by JA Huss
Unless one’s name is Danny Fortnight. In which case one could give a flying fok.
And, as if summoned by the thought… “What’re you doing?” comes from behind.
I turn to find Danny standing there in the semi-illuminated entryway to the suite. Still naked. I’m also still naked, of course, so I don’t feel in any way self-conscious about staring at his cock. Because he’s doing the same thing to me. It’s a lovely way to wake up, frankly.
“Go back to sleep, bru.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m just—”
“Or, actually, where do you think you’re going?”
“Daniel Fortnight, are you getting all alpha on me, man?”
“Dude,” he says, with a hushed intensity, taking a step in, “things are super fucking chill right now. We’re all good. Everybody’s good. So maybe it would be best if you don’t tip the fucking apple cart right the fuck now by doing whatever you think you’re about to do.”
“The apples have already tipped, man. I’m just—”
“I don’t care. It’s fucking selfish. Read me? You’re here. You’re with us. It’s us now. So it’s not just about you anymore. You feel me? This shit is not negotiable.”
He’s so close to me now, our cocks are almost touching. I have to be honest, I find it terribly distracting.
“Listen, man,” I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. He looks at it. “There’s an incredibly good chance that he’s gone. I certainly would be. But Lars is still alive, Lars brought me here for a reason, and only Lars can answer what that reason is. I have to go talk with him.”
“No fucking way.”
“It’s not a request, Danny.”
“Good, Alec,” he says my name with a sneer, “because if it was, you still wouldn’t have permission.”
My mind rifles through the various responses I can give. Some of them involve words, some involve striking, and a couple involve me wrestling him to the floor and having someone’s dick wind up in someone’s mouth. But before I can implement any of these responses, a whirring sound and a sudden explosion of light into the room—an all-encompassing light that seems to swallow us whole—breaks my concentration.
I squint in the direction of daybreak streaming through the windows. The rich, tufted burgundy fabric in which much of the furnishings are covered springs into vivid color, also waking from its muted slumber. The light shines off the Thames, bounces across St. James’ Park, and lands right in my pupils. Danny turns to look in the direction of the sudden sunburst as well.
Standing, facing us, is the inconceivably sexy silhouette of a naked Christine Keene. She is backlit and shows herself as a seductive and deadly shadow. She has one knee bent and her hip thrust out, further emphasizing the effect. I must say, if Danny doesn’t want me to leave for whatever reason, he and Christine are offering nakedly seductive reasons to stay. Quite literally.
“What’s up?” she asks, raising her fist to her mouth to stifle a yawn.
“Alec,” Danny replies. “Alec is up. And he’s trying to sneak the fuck out.”
“What? Why?” she asks. “Where?”
I feel I must state the obvious. “Bru. Nunu. I love you both. That has been made abundantly clear, yes?” Neither one responds, so I continue speaking. “And it is precisely because I love you that I feel a responsibility to pay a visit to my little brother, see if he’s still about, and make at least an attempt at containing the situation.”
“What situation?” Christine asks.
“Precisely,” I say. “That is exactly what I aim to find out. Why did he conspire with you to try to kill me only to save me and keep me hostage when it didn’t play through as he expected?” Again, no one responds. Again, I continue. “Nunu. Love,” I say, passing by Danny and taking Christine close to me, my hands on her ass. I can feel blood pumping to my cock, but I want to be close to her, even if it proves a distraction. “What was the plan? Do you remember? Do you have any recollection of what was supposed to happen after you and he did me in?”
She looks down, shame radiating from her.
“Hey,” I say, lifting her chin, “it’s fine. We’re past that. And who amongst us hasn’t tried to murder someone they love and plan to spend their lives growing old with?” I fake a yawn. “I mean, if I had a nickel…”
She laughs. It makes my heart smile and my dick jump. I glance over my shoulder. To my great relief, Danny is smiling too. Good. Normalcy. Or our version of it.
She shakes her head. “It’s still… honestly, I never had a complete picture of what was what. I was kept in the dark about a lot of things. I do know he was working with someone else.”
Well, that certainly gets my attention. “Someone else? What do you mean? Who?”
She shrugs. “I don’t really know. It’s all so…”
I stroke her cheek. Run my hand down her hair. “It’s all right. Just tell me anything you think you can recall.”
She sighs a bit. “The whole thing was supposed to be made to look like you and Brasil Lynch”—she looks at Danny, sheepishly—“were in some kind of war with each other.”
“Why?” Danny asks.
She shakes her head. “Because… I dunno. I think Lars was trying to find a way to take over Alec’s business…” She pauses. Corrects herself. “Our business, and Brasil’s. I guess—and I don’t have the details, but I guess—Brasil has something going on that Lars wants part of? Or something?”
Now Danny says, slightly louder than is required, “Fucker.”
“What?” Christine asks.
Danny shakes his head. Blows out through his lips as he steps to the valet closet, rips the plastic off the sweatpants and puts them on, saying, “Brasil told me that some of our shipments were being stolen and our trucks were being used to smuggle diamonds. I thought it was you,” he says to me. “But it was Lars.”
Christine shrugs. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Are you fokken kidding me, man?”
“Why?” Danny asks. “What?”
“Remember when I told you that I had sent Christine to take care of an oke called Jimmy Sotoro?”
“No.” He shakes his head.
“When we was escaping from your warehouse? I told you that she was on a job to take care of an oke called Jimmy Sotoro. You don’t remember that at all?”
“No,” he says more decisively.
“Eish. Fokken looi n plooi, man. Well, I did. And I truly thought that it was Jimmy what had stolen some diamond shipments from me. I did. That’s why Christine was sent to handle him.”
“Why did you think it was this Jimmy fucker?” Danny asks.
I hang my head. “Lars told me.” Deductive logic. Not at all my forte. Fokken kak, man. Well... Jimmy Sotoro’s the lucky one in all this, I reckon...
“But…” Danny says. “But Christine killed David. Brasil’s guy. And then… fuck. And then your guys… or, I guess, Lars’ guys… came in and took the shipment.” Then a look that I don’t know comes over Danny and he says, “Goddamn it,” slamming his fist into the wall.
“What?” I ask. “Fokken what, man?”
“Brasil told me, just after all this went down, that for the past couple of years he’d been trafficking in people.”
A silence falls on the space that Christine finally breaks with, “Say that again.”
“Yeah. Women. I found out that he’d been trafficking women. Which Lars clearly knew about. So, when Lars was talking about trying to take over Brasil’s business too, that’s the business he was trying to take over.”
I close my eyes. Because what I’m hearing right now is difficult to process. I am a violent, unrepentant, horrible cunt of a human being, as was my father, and probably his father before him. But never, in my most unrepentant cunty-ness, would I ever have imagined doing something as morally bankrupt as trading human life. I know that things I’ve done have cost people their lives. I’m under no illusions about that. But it was always flesh as the cost for
something else. Never flesh as the something else itself.
Jesus. Lars.
What the fok happened to you, my bru?
For the first time since I can remember—maybe the first time ever—I don’t have money to tip a delivery boy. The laaitie who brings us our breakfast regards me in my suit, Danny in his sweats, and Christine back in her sneak assassin regalia with a completely understandable amount of curiosity as he wheels the cart into the suite. And as he’s placing the food on the dining room table and taking the cart away, I reach into my pocket only to realize… I have no money. Not a single note. Nothing.
Danny is the one who says, “Hold up,” runs to retrieve his backpack, and pulls out a crumpled wad of twenties. He hands them to the laaitie, who actually says, “Oh! Much obliged, guv’nor.” There’s something about the insulting way that I think the kid must be taking the piss with what he perceives to be stupid Americans that makes me decide I like the lad. Regardless, now that the food is here, perhaps we can get down to discussing what happens next. Danny has refused to talk plans of action until he has his coffee.
I’ve said it before. He is the only one like himself in the world.
“Okay,” he says, pouring a cup of black, steaming brew and biting into a piece of toast. “So here’s what’s going to happen…”
I don’t know how my plan has somehow turned into Danny’s, but I don’t argue. Just pour some juice from a carafe and listen to him talk.
“If we’re actually going to get back to that place to find out if he’s still there, we need a better fucking plan of action than the one we had before.”
Christine butters a scone and says, “Well, I mean, first things first, we should probably just get close enough to see if all those guards are still there.”
“Yep, yep,” Danny says, biting down on a slice of well-cooked bacon.
I find this entire enterprise irrepressibly quaint. Alec, Christine, and Danny waking up and chatting about the day’s affairs over a hearty breakfast. It’s so remarkably conventional as to be almost domestic.
“Maybe we should try to get hands on a sniper rifle and position you at a safe distance, just in case.”
Almost.
“Safe distance?” Christine asks. “Why?”
“Well,” Danny says, downing his coffee and pouring another cup, “you and Lars… you did also try to kill him. I don’t know if he’s going to be happy to see you.”
She shrugs as she bites her scone. “Yeah. I guess.”
“I have a thought,” I volunteer. They both look at me, mouths full. “Why don’t I just walk up to the front gate and ask to speak with him?”
They chew more slowly. Danny says, “Fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m suggesting that for whatever reason I was being held, I was being held. Not tortured or killed. Just not allowed to leave. And when they spotted us—or, I presume, me—they stopped firing. Clearly, whatever the intention is in keeping me alive, it’s to… you know… keep me alive. Perhaps he’s not finished with this Brasil Lynch business yet. Perhaps he still needs me alive to pin it on. I don’t know. I’m not particularly good at knowing why people do things, just that there’s always a reason.”
They both consider this. Then Danny turns to Christine and says, “I hate to say it, but I think we may need the Watsons again.”
Not only was I ignored, but the casual suggestion, by Danny, that we employ the Watson clan again suggests that I have entered some parallel dimension where the laws that govern the known universe no longer exist.
What follows is a spirited debate between the two of them about the merits and demerits of this idea and whether or not we should just try to get out of the country altogether and forget about everything. At some point, Danny emphasizes Andra, my daughter, and wonders if we don’t at least owe it to the child to ensure that she’s safe.
Christine just bites into her scone and stares at me.
I decide to offer my expert assessment. “Forget the Watsons. They’ll be fine. I might think we will never hear from them again.”
And because in parallel universes things like this happen… the room phone suddenly rings.
We all stare at each other before I finally wrench myself from where I stand and answer it, cautiously, as if it was dipped in poison
“Hello?”
“Mr. Night?” comes a cheery voice from the other end.
“Uh, no. No, this is Mr. Berger.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Berger. I have a Ms. Stetson for you, sir.”
And now, as is also the case in parallel universes, time stops. I turn and look to Danny and Christine, who wait, expectantly, for me to speak. Finally, Danny whispers (for some reason), “Who is it?”
“It’s Eliza,” I say.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO - CHRISTINE
How dare she.
How dare that bitch call my boyfriend at my fucking hotel room and interrupt my morning.
“What the hell does she want?” I ask.
I realize my rage is slightly unjustified because Eliza did help us get Alec back. However. I still hate that bitch and I was assuming I’d never have to see her face again after yesterday.
Naïve, perhaps. On my part. Since she and Alec have a child together. Which means that if Alec decides to take an active role in little mini-Alec’s life, she will be part of my life as well.
But it’s been one day. One goddamn day since all these feelings from the past came bubbling back up to the surface and you know what?
I think I deserve more than a fucking day to adjust.
I’m pissed that she’s calling. So what. Sue me.
Alec pauses to listen to something Eliza is saying, his eyes darting to mine. Then he sighs, lowers the phone from his ear, and presses the button for speaker.
“Good morning, Christine,” Eliza says.
My rage is not in check. “What do you want?”
“I’m fine, thanks. Yes, you’re welcome for yesterday. I know that you know that I didn’t have to help you, and yet I did. But let’s not dwell on who owes whom favors.”
I make that sound people make when they’re feeling amused and incredulous in the same moment. She has balls, I’ll give her that. But so do I. “Charlie told me he called in a favor. For me,” I add. Just to rub it in. “So let’s not pretend you did this for any other reason than you were forced, OK? Good.”
Danny sighs. Rubs a hand down his unshaven face. Closes his eyes. Then sighs again. “Hey, Eliza. Thanks for the help yesterday. We really appreciate it.”
“Oh, I can tell,” Eliza says.
I look at Alec, realize I’m glaring, and force myself to stop. I say, for the third time, through gritted teeth, “What. Do you. Want?”
There’s a brief pause as Mini-Alec says something in her sweet little-girl voice on the other end of the phone. Something about Danny. It might be about hopscotch. I stop my eye roll because I’m looking at Alec when all this happens, and he’s got an expression on his face I can only assume is… longing.
He has feelings for the child.
Of course he has feelings for the child. It’s his fucking child, Christine.
Danny gets up and walks over to me, pulling me into a hug. I lean against his chest and crumple. Let my rage fade, just a little.
I hate this. I can’t even describe how much I hate this. But I have to deal with it because like it or not, Alec and Eliza have a little girl called Andra. And even though, for all these years, I’ve been the child in this relationship, I’m not that kid anymore.
I have not been that kid for a very long time. Much longer than the six years it’s been since I turned eighteen.
It’s what I’ve always wanted, wasn’t it? To be taken seriously. To be seen as an adult. To be a woman in their eyes.
So I ravel all my unraveled parts back up and make a decision to grow in this moment.
And in that same moment Eliza says, “I know I’m disrupting things. I know”—she takes a deep breath—“that I�
�m just an additional line in the triangle called Alec, Christine, and Danny. And there’s no room for extra lines. There can only ever be three sides to a triangle. So I’m going to do my best not to remake this shape into something else… but I’m worried. And if I didn’t call, and something happened—”
“What happened?” Alec says.
“—then I’d hate myself after.”
“What happened?” Alec repeats. “Is everything OK?”
“Someone was here last night,” she says.
“What do you mean?” Danny asks. He’s still hugging me. Which I appreciate more than he’ll ever know.
“The perimeter alarm went off this morning. And while I admit the alarm goes off on occasion because of squirrels and the odd overzealous crow pecking at motion sensors, it was three AM and there’s no reality in which rodents and birds are responsible for this one.”
“Explain,” Alec says.
“I saw a shadow lurking in the back garden.”
“What kind of shadow?’
“The usual creepy, lurking shadow,” Eliza says, almost out of patience. “I don’t know exactly. But we did break into, and extract you, from a heavily guarded mansion yesterday. And all my brothers seem to think that we have a problem.”
“We do have a problem,” Russell says, butting in. “I don’t like this one bit. Eliza and Andra have been safe for more than two years. No thanks to you, van den Berg. And then you come back into their lives and suddenly we have alarms going off at three in the AM and no way to account for it.”
Alec, Danny, and I trade looks.
“In other words,” Russell continues, “there are loose ends that need to be tied up. And you need to tie ‘em.”