“Why the long face, Tanya? Aren’t you having a good time?”
She rolled her eyes, but kept her plastic smile firmly in place.
He chuckled. “C’mon. It’s my birthday. You’re supposed to be nice to me.”
His reasoning failed to move her.
“So it doesn’t matter to you that after tonight I’ll be one step closer to making all of our dreams come true? C’mon. Smile. Who wants to be a king without a queen?”
Smirking, Madam Nevaeh turned around in his arms and faced him. “You’re always promising me the world.”
“Don’t forget the moon and the stars,” he added.
Her smile strained. “And yet you can’t manage to find and kill one measly stripper.”
“Here we go again.” Zeke sighed. Nevaeh had finally burst his sunny bubble. “How many times do I have to tell you that the situation is being handled?”
“Handled how?” she snapped. “You don’t even know where that situation is right now. She may be in a federal interrogation room running her fucking mouth about our whole operation.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he chided. “Abrianna Parker is nothing but a junkie street rat with no credibility. She can’t prove anything because she doesn’t know anything. And there’s nothing concrete linking her to us, not even a money trail. We’ve never paid her a dime. She was just a woman who crashed a masquerade party and ended up killing a guest. I have eyes and ears everywhere. If and when she pops up, I’ll cut her fucking head off.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “You forgot about her friend who came out to the house with her that day. Shawn.”
“He’s not a problem.”
“For you! He’s still alive and making threats,” she said, heated.
Zeke jerked her closer. “Lower your goddamn voice.”
“Let me go.” She wrestled but failed to get away.
“If the kid had anything, he would have made a move already. But I’ll take care of him, too. Now chill the fuck out, you’re fucking up my vibe. We’re supposed to be having a good time.”
“How about you just have a good time without me?” Nevaeh wrenched herself free. “And don’t you ever manhandle me like that again. I’m not your property. We’re partners. Business partners. Remember that.”
“Oh? Only business partners now, huh? It’s that serious?”
“Damn right. At least until you learn not to break promises.” She marched off.
Zeke watched her go, shaking his head. “If I didn’t love that old broad . . .”
Zeke watched Tanya march away and chose the cameras that followed her back into the house. He noticed two servers from the party fall in line behind her and trail her through the house.
“What the fuck?”
Tanya headed up the stairs and went into the bathroom. The servers, one a dude, went in behind her. He realized then that there were indeed a couple of places he didn’t have cameras. The bathrooms were among them. A minute later, two more waiters entered the bathroom.
Zeke sped up the tape to when everyone filed out, but this time lugging a large nylon bag that was big enough to carry a body. “Holy shit.” He stopped the tape and zoomed in. Who are these muthafuckas? He didn’t recognize any of them from his long list of enemies. Unfreezing the video, he watched this small group descend back through the crowd without anyone paying attention to what they were carrying.
He punched up one camera after another, following them all the way out to La Plume’s catering van. One of his guys came on the scene. What unfolded next had Zeke hitting the replay button a couple of times. One server was shot, and somebody threw Tiny’s big ass against the side of the house. But other than the chick who banged his head with the van’s door, no one had laid a hand on Tiny. When Zeke gave up trying to figure out that puzzle, he resumed the rest of the tape and saw that one server jumped back out of the van to attend the one woman who was shot. He questioned whether that server was really a man. Again, he froze the tape and zoomed in. There is something familiar about that profile. He sat there studying the images for long time, zooming in and out—then a name popped in his head.
“I’ll be damned.” A corner of his lips hitched up. “Hello, Abrianna Parker.”
4
Above ground, Ghost stashed his uninvited guests at a warehouse apartment that belonged to his play cousin who allowed him to use it from time to time. The bunker was too small for the expanding band of misfits. The sleeping arrangements were that Draya and Julian slept in the master bedroom, Kadir and Abrianna took the guest room, and Ghost bitched in his sleep on the couch.
For the longest time, Abrianna and Kadir stared up at the ceiling and listened to each other’s breathing. The intimacy they’d shared twenty-four hours ago was gone, replaced by a strained tension. Abrianna didn’t want to admit it, but it hurt. It shouldn’t. After all, they didn’t know each other. They were strangers thrown together under extreme and dangerous circumstances. The one night they’d slept together didn’t mean anything, she reasoned. It was sex. She knew better than to attach emotions to anything—to anyone.
Abrianna piled bricks around her heart but couldn’t do anything about the tears soaking her pillow.
Kadir stretched his hand across the gulf between them, startling her when his fingertips brushed her arm.
She rolled her head toward him. Her gaze caressed his lean and solid frame before meeting his stare that twinkled in the dark.
“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered.
She doubted that, but said nothing. Nothing in her life had ever been all right.
He moved closer.
Abrianna watched him, willing herself not to meet him halfway. However, his body heat and fresh Irish Spring scent tripped her up. She hated herself for anticipating a kiss, hated her skin tingling in the wake of his touch.
“Who are you?” he whispered, brushing her hair back. “What are you?”
Abrianna didn’t understand the question, and he didn’t ask again. Instead his head tipped forward, and she lifted her chin. Their lips met for a sweet, decadent kiss that sent her mind soaring into the stratosphere. He crushed her body against his, transforming their heat into an inferno. All she had to do was to keep her emotions out of it, but as Kadir kissed and nibbled his way across and then down her body, emotions were all she felt. Every one of them jumbled together in a traffic jam close to her heart. She didn’t want it to end. She would die if it ended.
Tenderly, Kadir entered her and rocked his hips at a slow, steady pace that sent ripples of pleasure throughout her body. As she neared climax, she wrapped her long legs around his fit waist and locked her ankles below his thrusting ass. Kadir pinned her hands above her head and then shifted his hips into overdrive. For the next hour, they flipped each other over into a dozen positions. By the time they collapsed, the sheets were shellacked against their sweat-slick bodies, and they were too tired to do any talking.
Hours later, Abrianna lay in bed with at least a gallon of sweat still pouring off her body. She struggled to remain still as Kadir slept inches away from her. He had no idea about her private hell, her raging addiction. For the past few days she’d ignored the beast inside. She had no choice. Now, her body demanded its fix, threatening to kill her to get it.
Head ringing, she rolled onto her side and even eased one leg out from under the covers, but then stopped.
No. Tough it out.
She sucked in a breath and willed herself to think of something else—anything else. She couldn’t. It was hard to think when a jackhammer pounded at the back of her head.
It’ll just take a few minutes go get a fix. No one will notice me slipping out of the apartment to find a corner boy. The oscillating fan above the bed sent a breeze that chilled the rivulets of sweat rolling off her body. When she turned her head toward the closed window, her wet hair remained glued against her face. A few minutes. She swallowed to produce moisture for her dry mouth, but failed. At last it all became too
much. Abrianna eased her other leg out from beneath the sheets and climbed out of bed. Her absent weight caused the mattress’s springs to shift.
Kadir groaned and rolled over.
Abrianna froze and trapped her breath in her chest.
Still half asleep, Kadir adjusted the pillow and then drifted back off.
Abrianna slipped on her panties and then grabbed the rest of her clothes by the door and slipped out of the bedroom. She sprinted to the bathroom down the hall and dressed. She couldn’t move fast enough. Her hands shook, her head ached, and the knots in her stomach tightened until they felt like rocks.
Exiting the bathroom, the hinges squeaked loud enough to wake the dead. At least that’s what it sounded like to her ears. Even the flooring conspired against her, creaking as she inched down the hallway. She needed money, but where could she get some? The last thing she wanted was to rummage through Ghost’s shit. The muthafucka already didn’t trust her. Stealing from him wouldn’t help the situation. Minutes later, she found herself easing into the master bedroom where Draya and Julian slept. Draya was in the bed, and Julian was knocked out in a chaise near the window.
“Bree?” Draya whispered, propping herself up against a pile of pillows. “What are you doing in here?”
Abrianna eased farther into the room. “Heeey. How are you feeling?”
“I was shot. How in the hell do you think I feel?” Draya deadpanned. “You got me out here playing cops and robbers.”
Abrianna’s shoulders drooped. “Really? You’re already playing the guilt card?”
“Yeah. So you better get used to it.” Draya smiled.
Abrianna perched on the edge of the bed. “Real talk. You good?”
“Yeah, girl. It’s not like my ass hasn’t been shot before. Remember that time Shawn had the dumb idea of hitting Big Boi’s trap house back in the day?”
Abrianna chuckled. D.C. street kids since they were fourteen, they’d been through a lot of serious shit. Robbing, dealing, and sometimes turning tricks to survive had created an unbreakable bond.
“Hey, look.” Abrianna swiped some sweat from her forehead. “You wouldn’t happen to be holding right now, would you? Or have some money?”
Draya studied her, noting how she couldn’t keep still. “Your head?”
“Yeah. It’s pretty bad.”
Draya stared.
“Please,” Abrianna added. “Don’t make me beg.”
Draya sighed and then crammed her hand down her pants pocket and pulled put a couple of packets.
Abrianna almost kissed her, but when she went to grab the coke, Draya placed a hand over it.
“Shawn would kill me if he ever found out I gave you this.”
“Who the hell is going to tell him?”
Draya evaluated her. “When this is all over, you have to promise me that you’ll get help.”
“You got it.” Abrianna made a grab for the drugs, but again Draya refused to remove her hand.
“I mean it, Bree. None of that lip service you’re always giving Shawn. I’m talking about real doctors. The whole nine yards.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” Abrianna said.
“Fine. Go and find your own damn drugs.” Draya started to shove the packets back into her pocket.
Abrianna panicked. “Wait. All right. All right. I’ll go.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise. Damn.”
Draya gave her the packets. “You better make it last. It’s all I got.”
“Right. Got it.” Abrianna sprung to her feet and rushed back toward the door.
“You’re welcome,” Draya hissed after her.
Julian stirred, but didn’t wake up.
Abrianna made a beeline back to the hall bathroom and locked the door. She wiped down the bathroom counter while struggling to control her trembling hands. Next, she dumped and divided the drug into crude white lines. “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” she mumbled under her breath.
The buzzing in her head spread toward her frontal lobe, causing her eyes to twitch.
The bathroom’s doorknob twisted, and then a rap sounded on the locked door.
“Just a minute,” she shouted and then bent over the counter and vacuumed a line into each nostril. The coke hit like a bolt of lightning. She gasped, but once the burn in her nose and the pain in her head vanished, euphoria spread throughout her body.
The shame of being a junkie would come later, but for right now, she needed this hit. Her mind tumbled over the madness she’d been through in the past week. The fight with her ex, Moses, the stolen drugs from their apartment, the seventy-two hours the Teflon Don gave her to pay for the lost bricks of pink coke—only to learn after that Moses had stolen her life savings from her bank. When she couldn’t pay the Don, she was forced into Madam Nevaeh’s escort service, where her bad luck continued.
Knock. Knock.
“Bree, are you all right in there?” Kadir asked through the door.
Abrianna slammed back to reality.
“Bree?”
“Yeah. I’m coming.” Abrianna shoved the empty packet into her pocket and then washed up at the sink. “It’s all yours,” she said, exiting the bathroom grinning.
Kadir stared after her until she disappeared back into their bedroom.
With her head still floating on a cloud, Abrianna stripped out of her clothes and climbed back into bed. By the time Kadir returned to the room, she was fast asleep.
5
“In today’s news, the FBI and Homeland Security remain on high alert for wanted terrorist suspects Abrianna Parker and Kadir Kahlifa.” A still image from the hotel’s security cameras of a disheveled Abrianna Parker, racing away from the scene of the crime in a ball gown and chinchilla coat, was posted over the TV journalist’s shoulder. “Ms. Parker is believed to be with a recently paroled federal prisoner, Kadir Kahlifa, who is also wanted for questioning in the Reagan Airport bombing.”
An old federal booking photo of Kadir popped up next to the freeze-frame of Abrianna’s face. “The two suspects were also involved a high-speed gun chase near the Washington Highland area not long after the bombing. The chase was captured on camera and has since gone viral on social media. Many on Capitol Hill have speculated that the two suspects may be a part of a homegrown terrorist cell and warn that the country may see a surge of attacks in the coming days. Ms. Parker and Mr. Kahlifa are considered armed and dangerous. If anyone should see either of these two individuals, the authorities urge you to contact the number seen at the bottom of your screen.”
“Shut it off,” Dr. Charles Zacher grumbled, snatching off his glasses and rubbing at his tired eyes.
His assistant, Ned, raced over to the television suspended in the corner of Dr. Z’s office and powered it off. He spun back around, eager to respond to his boss’s next command, but ended up waiting.
Dr. Z’s pain went from his eyes to his temples. Clearly, he was about to have a shit-storm of a day after enduring a shitty night behind bars. He still couldn’t believe he’d been swept up in a damn drug raid while hobnobbing with the nation’s political and military elite. Lobbying was a part of his job as research and development director at T4S, a necessary evil to keep government security contracts flowing its way. But a raid? The whole thing was ridiculous, and it had taken forever for him to be processed and released. Him. A man of his stature and reputation. He was outraged and humiliated.
Once the silence had grown too long, Ned asked, “Would you like some coffee, sir?”
“As a matter of fact, I would,” Dr. Z answered, anxious for the young man to get out of his sight so he could string two cohesive thoughts together.
“You got it, sir.” Ned jetted out.
Dr. Z dropped his weight into his leather chair, his racing thoughts refusing to stop. He tossed his glasses onto his desk, and then his gaze wandered back to the blank screen.
The events of the past week hadn’t been a part of his calculations. There was no way to calculate that a
test subject would pitch herself off the roof of the St. Elizabeth Hospital and another one would go on the run for murder.
Zacher’s professional neck was stretched beneath a corporate guillotine with the blade descending fast. His mind tumbled back through all the things he should have done. For example, he shouldn’t have given Dr. Craig Avery free rein with those experiments, especially at the expense of such a high body count. However, the arms race to develop the super soldier was top priority for the Pentagon and every military force around the globe, and T4S was leaps and bounds ahead of their closest competitors. It was Dr. Z’s job to make sure that it stayed that way.
Uncle Sam turned to private security firms like T4S to color outside the lines of wartime laws and international treaties—also to avoid political culpabilities and public backlash when it came time to put more troops into hostile territories. The vision of an army of elite super soldiers had been the well-worn plot of many science fiction books and movies for decades. Dr. Avery brought it closer to reality than anyone had ever dared to hope. The government salivated at the real possibility of having soldiers who were stronger than the average man or woman, ones who wouldn’t rely on expensive robotics that blew holes into budgets or were vulnerable to hacks and wear and tear.
Unfortunately, Dr. Avery’s methods had turned unconventional and then downright insane. Sure, the man had no problem developing serums that produced enhanced strength, but he was determined to go after the golden goose: psychokinetics. Avery believed that the mind could influence a physical system without physical interaction.
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