"How are you feeling?" he asks, his deep voice brimming with worry.
"I'm fine."
"Please, tell me where you are." I look out the window, down onto the square below. Mulberry sighs again. "I can find you, you know. I am a detective."
"Yes, I know."
"Is that what you want?"
"I don't know what I want, Mulberry. That's the whole point of this."
"You can't figure it out if I know your location?"
"I'm not saying that. I just—"
"If you tell me, I won't show up."
Blue's nose taps my hip. I'm standing at the edge of a cliff. "Barcelona," I say.
"Thank you."
"Don't show up here."
"I won't."
It all feels suddenly hopeless and useless and heavy. I lean into Blue and swallow the lump in my throat. "I don't know why I have to do this. I really don't. It's a dream... I had a dream."
"A dream?" His voice is quiet, as if he’s frightened of making me run further away.
"Yes." Tears push at the back of my eyes. "James. He came to me in a dream."
"Came to you?"
Right, that makes it sound like he's a ghost. I can't really believe in ghosts. If I did, they'd haunt me. I've taken too many lives. How can I possibly create one? How can the scales of justice allow me that?
"I have to go," I say, clearing my throat.
"Okay." He sounds resigned, and it breaks my heart more than any of his blustering. Don't give up on me. I'm so broken, he should run. But what would I do without him?
The rental agent, Catrina Bonet, whom Anita recommended, pushes open the tall, thick door, and a light turns on automatically in the vestibule. The ceilings are sixteen feet high, and the floor is patterned tile—classic Barcelona. "It is partially furnished," she says, her accent slight and lyrical, as she steps into the space. Her heels echo in the empty front room.
There are two doorways, one leading toward the front of the building and another toward the back. "It's large for one person."
She turns to me, her eyes searching for why a single woman and her dog need a four-bedroom, partially furnished apartment. Her curiosity may be a problem.
"My family is coming over soon," I say. "My husband and daughter along with—" I roll my eyes toward the ceiling in a gesture of exasperation"—my in-laws."
She smiles and nods. Now she gets it. "The children will love it here. I have four."
"Four?" It's my turn to scan her.
She laughs and starts walking toward the front of the building, flicking a light as she steps into the hall. "Yes, in Spain this is not so unusual. We love children. The smallest bedroom is here." She pushes open a door, and I peek in to see a single bed. The ceiling is taller than any of the walls are long. A narrow window lets pale light in through frosted glass.
She continues down the hall. "Will you need a cot?"
"A cot?"
"A crib?"
"Yes," I say, the word popping out because… I will.
She opens another door. "This is the master." She steps into the room, and I follow. A king-sized bed faces a wall of glass that opens to the kitchen and balcony beyond. "An en suite bathroom." She walks toward the bathroom, but I just keep staring at the kitchen. Sunlight pours in, making the surfaces gleam. There is a single stool at the breakfast bar and room for a long table and chairs. For the family I don't have.
"I'll take it," I say.
She laughs, passing me to open the doors to the kitchen. "You have not seen it all."
"I love it," I say.
"Mama!" A child's voice reaches us from the front entrance, and Catrina grins.
"In here," she calls.
Small, fast footfalls run down the hall toward us. A young boy bursts into the room, his dark hair a shiny mop on his little head. He's wearing jeans and a T-shirt scuffed with dirt. He is talking before he gets fully into the room—speaking so quickly I'm not sure I could understand him even if I did speak the same language.
Catrina nods and responds. He turns to race out and almost falls over when he spots Blue. His eyes widen, and he lets out an awe-filled breath. I laugh at the cartoonish reaction.
"Hi," I say. He brings his gaze up to meet mine and says something in a low whisper.
Catrina laughs. "This is my son, Jorge. He asks if your dog is a wolf."
"Part wolf, I guess." I smile at the boy as his mother translates. His eyes widen further. "Do you want to pet him?"
Jorge nods and takes a tentative step toward Blue, putting out a closed fist. Blue moves closer and sniffs Jorge. They are almost the same height. The little boy opens his palm, and Blue leans into Jorge's touch. A brilliant smile blooms across the boy's face.
My chest tightens and tears prick my eyes. Damn pregnancy hormones.
"How long will your family be in Barcelona?" Catrina asks, pulling my attention.
"Not long," I say. "My husband has work here, but I'm not sure how long it will take." The lies roll off my tongue.
"Maybe something fully furnished is better than—"
"I like this place," I say, scanning it again.
She shrugs. "Whatever you like."
"I can move in immediately?"
"Of course," she says, starting out of the room again. "We can do the paperwork now." Jorge races after her, pulling at her hand and speaking quickly. I take a moment to stare at the kitchen before following her. "If you need a doctor," she calls back to me, "my father is an excellent OBGYN."
I catch up with her in the hall; she is holding the door open for me. "How did you know?" I ask.
She smiles. "I can always tell." She leans closer. "You have a glow, you know? The glow of creation."
Okay...
Chapter Thirteen
Dan
It's Consuela Sanchez's voice, low and gentle, that wakes me. "Dan?"
A smile tugs at my lips, and I ease my eyes open. She leans over me, her hair a curtain of caramel and oak. I reach up and touch it. She glances at my fingers where they wave between the thick strands. "So soft," I say.
"You're high."
"You're pretty."
She stands up, and I frown, following her with my eyes. That's when I see the guy next to her. "Oh," I say. "Who are you?"
He holds out a business card. "Jack Wagner."
I focus on the card—it's a nice thick stock. It has his name on it. Jack Wagner Esq. "You brought me a lawyer," I say.
Sanchez nods.
I refocus on Mr. Wagner. "No offense, but I'd like to hire my own attorney. I don't know you."
"I hear that, Mr. Burke," Wagner says. Nice to know the guy’s ears are functioning. "I was hired by your associate." He glances at Sanchez. "I can promise you that, as an officer of the court, I will do all I can to get you the best deal available."
"You sound like a lawyer."
He smiles. "That's my job." He turns to Sanchez. "Please give me some time alone with my client."
"I'll be outside."
"Bye." I wave with my chained hand, and it jingles. I flop the hand back down. "Can we get this taken off?" I ask Jack. "Clearly, I'm not going anywhere. I'm high as a kite and in a ton of pain. Quite the combo." Mambo.
Jack sits down in the big, comfy visitor’s chair and pulls a legal pad out of his briefcase. He's in his fifties, I guess, with a shock of silver hair, round black-rimmed glasses, beeswax yellow skin, and a suit that says his hourly is probably similar to the cost of one of my mom's fake cancer treatments. "We can work on getting the cuff removed," Jack says, making a note on his pad. "But I think we've got bigger fish to fry."
"We have whales to fry, my friend. Whales."
Jack smiles indulgently. I sound about as stoned as I am, which is very stoned. "Sanchez has not arrested you. She says it's because you have not been cognizant enough to have your rights read, but I'd guess it has more to do with her not wanting your name showing up in any systems. They've done a good job of isolating you. You're listed in the comp
uter system here as John Doe." Mo Fo… low.
"She told you what they want?"
"Yes, your help with some communications. Can you give it to them?"
"Not without possibly incriminating myself."
"Gotcha." He makes a note on his pad. "So what we need is full immunity for anything that comes up during the course of your tenure with Homeland Security."
"And an exit strategy."
He nods. "Obviously, we want you free to go once you've helped. So we need an end point. What seems right to you?"
I close my eyes to think, but all I find are clouds of pain killer. "I don't know. What she's asking for is not black and white." What she needs is data… people who are persuadable. "I can give them a target audience of persuadable incels in about a month if I'm given my head and a handful of decent coders. I'd like to use my own people. Obviously, they are not going to go for that, so I may need to do it alone. That's assuming I'm starting from scratch. I’d say two months if I’m solo.”
Jack nods and scribbles with his pen. "So full immunity for any past crimes that you may expose during the course of helping with—" He checks his pad. "—this data set you'll build for them."
"Yes. I may need to admit to some things…” Humblebrag about some pretty big accomplishments. Anita is the only other person who understands what I've been up to, and she's only seen the tip of the iceberg. The icy depths of data scraping are difficult to comprehend, and the ethics get murky when you dive that deep.
Sanchez might not be a data scientist, but she's interested. I can explain this to her, and it would be good if someone in the US government was taking the threat of weapons-grade communication seriously. From the internal memos I've looked at, a couple of peons have tried to raise alarms, only to be snuffed out by old men who can't comprehend the science behind using social media for persuasion.
We all live in our own reality now, which means it's that much easier to twist. You don't have to convince an entire community, just one person at a time. Just one feed at a time.
"Okay," Jack says, standing. "I'll get negotiations started. In the meantime, don't say anything."
"Got it, coach." Jack grins again before turning away. "One more thing," I say. He turns back. "Tell my associate…" He nods slowly. "That I'm cool as a cucumber in a pitcher of ice water. You may want to write that down. It needs to be exact."
Jack takes the note and leaves.
No one will come for me… yet. Not unless this cucumber gets toasted. I laugh out loud. Toasted. Oh, I'm toasted. Super high…
Chapter Fourteen
Lenox
"There is one thing a man like Yusuf understands," Petra says, as she caresses the pistol in her lap. "Violence." She stands, her black leather pants moving with her like liquid—all fluidity and grace. She strides to the window. "He will come at us again, and I don’t expect him to send another amateur."
Dusk’s light flows into the room between the drawn curtains. We've waited in this hotel room for eighteen hours, taking turns resting. Hans and his team wait in the shadows on the street below, also on shifts. But we are still exposed. Yusuf’s resources are vast and we are just five people.
Liam and Collin are free… ish. Rachel installed tracking devices on their phones so we can theoretically monitor their movements. However, they could ditch the phones and flee. But where would they go? Back to Ireland to take over Ian's remaining interests there? All he had left when he died was his anger and a few flophouses in the city of his birth.
They can run, and I will not chase them. But eventually this revolution in the sex trade will reach them. There is no escaping. If they stay though, if they can be turned to our side, then we have a path forward. Cutting off heads won't stop anything. We must change minds. But for now they are not working to protect us.
"Violence," I say. "Yes, Yusf understands violence. It is easy to comprehend. But we will not change anything using the same methods of the men we want to replace."
Petra looks over her shoulder at me. "You have a good heart. But isn't this what Joyful Justice does? Don't you threaten violence to change behavior?"
"As a last resort, yes."
"I think we have arrived at that last resort."
I smile at her words. Why am I not at a resort or sunning myself in the final rays of day on the bow of a yacht?
Because too many people I love have died at the altar of violence. My mother and then Malina—the woman who introduced me to Joyful Justice. She worked the border between Mexico and America, sold herself to generate the resources to flee that horrid place.
After her childhood friend was raped and murdered, she met Sydney Rye and her course changed. Sydney handed her a wad of cash and asked her to live a life she wanted instead of one she felt forced into.
Malina started brothels where woman had control. We met because our business practices aligned. While I only traded in men at the time, we talked shop and shared our passion for a future where our industry put power into the hands of the product—the women and men selling—rather than the brokers and buyers. Us.
Slavery still haunts this world. Humans like to pretend we've evolved beyond it, but all we've done is hidden it. Sweeping dust under the rug does not make a house clean.
Malina offered me an opportunity to put my philosophical musings into practice. So, now I sit here in this hotel room, surrounded by luxury but also hunted. Hunted for my beliefs. For my ideas. But mostly for my actions.
I kill.
I fight.
I use what power I have to empower others.
Men like Yusuf understand violence, yes, but that is because they understand power. Real power. It often manifests as violence. But there have been movements in this world, in our shared human history, that used a people's willingness to reject violence, to sacrifice their bodies for a shared vision of a better future.
Has violence ever given us that better future?
The United States freed itself from British rule through violence, fought a bloody civil war to end slavery—only to morph it into institutionalized racism and oppression. The allies liberated Europe from Hitler through violence. Senegal, the land of my birth, was freed from colonialism by a poet warrior—who spent two years in a Nazi war camp—through peaceful negotiations. But the central government fought with rebels to maintain control of the Casamance region for decades.
Violence is often necessary and sometimes even just, but can it transform humanity in the way we need to?
"Lenox?" Petra's voice is sharp, as if she’s said my name more than once. I blink and focus on her. "What are you thinking about?" Her head cocks to the side.
I shake my head. "Nothing."
"Tell me," she insists, even as she glances out the window again.
"I was thinking about the history of violence in my own life and that of humanity as a whole."
She turns back to me, a half smile cresting her lips. "Oh really, and what conclusions did you draw?"
I stand, crossing to her. Placing a hand on her hip, Petra moves into me, closing the distance between our bodies, melting into me. We fit together—all bodies can mold, but ours fit. As if it were planned that way.
“I have reached no conclusion.”
Her chin is tilted, as she looks up at me. Her size camouflages her power. "What’s the alternative? What’s our alternative with a man who wants us dead?"
“I have no answers, only questions.”
"Okay, let's not give up violence quite yet, then. We may need it to survive." She is teasing but truthful.
Staring down into her eyes a new question forms in my mind. Why does she love me? My chest tightens. My mouth opens and I try to cut off the words but they begin to form. “Why…?” I fight harder, stilling my tongue.
"Why do I love you?" she guesses. I shake my head, I don't want to know. "Then what were you going to ask?"
I try to step away, but she uses a hand on my waist to hold me. It's a gentle, persistent touch. More effecti
ve than a slap to get what she wants from me. "I love your philosophical musings for one." She smiles, teasing truth again.
I close my eyes, my heart hammering. Why can't I stand to hear her telling me these things? Why do I believe myself so unworthy of the love she offers? Or is it that I don't trust it?
“Stop,” I say. The word comes out edged with sadness rather than the anger I hoped to find there.
Her hand comes to my cheek. "Lenox, open your eyes."
I follow her command, the softness of her touch compels me. It crumbles the iron bars I had placed between us—or were they prison bars? The only difference is who holds the key.
Is that what love is? Handing over the keys from our cages to another person? Or is it destroying the bars between you altogether? Either way, I fear the loss of their protection.
"Lenox." Tears well in Petra's gaze. "You must know me by now. You must see how deeply I love you." I try to pull away, but her hands stay on my cheek, forcing me with the gentlest of pressure to maintain eye contact. "You are brave. So brave. And good. So good. Lenox Gold, you are what every man should be."
I swallow, staring into the bright green depths of her—of the woman I love despite her duplicity—no, because of it. Her strength, her unbelievable resourcefulness. My lips crush hers, and my hands at her back close into fists. The kiss is violent—desperate. Starving. I can never taste enough of her.
She meets my violence with softness. Petra yields to me, and it makes me hunger more. I want more. More. More. I need to destroy all boundaries between us. She can have my mind, my life. She is the ultimate thief, and I love her for it. "You see, Lenox.” Petra’s breath is a pant. “Sometimes we must take what we want.”
“Only if the other person wants it taken,” I say, pushing her back toward the bed.
A throaty laugh escapes her before my mouth covers hers again.
Sharp pain in my side steals my breath. Petra moves out of my arms so quickly I am left holding empty air. She kicks my feet out from under me, and I drop to the ground. My breath won’t come yet.
Her gun cocks, the sound louder than her hurried steps back to the window. She pulls the curtain shut, cutting off the shooter’s vision. Then she rushes back to me. "Lenox..." Her face is over mine—eyes sharp, scanning.
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