by Tijan
“They sent Macca for me as a nice fuck off.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen Macca in years. How’s he doing?”
“You’re a killer, Raize. Not a liar.” Oscar tilted his head to the side. “You a liar now?”
Raize’s eyes narrowed, and his tone went cold. “We’re starting with insults? It’ll be a short meeting, if that’s the case.”
I heard the yellow suit draw in his breath, and found myself doing the same.
Oscar shook his head. “When you left Estrada, you left all of us. You’re forgetting that.”
“And you missed me so much?”
Oscar’s face tightened. “Careful, Raize. I might kill your girl if you piss me off.”
Frozen. Me. Right now.
If I thought the room was alarming before…
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I could feel Raize coiling up, rising. He was going to strike. I felt it in my gut, and I was now just waiting, looking around for where I should dive to avoid the bullets.
Then I felt a presence behind me, it was the door guy. He murmured softly, “It’s a bluff, buddy.”
Those words weren’t for me, but Raize didn’t seem to pay attention.
The room was stifling now.
“I came here as a courtesy,” Raize said. “I’m in the area. I wanted you to know that.”
Oscar had been reaching for something in a drawer, but he paused, studying Raize again before bringing out a bottle of tequila. “Why am I the one getting this courtesy? Word is that you reached out to Estrada. You’re looking to work with him.”
“You control the girls in this section. I’m down here on behalf of my employer, and I want you to know there’s no interest in working girls. If you were worried I’d be competition, I’m not.” He paused. “You didn’t need to send Macca.”
“Oh, damn,” came from behind me.
Before I could sort out what had happened, Raize’s hand shot out, shoving up under my shirt. He pushed me into a corner as he brought his gun up and around. He shot at Oscar at the same time he shoved the door guy away.
I heard a growl as my knees hit the ground.
People were shooting.
I kept my eyes on the floor.
Someone shoved me farther into a corner. I went, gladly, and hid behind a buffet counter.
Raize was in front of me, and I felt body after body hitting the ground.
One after another, and I could see them. Some had their heads turned our way, others had their heads the other way. One guy didn’t have a head.
The room was thick with the smell of sulfur and blood.
When it stopped, I didn’t realize it at first. My ears were ringing, and Raize touched my shoulder. I heard him shouting, “Come up!” But his voice sounded muffled.
There was someone else moving around the room. He and Raize were checking the bodies and yelling at each other. It was the yellow suit guy—both had guns drawn, but pointing at the floor.
“We have two seconds—” He was cut off by a thundering of footsteps down the hallway. He cursed, dropping a gun clip and jamming another in its place.
Raize was at the desk, going through the drawers. He stuffed something in his pocket. “I didn’t ask for your help.”
“You needed it.”
A deep thump slammed into the door. Someone was trying to break it down.
Yellow Suit stepped back, pointing his gun at the door. “We gotta move, Raize. What’s your plan?”
Move.
They were coming.
We needed to go to live.
I needed to live.
I pushed up. My legs were unsteady, but I looked around. The glass room where the girls were. They were gone. A door had been left open, but no one was coming through it. Not yet.
I pointed. “There.”
Both guys looked, and Raize cursed. “Get over here. I need your pockets.”
I shoved away from the buffet counter and went to the desk.
There were more thuds at the door, more shouting.
Raize’s-I-Didn’t-Who was cursing, but he backed up, going into the glass room. “The girls left their door open. We can get out that way. No one’s remembered it yet. That’s a back entrance. They have to go outside the building to circle around. We’re not cut off yet. I bet we have thirty seconds.” He shoved open the door connecting this office to the first glass room. “We gotta go now, Raize.”
Raize kept looking through the door.
“Now, Raize! Right fucking now!”
Raize cursed, shoving things into my sweatshirt, but then he stopped and looked me in the eyes. “Are you okay?”
I lifted my chin up and down, not feeling connected to any other part of my body.
He cursed, but turned me and shoved me forward. “She’s in shock,” he told his friend.
The guy cursed again, but reached for me. Both guys had a hand on my arm, guiding me through the first door, into the glass room, then into the area where the girls had been and out another door. Raize’s friend was right. It opened into what seemed like a different building. There was a thick wall immediately to our right, and we had to pass down a tight hallway with doors every few feet. Those were rooms, and I could hear moaning from inside.
They were still working after a shoot-out just happened feet, yards from their room?
I was going to be sick.
This was a sex building.
Those girls—that could’ve been my sister.
My sister could be in one of those rooms.
The thought raced through me.
I braked to a sudden stop.
I had to look. I had to make sure.
“Carrie!”
Now I was Carrie?
I ignored Raize. Running to the first room, I threw open the door.
A guy was on top of a girl. It wasn’t my sister.
They didn’t stop.
The girl saw me, but she didn’t react.
I moved to the next room.
Different people, not my sister.
And the next.
“What are you doing?” Raize was in front of me.
I reached for the next door.
He blocked me. “We have to go.”
“No!” I ripped away from him, lunging for the door.
I had to know.
I had to make sure.
Was she here?
“We have to go!” He was shouting in my face, grabbing my arms. He lifted me, carried me, but I was struggling.
I needed to look.
I had to.
I was blind to anything but that.
“Fucking hell!” He hoisted me up, ignoring my kicking legs and the way I scrambled, trying to reach for the doors.
Another door opened, and sunlight lit the hallway.
Raize carried me out.
“No!”
“What’s wrong with her?”
I felt Raize’s grunt through my body. “No idea.”
Then we were running. I jostled up and down.
We rounded a corner.
Raize’s arm left my legs. He was pointing a gun, but there were no guys outside the door.
We walked past, to our truck.
I was shoved in the middle of the front seat. Raize went behind the wheel, and his friend sat on my right side.
As Raize gunned the engine, shooting away from the curb, I turned back, as if I could still see her, if she was there.
No one was there.
It looked like nothing happened...
14
Carrie
“Your girl is nuts in the head,” Raize’s guy noted. “You should put her down.”
Raize yanked the wheel to the left, and we careened down another road. No one was chasing us, but he was driving like they were. “You shut the fuck up,” he growled. “Let’s talk about you. What were you thinking?”
The guy’s laugh was a cackle. “Right. I ain’t fucking stupid. You’re Raize. Only reason you’re
walking into that place, asking for a meet with Oscar is if you’re going to end him.”
Raize cursed under his breath. “I didn’t go in there planning on killing him.”
“So what changed?”
Raize didn’t answer. He kept driving, taking us to the outskirts of town, rather than back to the house.
I shot him a look, wondering what he was doing. He caught my eye and shook his head, just the slightest motion.
“I needed to know if he was the one who sent Macca or if it was Estrada,” he explained.
This door guy/Raize’s-Something?—I had no clue what to call him. Was he Ally Guy?
Whoever he was, he was quiet a moment, then started laughing. “Bullshit. He threatened whoever this chick is to you, and you went apeshit on him. I could feel you making your decision. You could’ve waited it out. You didn’t need to throw it down, tell him you knew he was the one who sent Macca. But no, in a very un-Raize-like way, you killed first.”
“I got his phone,” Raize murmured.
“What?”
“I got his phone. He unlocked it, and I went for it.”
The guy cursed, scooting low in his seat. He rested his arm on the window, his fingers catching the handle above. “That’s why you killed him? For his goddamn phone?”
I kept quiet.
Raize went quiet, too.
The guy was still muttering to himself. “You killed Oscar, Raize. Oscar! You know who’s going to come after you? After me? I knew if you started shooting, I’d have to choose. You or Oscar, and you damn sure know I ain’t picking Oscar over you. We been through too much for this asshole to divide us. But man, Oscar? You started a war. I hope the fuck you know what you’re doing.”
Raize jerked the wheel once more, pulling off into a field, and he kept going until we reached an isolated spot. A group of trees blocked us from the road when he turned the engine off.
No one moved.
“What are we doing here?” the guy asked in a low voice. “You got shit to bury? Because you ain’t putting a bullet in my head. No way, man. After what I just did for you—”
“Shut up, Basil.”
Basil. I had a name.
Raize opened his door and got out, going to the back of the truck and putting down the tailgate. He dug through his pockets, laying out everything he’d grabbed. When I followed him, he started for my pockets. I stood there, feeling weird about him digging through my sweatshirt, but in an odd way, I found it pleasant.
That was super-duper odd.
Duper.
I’d never used that word before in my life.
What was going on with me?
“She’s in shock.”
That was it. I must still be in shock.
“What are we doing here?” Basil leaned a hand on the back of the truck, watching us. “Can we talk about this mute one here, while we’re at it? If I’m joining your team, I need to know what I’m signing up for.”
I frowned at him. “Your name is Basil?”
His eyebrows shot up. “That’s what you’re focused on? Carrie? Like that’s your real name.” He nodded toward Raize, who was studying everything on the truck bed. “What’d this one call you before Carrie?”
I put my hands in my now-empty sweatshirt pockets and rolled my shoulders back. That was an easy one. “Girl.”
I caught the corner of Raize’s mouth lifting up, just a bit before resuming its normal flat line.
Basil straightened from the truck and put his hand in his own pockets, his head tipping back. “Right. Girl. Carrie. I’m sure names are so important to us now, but you can call me Abram. Abram Basil. Raize and I used to work together, long time ago. How’d you and he meet up?”
Raize paused, his eyes sliding my way.
“He won me in a poker game.”
Abram’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Since when do you play poker?”
Raize turned to regard Abram. He looked at me over his shoulder. “Stop giving him information.” He turned back to Abram. “Stop trying to needle her. She’s not wired like that. You won’t get a reaction.”
“What will get a reaction from her?”
“Kill someone. She doesn’t like that.”
Abram pursed his lips together. “I’ll take that into consideration. Nice officially meeting you, Raize’s girl.”
A low growl came from Raize.
Abram grinned. “There’s the reaction I was looking for. Surprised it came from you, though. You going to tell me what the hell we’re doing out here? You don’t trust me to take me to your headquarters?”
Raize leaned back against the truck bed, his arms folded. “I need your phone.”
Abram didn’t move.
I didn’t move. I knew he wasn’t asking for mine.
When this clicked with Abram, he stepped back and his hands shot out of his pockets. “Say what?”
“Your phone.” Raize wasn’t fucking around. His eyes were steady on his friend.
Was he a friend? I was guessing since Raize hadn’t shot him yet.
Raize leaned forward. “I’ve not worked with you for years. You put down with us in there, but that don’t mean shit, and you know it. You could’ve been Estrada's man on Oscar, and now you see an opportunity to find what exactly I’m here to offer Estrada. I gotta know if I can bring you in or not.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You walk from here, and I’ll kill you the next time I see you.”
See? Killing was not something Raize cared about.
Such an asshole.
I shifted back, ignoring the look Raize sent my way.
Abram smirked. “You’re right. She hates the killing—don’t even like you threatening it. Your girl is loony. I’m saying it again, you should put her down. She’s a liability for you, amigo.”
Raize shifted, blocking me from his friend’s view. “And I’ll tell you again, shut the fuck up when it comes to her. She ain’t your business.”
I looked down as silence settled over us, except for Abram shuffling his feet in the dirt.
“I either give you my phone or I walk? Those are my two options?”
“It’s not a bullet in your skull.”
A shiver went down my spine. Raize was just… so… dead. He was back to being nothing.
“I can’t give you my phone.”
“Then start walking.”
“Is this really how you’re going to play me out? All these years? I throw down for you, and now I’m not okay with you going through my phone?”
“We have different employers.”
“You don’t know my employer!”
“Then tell me.”
I closed my eyes, holding my breath for him.
I didn’t want this guy to die, despite him saying the opposite about me, but I could feel Raize coming to a decision. If Abram said the wrong thing, he wasn’t going to walk away, despite what he’d been told. And he knew it, too. I felt that in the air as well.
It was sweltering, pressing down on us.
I reached out, not knowing my hand was going to move before it happened, before my fingers touched Raize’s back. I felt him shift, his body going hard as I trailed my fingers down, looping them into the back of his jeans and I hung there.
Two days ago, I’d never have thought to do this, but I was.
I had touched Raize of my own accord, and it settled me.
Was that why I did this?
No. I was trying to touch him, affect him. I was asking for his friend’s life. He stepped forward, dislodging my hold.
“Who’s on your phone, Abram? Who don’t you want me to see?”
Suddenly, a growl erupted from Abram, and Raize shifted, his arm flashing up.
I jumped back, biting down on a scream, and braced, expecting to hear another gunshot.
“Look through it, you fucking asshole!” Abram yelled instead. “You piece of shit, making me choose!” He paced and flailed as he kept shouting. “You threatening to take me out? Who do
you think you are? You’re not above my paygrade. You goddamn—I helped you back there. I chose you over Oscar. You. I chose you and who are you choosing—”
“Shut up.” Raize moved back to the truck.
I lifted my head to see Abram swinging his fists in the air. He paced back and forth, fists forming and unclenching. He shot daggers at Raize.
He growled, “You fucking asshole. Don’t have any feelings in you.”
Raize stopped thumbing through the phone. A sudden stillness came over him, and Abram felt it, too.
Both of us watched Raize again. A hot breeze blew over us, brushing the back of my neck, but I barely felt it. Different world, different life, I would’ve welcomed that breeze. Here, I worried what was trailing behind it.
Raize looked up at Abram. “You’re working for Estrada himself.”
Abram sighed, looking utterly defeated. “About keeled over when you threw that out, but yeah. Oscar reached out for a meet. I’m assuming he was going to tell us about you, about Macca. I knew nothing about any of that until Oscar dropped Macca’s name. We never sent Macca. He hasn’t been working for Estrada for two years. He’s sloppy. You know that.”
Raize glanced my way before returning to the phone.
The air lightened, or maybe that was just me. I could breathe easier.
Abram would keep breathing for another day.
He shook his head, rolling his eyes. “You’re seeing everything, Raize. Everything. I need something back. I want to work with you, but if you don’t reciprocate, then we got a problem.”
“I’m working for the Russians in Philly now.”
Abram was quiet. Then, “Marakov?”
Raize nodded, his thumb going back to the phone. He pressed a few buttons before he tossed it back to Abram. “I need to take Oscar out,” he said. “All of his operations.”
That perked my ears. Those girls—they could be set free.
Abram glowered, going through his phone. “You’re such a dick. You sent this shit to your phone, didn’t you? Normal guys would die for doing that.”
Raize ignored him. “Tell me the rest of Oscar’s operations. Set up a meet with my employer and Estrada.”
“Right. Yeah.” Abram’s tone was mocking. “I’ll just, you know, marry the Pope at the same time.” His eyes went mean. “What are you smoking? You left Estrada. He will kill you if he knows about you. Those were the terms, Raize. You leave and never come back. You’re violating those terms.”