

by Moriah Jovan

  “Don’t,” she murmured. “Just eighteen more months. You can do this.”

  He took a deep breath and muttered, “I’m outta here,” before stalking off in the other direction, ripping his cap and hood off as he went, his gown billowing out behind him.

  Giselle had to fight her way through the crowd around Bryce, collecting angry stares along the way, but once she reached him and he wrapped his arm around her to kiss her, deep and hot, the anger turned to astonishment.

  “Pass her over this way, Kenard.”

  Sebastian picked her up and hugged her, handed her off to her mother and Aunt Dianne, Morgan, then the rest of the tribe.

  It took awhile for her family to disperse and work its way toward the exits, but once it had, Giselle found herself semi-alone with Bryce save the last of the litigation groupies. He took her hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss.

  She blushed.

  He laughed, but glanced up over her shoulder. His smile faded.

  Once again Giselle found herself following someone else’s sight line until she saw Fen at the entrance of the auditorium. He simply smiled at her and nodded his approval before turning and walking right back out again. She sighed.

  “What was that for?”

  “Last year, when I went to his office, he told me he always wanted to be my father. He’s proud of me.”

  Bryce said nothing to that for a moment. Then, “Is that what your relationship with him is all about?”

  “A good portion of it. Plus, you know how easily entertained I am.”

  That made Bryce laugh.

  “I think Fen felt Sebastian was a rival for my training and wanted to see if he could superimpose his will over Sebastian’s.”

  “Sebastian was a child; Fen wasn’t. It’s an easy leap to make.”

  “I s’pose.”

  “You love him, don’t you?”

  Her brow wrinkled. “Love? No. I don’t know what it is, but I’ll miss him when he dies.”

  “You mean when Knox ends up killing him.”

  She hesitated, then sighed. “Yeah, I guess that is what I meant.”

  Sebastian had offered to host Giselle’s graduation party and it was in full swing when they arrived, several of her cousins having availed themselves of Sebastian’s liquor cabinet and someone else had brought coffee. “And that’s why,” Giselle explained wryly, “we almost never have any parties at Sebastian’s house. It’s one thing for my aunts to know people go astray; it’s another for them to see it happening in front of their faces.”

  “Where’s Knox?”

  “Probably on his way to the Ozarks to spend the weekend working out his Justice McKinley issues.”

  “Ozarks? Oh, the inn he owns in Mansfield.”

  “Half.” She nudged him with an elbow then. “Now say, ‘You were right, Giselle.’”

  He glanced at her sharply. “About what?”

  “O god of the UMKC School of Law with groupies galore.”

  He burst out laughing then. “That embarrassed the hell out of me.”

  “How many professorships were you offered?”

  “Uh, three, I think.”

  “And?”

  “Oh, hell no.”

  “How many resumes got slipped to you?”

  “Seven or eight.”

  “And?”

  He snorted. “I only hire from Knox’s office or if he sends someone directly to me.”

  “Did you two dance that dance even when you weren’t speaking to each other all those years?”

  He hesitated a moment, then grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, we did.”

  The party ran late into the night and finally Giselle couldn’t take it anymore. She found Bryce up on the rooftop deck lazing back in an Adirondack chair, looking out over the Plaza, shooting the breeze with half a dozen cousins. She dropped in his lap. “Bryce, I want to go home. I’m exhausted.”

  Once in the car, Giselle leaned her head back against the seat and watched the scenery go by. Neither of them spoke for most of the quick ride home. “Wife?”

  “Mmmm?” She was nearly asleep, her eyes beginning to close, basking in the warmth and love that surrounded her, not only with Bryce, in that car, but in Sebastian and Knox, her mother and her Aunt Dianne, the rest of her tribe who had shown up the day of her wedding to congratulate her, who’d shown up to see her graduate from law school, supportive as they ever were. Even Fen. A hundred-plus people using any excuse to have a party because they enjoyed each other.

  She figured she probably ought not take that for granted, especially because Bryce so loved and needed her family. The pack, the tribe—they accepted him, loved him, validated him and fed his soul.

  “Tell me about that night.”

  Her eyes opened slowly and she saw that they were pulling into their driveway. Her mouth twitched in thought and she released a great puff of air. She didn’t have to be told which night he wanted to know about; in fact, it surprised her that he hadn’t asked earlier. She’d never told anyone about it because she hadn’t had to.

  “All right,” she murmured as he turned off the car, “but I’m going to take a shower first. I need to relax. It’s late and this isn’t going to be easy for me.”

  He nodded and they went into the house. She spent her time in the shower ordering her thoughts, trying to wash away the damage, the blood, before she spilled it again in the telling. She slowly dressed in a set of white cotton men’s style pajamas and wrapped her wet hair up in a towel. Bryce waited for her when she emerged from the bathroom, lounging in a club chair in the sitting area of their bedroom and reading a book. He’d changed into his preferred at-home attire: denim shorts.

  Sitting across from him, she looked left out the window without seeing anything, wondering what he’d think of her once she’d told him the nitty gritty. She drew a deep breath and began. “Four years ago, I was working at a bookstore on the Plaza. Two guys came after me with guns and I . . . ” She shrugged. “Killed them.”

  * * * * *

  53: 47TH & BROADWAY

  Giselle stood in the breezeway of the bookstore holding the door open, waiting for her boss, a late-middle-aged woman with a completely reasonable fear of walking to her car late at night. Once they had sandwiched themselves between the inner and outer sets of locked doors, Giselle bent to dig in her backpack.

  “That’s just unreal,” Judy muttered as she watched Giselle perform the same ritual she performed every night they closed together: Ripping the Velcro. Wrapping the wide elastic bands tight around each thigh. Checking to make sure rounds were chambered.

  Giselle chuckled as she stuck one Glock in each holster. “You know what they say. Better to have and not need than to need and not have.”

  Judy snorted. “I s’pose you’re right. I needed those last summer and didn’t have.”

  “I’m sorry, Judy,” Giselle murmured. Finished with her task, she straightened and shrugged into her backpack and Judy unlocked the outer doors. Giselle preceded her out into the oppressive heat and humidity of a July night in Kansas City. “I do appreciate your understanding about this.”

  “Opinions change once you’ve been assaulted. I just don’t want to get dragged into—” She waved a hand toward Giselle’s legs and shuddered. “Whatever it is you’re involved in.”

  Giselle chuckled. “I’d tell you the story, but you wouldn’t believe a word of it.”

  Judy laughed, and with the snick of the lock and the arming of the security system, they set out toward Judy’s car. Giselle walked on the outside of the sidewalk and at Judy’s pace. By the end of a twelve-hour shift, Judy could barely make the two blocks to her parking spot.

  “Judy,” Giselle said gently, “maybe it’s time for you to find something different to do.”

  “Ah, I can’t, Giselle. I’m trapped by my salary and benefits. I couldn’t make this kind of money anywhere else and I have to have health insurance.”

  Giselle said nothing; she certainly knew what it meant
to be overeducated, overqualified, underemployed, and with few immediate options. She laughed wryly. “I’m a Post-hole Digger, working second shift as a clerk at a bookstore.”

  “Mmmm, I know what you mean. PhDs in literature don’t leave you a lot of choices if you won’t head straight back into academia.”

  “I would, but the publishing part gives me hives.”

  “Same here.”

  Giselle’s humor faded and the familiar melancholy of all she had lost overcame her, interrupted when Judy gasped. Giselle glanced at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Judy gestured weakly ahead, her body stiff with fright. Two men sprinted toward them and Giselle said, “Judy, you’ve met them. They’re my cous—”

  Tingle.

  Giselle whirled, whipping her Glocks up out of their holsters and into her grip.

  There, a man crossing the street and striding purposefully toward her, his hand behind his back to pull out a weapon.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Giselle snarled, both guns pointed at his chest; he stopped short in surprise. A dark figure to her right caught her attention. She snapped that gun in his direction. One gun in each hand, she stood for a microsecond, her arms outstretched, her feet spread wide, instantly calculating distance and height. She saw a flash out of the corner of her eye and pulled both triggers.

  She hit the ground conscious, but twisting and in agony. She took in the whole scene, dissociated and watching the aftermath of what she had done as if in a dream. Two men, dead. By her hand. It had taken only a second, possibly three, from the time she’d turned to the time she’d pulled the triggers to the time she’d gotten blown off her feet.

  Somewhere behind her, her terrified boss cowered and sobbed at the base of a wall.

  Somewhere above her, a bullet had embedded itself in the tree trunk behind Giselle, probably the same one that had bored through her shoulder.

  Somewhere beside her, Knox flipped open his cell phone and called 911.

  In front of her, Sebastian ripped off his tee shirt, dropped to his knees, and frantically wrapped the fabric around her shoulder, held it tight, made her hurt worse. She groaned.

  “C’mon, Giz,” he murmured when she couldn’t hold her eyelids open anymore. “Stay with me, baby. C’mon. Hey, do you remember that kid who bet long odds on the wildcard spot for the ’83 NFL playoffs and couldn’t pay up?”

  Yeah, that wasn’t something she was going to forget. Ever.

  Knox now squatted behind her, working to get another wad of cloth between her right hip and the sidewalk. She grimaced when he lifted her and whimpered when he gently settled her weight back onto that hip.

  “What happened to him, Giselle?” Knox asked, stroking her hair.

  Sebastian took a baseball bat to his knees.

  “What? I didn’t hear you. Talk, Giselle. Stay with us.”

  “S’b’s’n broke legs,” she whispered, her teeth beginning to chatter. “Cold.”

  “Shit, she’s going into shock,” Sebastian muttered, “and so’s her boss. Knox, go see if she’s hurt.” Giselle missed the warmth of Knox’s body behind her, his hand in her hair. “How much did he owe me on that bet, Giz?”

  Ten thousand dollars.

  “What?”

  She swallowed. She could barely move her mouth. “Ten K.”

  Sirens wailed through the night, coming closer and closer. She still couldn’t open her eyes, though tears began to leak out.

  “Hurts.”

  “I know, princess. Stay with me now. We’ll get you to the hospital, get you warm. What was my most outrageous vig ever?”

  A hundred and seventy-five percent on three days.

  “C’mon, Giz, talk to me. What’s the answer?”

  “Uhnse’nfye, f’ree.”

  “Right. Good.”

  She had a vague awareness of the sound of an ambulance parking and people rushing, but underneath, she heard Knox hiss,

  “Shit. Fen was watching.”

  She felt Sebastian start. “What?”

  “Look. That’s his Alfa. He was up on the garage roof. He must have seen the whole thing.”

  I’m gonna kill him.

  “Don’t say that again, Giz,” Sebastian whispered in her ear just as the paramedics shooed him away from her. “At least not where some random cop can hear you.”

  She was covered with a blanket, lifted onto a gurney, raised into the air, wheeled to the ambulance, slid inside with a thump or two.

  “Do you guys want to go with her?”

  “Yes,” they answered simultaneously.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, Hilliard,” barked an unfamiliar voice from far away. “You’re staying right here and help me sort this shit out.”

  “Yeah, and you— Get rid of the piece. No firearms in the bus.”

  She opened her eyes enough to see Sebastian sitting near and he picked up her hand again. She had never seen his handsome face so . . . not handsome. Old. Haggard. Like Uncle Charlie.

  “Jooey?” she whispered.

  “She’s fine,” Sebastian murmured, his voice tight. “Scared. In shock, like you.”

  He’s taken everything I have away from me, Sebastian.

  “Not important right now, Giz. Concentrate on getting through this. Just think, you’ll have some nifty new scars to brag about later on.”

  Oh, that’s true.

  “She’s still got a slug in her hip,” said another voice. “She’s going to have to have surgery to get it out.”

  Sebastian said nothing else, but squeezed her hand. It was a fast trip to Truman Medical Center’s emergency room—

  —and an equally fast trip to the Jackson County prosecutor’s office once she was discharged three days later. Executive AP Wells had denied Knox’s request to take her there himself, so she was cuffed and stuffed in the back of a squad car, her hands in front of her only because her arm was in a sling.

  The prosecutor was in court, so Wells took it upon himself to put them in a conference room and annoy the hell out of Knox. In the presence of two other APs, he began to run down what Giselle would be charged with. She only watched and listened with detachment, half asleep, too drugged with pain medication to speak and too tired to care. She’d take a jail cell cot at this point if it meant a few hours of sleep.

  Finally, Knox said, his voice as hard as she’d ever heard it, “If you charge her, I’ll defend her and I’m quite sure that’s the last thing you want.”

  Two of the APs in the room reared back, away from Knox, but the executive’s face lit up with the scent of challenge.

  Even in her dazed state, she understood what a political nightmare that could turn into: the elected prosecutor of one county representing a criminal defendant in a neighboring county.

  Knox leaned back in his chair. “Oh, I get it now. You want to make your name on me. Okay. I’ll play that game with you and I’ll even play it on your terms. But. Think of it,” he said. “Beatrix Fucking Kiddo. Bet you got a hard-on looking at the pictures and thinking about what she must’ve looked like that night. Lemme tell ya, she was hot. I got a hard-on watching her whip out those big guns and pull the triggers. And now that she’s survived two gunshot wounds, think what a jury will do when I get finished drawing the whole picture for them in Technicolor—the men’ll come in their jeans and the women’ll all start carrying Glocks on their thighs.”

  The EAP reddened and gulped. Knox laughed wickedly.

  “Wells!” barked a man from the doorway. “What the hell is wrong with you? I specifically told you I’d handle this personally. Get out.”

  So. This was the prosecutor. He came in and shook Knox’s hand like the old buddy he apparently was and sat, flipping the file open on the table to read it. His remaining two APs watched their boss warily for a long few minutes.

  “Okay. She can go.”

  “Owe you, Kevin.”

  “Save it.” He slid a look at the two APs and they left at a jerk of his head. Once the door had closed, the prosec
utor looked at Giselle and said, “You managed to get a couple of thugs I’ve been trying to put away for three years now.”

  Knox fell back in his chair laughing. Giselle felt about as much satisfaction as she could muster, given her condition.

  “Miss Cox, you’ll need to stick around town until the investigation’s wrapped up—” He speared Knox with a glance and Knox nodded his acceptance of the responsibility. “—but otherwise, you’re free to go. I don’t expect we’ll find anything different from what your boss told us.”

  “Giz,” Sebastian said the minute Knox brought her home, “don’t do anything. Let me take care of him my way.”

  She said nothing for a moment, then whispered, “I’m tired and I hurt.”

  Knox herded her into her bedroom and carefully undressed her, then turned her bed down and helped her maneuver into a comfortable position. Sebastian raided the Den of Iniquity for extra pillows. Knox brought her a glass of water. “More,” she said once she’d finished that. He looked at her for a moment before coming back with two fresh liter bottles. She finished off one completely.

  “I want my mom,” she finally whispered, tears welling in her eyes and running down her cheeks. He finished tucking her in then and she closed her eyes.

  “She’ll be home from Alaska tomorrow. We’re going to tell her you got caught in a drive-by.”

  “Judy?”

  “I got her a job up in the county clerk’s office. Pay’s not quite as good but the hours and benefits are better and it’s a desk job.”

  “My guns?”

  “Still in the property room at KCPD. I’ll go pick them up this afternoon.”

  “My job? Hospital bills?”

  “I have a line on a couple of jobs for you. Fen’ll take care of your medical bills and he put you on OKH’s health insurance.”

  “That’s so fucked up,” she sighed and fell asleep.

  *

  Silence.

  Giselle stared at her bare feet, which she’d propped up on the broad ottoman between her chair and Bryce’s, wondering what he must be thinking, not daring to look at him, afraid of what she would read in his face. It was one thing for him to know “one gun in each hand,” to see and love her scars, but quite another for him to hear details.