by Zaire Crown
Her eyes shifted from green to gray as she showed no fear or sign of backing down. “Even the Titanic sank.”
He laughed. “Damn, you making my dick so hard right now.”
Tuesday didn’t find him funny.
He said, “You’re not gonna be able to fight me ’cause you’re not gonna be able to find me. And besides, you’re gonna have your hands too full with your own enemies to worry about me.”
Tuesday said, “I can crush Vega anytime I want.”
“But what about Rose? You think Reina was a problem, believe me Rose is much more dangerous.”
“I have no beef with Rose.”
“But you will at some point. I can promise you that.”
She sneered. “You manipulative sonofabitch, you would put me in a war with Rose just to keep me off your ass.”
He patted her thigh again. “Not just to keep you off my ass. Remember, tests are necessary for getting you ready.”
This time Tuesday moved his hand. “They might have fucked you up but ain’t nobody brainwashing me. I’ll never join the Kamku and neither is Dani. You are hands down the smartest man I’ve ever known, but don’t underestimate me either, Marcus.”
“I would never do that.” He looked at her, his eyes sincere. “But don’t call me Marcus, my name is Sebastian.”
Tuesday nodded. “So my husband really is dead.”
He whispered, “You deserve somebody on that couch with you keeping your feet warm. I love you more than anything.” Then in a clear and distinct voice he said, “Do it now, and if you hurt her I’ll kill you.”
Tuesday looked back to find Agent Morrison standing behind her. The young fed who had taken the children for frozen yogurt had slipped back onto the plane and snuck up behind her.
Before Tuesday could see what he held, he hit her with the Taser. Fifty thousand volts short-circuited her body and brain. Tuesday flopped like a fish out of water then sank into her seat unconscious.
Chapter Fifty-nine
Tuesday snapped awake like somebody coming out of a nightmare, looked around wide-eyed and panicked. The jet was cruising at thirty thousand feet, en route to Los Angeles. Tanisha was strapped into the seat next to her watching Toy Story 3 while enjoying her frozen yogurt. DelRay was in the next seat, snoring loudly, most likely out from being tased.
Danielle was not on board.
Neither was Silence who Tuesday began to suspect had been working for Marcus the whole time. Silence had the type of skillset that would make him someone her husband kept in his phone. She couldn’t imagine anybody but him carrying DelRay’s four hundred pounds of dead weight up the stairs to the plane.
The Kamku began its work immediately. The very same day, Tuesday realized they began scrubbing any trace of Danielle from the internet. All her social media accounts had been deleted; they even hacked into Tabitha King’s Facebook and removed any photos of Danielle Tuesday had posted there. By the third day, a Google search turned up zero items found for Danielle King.
Tuesday considered going to the police but realized how futile that would be. The King family had only been a clever illusion. So every time she played the conversation in her head, it sounded ridiculous even to her. Her husband, who never really existed, stole their daughter, who also never really existed or belonged to either of them, then vanished with the help of a secret society who was trying to take over the world. The average cop would think she was insane.
The only ones who would possibly believe her were those already corrupted. In Ms. Jackson, Marcus had a high-ranking member of the FBI who was basically his lackey; Tuesday figured he had even more planted within the CIA, NSA, and local law enforcement. Tuesday pictured herself being invited into the captain’s office at the First Precinct just to find herself talking to an old black man wearing a triangle-shaped ring.
Tuesday knew it would be up to her to find Danielle but had no idea where to begin. How could she possibly find somebody as connected and elusive as Marcus when he was determined not to be found? He had spent twenty years with the nickname The Invisible Man for a reason.
The next three weeks were hard for Tuesday. She fell into a deep depression. She mourned her missing daughter who was somewhere being prepped to be a Manchurian Candidate. Tuesday would crane her neck and stare each time she drove past a girl on the street who resembled Danielle.
The hardest part was consoling Tanisha when she started to cry for her big sister. Tuesday felt the pain of watching her baby cope with the loss of a father and sibling in the span of a few weeks. Worse was that Tuesday had no creative way to explain the vacancies in their family.
Tuesday also mourned for Marcus, whose death felt more real this time even though he was alive. She had fallen in love with a reformed drug dealer, an idealist who only wanted to rebuild the same communities that he had helped to destroy. During their last conversation he sounded nothing like that man. She didn’t know if he had been seduced by this new level of power or if that’s who he had been the entire time. Had the personality of Marcus King been as phony as the name?
I was too powerful for that before, but now I’m practically a god.
Whenever she thought of him, those words would echo eerily in her mind. He didn’t say this like a boast or mean it to be intimidating. He stated this like a plain fact, and to Tuesday that made it much more frightening.
It was during those first three weeks that Tuesday was at her lowest. She spent a lot of time in bed crying, or sleeping when the crying exhausted her. She hardly left her suite at the Athenium Hotel, rarely got dressed. But at some point she picked herself up. Tanisha still needed a mother, and Abel still needed a CEO. Plus she had never been the type of bitch who stayed down for too long.
Over the next couple of months, Tuesday got herself into a rhythm. She dropped six million on a house in Farmington Hills, and asked DelRay to move in until she and Tanisha got settled. Tuesday had relied on him heavily during that difficult transition; DelRay never left her side and she came to view him like a brother. Their new house had twelve thousand square feet, five bedrooms, and seven baths. Tuesday didn’t know if it was hope or delusion but still decorated a room for Danielle.
Tuesday offered to replace 24 Karats, but DelRay passed on owning another strip club. Inspired by her to do better, his vision was more family-friendly: a Dave n’ Buster’s-style restaurant with liquor for adults and games for kids. He and Tuesday had already started searching for a building.
Her new family slowly fell into a routine the way families do. She ran Abel from their temporary headquarters in Detroit and flew out to Los Angeles when her presence was necessary there. The first two shipments of Vega’s illegal immigrants passed through without a problem. Tanisha seemed to adjust to their new dynamic and was about to start kindergarten. DelRay’s new eatery was scheduled to open the same fall.
She occasionally saw A.D., who still volunteered at the church. She offered to buy him a new house, to give him a job at Abel that came with a decent salary and benefits. A.D. refused what he considered to be a handout. He wouldn’t accept her help but his church accepted five new vans donated by an anonymous benefactor. For Abel it was a simple tax write-off.
At some point, Tuesday gleaned the truth behind A.D.’s lucky break. A lawyer who comes from nowhere, agrees to work for free and gets him off a life-bit like it’s nothing—Marcus had that type of pull even before the Big Table.
Her husband was a man always thinking twenty steps ahead and had a history of recruiting people to fill positions within his surrogate family. If he knew he would be leaving soon, Tuesday could see him finding a stand-in even for himself. He made A.D. available: the only other man she ever loved. Marcus had even given her a clue on the plane when he said that comment about deserving somebody on that couch with her.
The miraculous exodus was the cornerstone of A.D.’s newfound faith and Tuesday didn’t have the heart to tell him that The Lord wasn’t responsible. The praise belonged to a dark and manip
ulative god who was also willing to sacrifice his own child.
She also didn’t try to get back with her ex, despite what Marcus had planned. A.D. was looking for a simple life and Tuesday wanted him to have that. He deserved the type of woman who could attend church with him on Sundays. The type of woman unburdened with the threats of gun dealers, cartel bosses, and secret societies.
With Marcus and Brandon dead, the King family fortune officially passed down to Tuesday, and in her spare time she was using a large portion of that considerable wealth to become a real estate mogul. A few billionaire investors like Dan Gilbert and the Illitch family had built up downtown Detroit with new condos, casinos and sports venues, but left the inner city looking like a third-world country. Tuesday focused there: renovating entire neighborhoods filled with abandoned homes and apartment complexes to provide affordable housing. The dozens of empty buildings left in the wake of school closings were being transformed into shelters for the homeless and abused, and halfway houses for prisoners trying to reintegrate into society. The derelict factories left to rust after the flight of the auto industry were being resurrected for new purposes. Tuesday was determined to bring her city back, and was spending a lot of money to do it. Abel Incorporated’s Tabitha King was quickly making a name as a shrewd businesswoman and great philanthropist.
That mission gave Tuesday purpose, and that purpose provided enough of a distraction throughout the day to lessen the pain. The nights were a little harder as she couldn’t get used to sleeping alone again, but time was making that easier. Life continued to move on, the way it does, even after a serious loss.
Then one day while riding shotgun with DelRay in the new Bentley Mulsanne insurance replaced for her cars lost in California, her phone rang from an unavailable number. She ignored it at first but the caller was so persistent that she dug into her bag only to silence it.
She read the text: “We are never that far from home.”
Two photos popped up on screen. The first was just a shot of the Eiffel Tower taken from a hotel window in Paris. No person appeared in the picture.
The second was of a girl in a rose-colored hijab, the hooded scarf worn by women in Muslim countries. She was seated on a camel somewhere in the desert. Even though the picture was taken at a distance that didn’t give a clear view of the girl’s face, Tuesday could tell it was Danielle.
Her heart thumped in her chest, it became hard to breathe, she felt like she was having an anxiety attack.
While Tuesday stared at her phone in shock, a second text appeared: “Another test coming soon. Get rest, you look tired.”
Tuesday didn’t bother looking around because any of the other cars surrounding them on the freeway might have a Kamku spy watching her with a camera. He might even be looking down on her with a satellite somewhere in orbit.
Tuesday didn’t even consider taking the phone to the police so they could trace the call. She knew it was a burner that wouldn’t be registered to Marcus King or anyone else she’d ever heard of.
She simply typed back: “Will make sure I’m ready; you better do the same. Coming for my girl.”
Tuesday put the phone away.
Marcus’s first test had come three years before, when he allowed Tuesday to deal with her former team on her own when they kidnapped Danielle. Back then, Tuesday had learned to think on the level of a hood boss.
Tuesday had no doubt that Marcus knew ahead of time that Brandon would betray her and Reina would make a play for the company. The second test had required she learn to think on the level of a corporate boss and military general.
Tuesday didn’t know what would be required for his third test, but was done playing his game. It was time for the student to become the Master.
Tuesday was preparing herself to face her most dangerous opponent ever. She was about to go to war with Sebastian Caine.