by Tijan
“But if he did that? Took over the Morales Cartel?”
A darkness flared in Raize’s eyes, and he looked over my shoulder. “Then he’d come for me, and since I’m tied to Marakov, he would have to declare war against the Marakov family.”
“Will there be fallout for Roman?”
His gaze came back to me, softened, and he shook his head. “No. It’s him and his uncles now. They’re in Russia. Marco is here. They’ll follow the stronger Marakov, and that’s Roman. He gets everything and everyone now. He’s put himself and them in a position where they have to accept what he did.”
“And if Marco comes for you?”
“Then I’ll go to work.”
He pulled me up and in one motion, stripped my underwear down my legs.
He said, “Enough war talk.”
Rolling me to my back, he slid a finger into me. His mouth fell to my neck and he breathed there, his finger moving in and out of me. Pleasure and other emotions were rolling around inside of me, but for now; I let it go. I only felt him, what he could do to my body, how he could make me feel.
I was addicted to him.
My mouth found his, and I yearned for him to be inside of me.
This time felt different.
Every time with Raize was different, but right now there was an almost desperate, frenzied need to get our fill before that call would come, before the world changed again. Raize let me rest for a bit after the first time, but then he flipped me over to my knees, and he worked us both up all over again.
Carnal need pulsated between us, one that neither of us could totally satisfy.
Dawn came peeking through the windows as Raize brought us to another climax. Only then did we rest.
I shivered. What would happen if we ever fully satisfied that need?
I didn’t want to find out.
“It’s a canary.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So,” Brooke held it up and let it go. It flew away. “It’ll come back if it’s not safe out there.”
It never came back.
The neighbor’s cat killed it.
48
Raize
We stayed in West Virginia for four more months.
I hated it. Mostly.
I wanted to be traveling, working. I’d gotten used to the constant go, but this staying, waiting, it had its benefits, too.
Ash laughed more.
She relaxed.
She ate more.
Cavers took Gus on daily walks. Sometimes Ash went with him. Sometimes she played with Gus in the backyard. She liked to spend time watching the creek. A lot of time.
I think she’d started meditating down there, but I never asked.
Jake was in charge of going into town, getting food for us.
He’d also started seeing a local woman, though he thought no one knew. We all knew. He giggled when he was getting laid. We learned that.
Every time Jake came back after seeing his woman, Ash and Cavers watched me. I knew Ash was concerned that I would kill the woman. She was a liability because eventually she’d get curious about Jake, want to see where he lived, what he did for a living. Cavers just watched me to see if he needed to help in any way.
But I’d followed Jake.
I’d bugged the woman’s house, put a tracker on her vehicle, and was listening on her phone. So far she believed Jake was a traveling salesperson, and she hoped he’d marry her one day—or that’s what she told her sister about him. So far, “Brian” was satisfying her in bed.
I’d have to have a conversation with Jake soon.
I was getting restless.
I wasn’t the only one.
We were all on edge, feeling the end of our time was coming soon.
War was inevitable.
The killing would start again, but Ash, she was changing.
She had changed.
I just wasn’t quite sure how she’d changed. Not yet.
I caught her twisting a lock between her fingers a lot.
She was missing her blonde hair. It had started to return to her dark coloring again.
Then one day my phone rang.
Downer was on the other end. “You need to come back.”
49
Ash
Something was wrong.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and when Raize stepped inside, I knew I was right. He was locked down. Completely. His face was blank, and that was not good.
Seeing him now, as he looked at me, we both knew.
It was done.
I gave him a small nod, because it was time. I had no clue what was going to happen, but we all knew our time here was a momentary break.
Jake was on the floor with Gus, who was tearing apart a couple of squeaky toys as if his life depended on it. Cavers was in the kitchen, cooking dinner, but it was like everyone felt Raize’s chill. All heads lifted and all eyes went to him. He stood just inside the door, his phone in hand, and he looked right at Jake.
“You have two options.”
A chill went down my spine. He was using his ‘motherfucker’ tone, and it was directed at Jake, and Jake knew what that meant. Raize was not messing around here.
Jake stood, slowly, and his eyes got guarded. “You want to watch how you talk to me?”
Raize wasn’t deterred. He shot right back, “You want to watch how you’ve been lying to our group here?”
Jake straightened, his head shooting up and his shoulders falling back. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not just fucking her.”
Wait—what?
Cavers came into the room, a slow step until he was beside me.
A whole new level of tension filled the room, and Jake’s head fell a little. So did his voice. “You want to say that again?”
“You’re not just fucking the hair stylist in town. You’re having a relationship with her.”
Oh… No.
That was bad.
We’d kept to ourselves, or tried. I never left the property except for a walk with Cavers and even that, we kept to the woods. Ultimate privacy. Jake was sent to pick up food. He wasn’t even supposed to go in and get it. He was supposed to order it since the local grocery store had that option, pull up and they’d bring it out to the car.
A relationship?
“You’re doing that?”
Jake swung his head Cavers’ way, a bit jerky. He glared at both of us, his jaw tightening, before he lifted up a shoulder. “Yeah, man. I did that.”
“She talks to her sister about you.”
Jake’s head whipped back to Raize. “You got her phone tapped?”
I held my breath.
Raize’s voice came out cold. “Of course I tapped her phone. She knows you. She knows how you feel, taste. She’s got feelings involved and she’s going to remember you.”
“So—what? What do you want me to do about it? I ain’t killing her.”
“We’re leaving.”
That was the ball I was waiting to get dropped. I knew it now, knew why Raize was bringing up Jake’s girl. If we left, she’d remember. She might start looking, talking more, and what then? Where would that lead to?
“Damn,” a quiet word from Cavers.
Jake didn’t say a word. His jaw clamped shut and a vein stuck out from the side.
Raize’s eyes were back to being hooded. No. That wasn’t right. He was back to looking dead.
A second shiver passed through me because I’d started to hate that look. It went away at times, mostly with me, mostly in bed, but it’d been less and less the last two weeks.
I detested that it was back.
He said, staring at Jake, “You leave her behind and what’s she going to start saying to that sister of hers? Her sister is married to a probation officer.”
Jake winced. He ran a hand over his face. “I didn’t know that.”
“Because you didn’t vet who you wanted to stick your dick into.”
I closed my eyes.
&
nbsp; Cavers grunted at hearing Raize’s words, but he didn’t say anything.
“I thought, I don’t know. She’s pretty. She’s nice. She’s kinda funny.”
“She’s in love with you, hoping you’re going to ask her to move in with you.”
Cavers murmured, “She doesn’t seem the smartest bulb.”
I opened my eyes and Jake was shaking his head, his eyes downcast, and his shoulders slumped in a whole defeated way. “I can’t kill her.”
“Then what are you going to do? You can’t bring her along.”
I knew where Raize was going because Jake couldn’t kill her and in Raize’s mind, in this world, that meant he’d have to kill her. But damn. No. She was innocent. She didn’t—I stepped forward. All eyes came to me, but I was looking at my man.
I raised my eyebrows. “Does she know his name?”
“No,” Jake answered, and swiftly. “I’m not that stupid.”
I kept on, staring only at Raize, “Relationships end for all different reasons. He can tell her his mom fell ill and he’s gotta go see her. He can wait, break up with her in a week. Two weeks even.”
“She’s going to ask questions.”
I shook my head, hard.
Jake and Cavers had fallen silent. This was between Raize and me, and I was bargaining for this woman’s life.
“No,” from me.
“He ends it now, she’s going to start remembering all their past times and their past conversations. She’s going to realize she knows nothing about him and she’s going to start getting angry. She’s going to feel duped by him and that’s when she’ll start searching for him. It’ll be one internet search. She ain’t going to find a ‘Brian’ and it’s a matter of time before she’s going to pull on the string she’s got hanging in front of her.” Raize glanced at Jake. “I can’t use threats this time.”
“You kill her and that’ll set off the questions.” My chest was tight and getting tighter.
Raize already had his mind made up, but no, no, no.
I was wrong again. I thought I didn’t have any more lines left not to cross. This was it. Innocents. This was my stand.
I whispered, “She’s an innocent, Raize. No.”
He barely blinked. “She’s a loose end. The sister knows a first name and that’s it. The connection ends there.”
“No.” Jake stepped forward, his head swinging from left to right. “I go to the grocery store. The liquor store. Those have cameras. You kill her and the brother-in-law will make calls, get that footage pulled. They’ll get a face. Ash is right. We go and I tell her my mom’s got cancer. A week later, it’s real bad. I can’t get back. I’ll string her along until I’m just gone. She’ll hurt, but not in the way where she’s going to get curious and start doing google searches for me. It’ll be fine.”
“I can destroy security footage. I can’t stop a woman’s curiosity.”
He was right, but no.
Just, no.
“No, Raize.”
His jaw clenched, and he stared right at me, his eyes dropping the dead affect. They were burning, and I almost winced because it was me. I was standing in his way, and in his mind, it was his way of making me safe.
“I just got a call. We need to go back. Roman’s orders.” His gaze swept the room. “Pack up and wipe the house. We leave in an hour.” He turned to Jake. “You make that all about your mother, but do it from the road.”
I almost sagged from the relief.
He was trying my way.
Jake clipped his head in a nod and he was off to start packing.
Cavers went to do the same.
Raize came over to me, standing so close, he was touching me. His eyes were on mine. And his finger reached out, stroking my stomach through my shirt. “Your way this time.”
My throat got all full. I dropped my voice, barely a whisper, “Thank you.”
His eyes were still burning, and I knew he didn’t like it.
50
Raize
“I want to meet your whole team,” Roman had said on the phone earlier.
We’d arrived in Boston, a city that I didn’t understand why we were here, but it was where Downer told me to go. Now, an hour after that phone call, I was walking into a large mansion.
I hadn’t cared for the whole estate or the gate that I’d needed to wait to be admitted through, but I was coming alone. I was taking this victory.
I had replied, “No.”
Roman sucked in his breath and he got quiet. He got real quiet. “That’s an order from me.”
“Then you can give the order for my execution. I’m not bringing them in.”
Another beat of silence. “You’re not bringing them in, or you’re not bringing her in?”
“She’s on my team. I’ve become protective of my entire team.”
Roman chuckled. “I am not going to lie that I don’t know how to take this insubordination, and especially from you.”
I was his best.
I knew Downer was good, but I was better and it was the unspoken acknowledgement we all knew.
I wasn’t the type of employee who started to think about what he was entitled to or had earned, but I didn’t care. I was willing to risk that he wouldn’t want to lose me when I drew my line. No Ash. That was how it was going to be for me.
“Fine.” Roman sighed, then griped, “I’m allowing this one time, but I do not like having ghosts work for me. I will meet all of them at some point.”
We’d see, but I said, “Where am I meeting you?”
He gave me the coordinates and here I was, my car getting valeted and I was walking into this mansion with thirty guns around me. It was making my back itch.
I preferred our other way of meeting, in the dark, with his men in their cars, where I could disappear.
Downer met me at the door, giving me a nod before indicating I should follow him.
In every room, there were men.
The kitchen. The dining room.
I was getting déjà vu from when we went to Carloni’s home, sans the working girls.
Downer led me to a back office, also reminiscent of Carloni’s home’s layout and I stepped inside, seeing Roman standing in the corner with a phone to his ear. He turned, seeing me, and held up a finger. He went back to his conversation, and I glanced around the room.
Noting the exits.
A large window faced a pool and backyard that was tiled, with another poolhouse on the side, and a fence going all around the yard.
If I had to make a run, that was my exit. Over that fence, behind the poolhouse. I was guessing there would be the blind spot in their whole security system because the camera was facing the front of the poolhouse and there was another perched on top of the poolhouse, sweeping the backyard.
Yes. That was the blind spot.
“Raize! Welcome. Hope the trip wasn’t too exhausting.” He signed off from his call, slipping his phone into his pocket. Then he regarded me, his head cocking to the side. His eyes narrowed. “You look irritated.”
Downer snorted.
I ignored both, asking, “Why did you call me here?”
The feeling in the room shifted, grew more tense, more alarmed.
Downer had been grinning, and he was still grinning, but it was fading. His eyes were alert, trained on me. He was studying me so intently that he didn’t realize I was studying him back.
A feeling shifted in my gut.
Something had happened. Something concerning me.
Was this how Ash felt? When she just knew the answer?
I hoped not, because this feeling sucked. I didn’t like it.
“There was a hit on Morales.”
My mother? “On only Morales?”
The answer flashed in Roman’s eyes first. “Your mother was killed, too. I’m sorry, Raize.”
My mother.
I almost rocked back.
I should’ve been expecting it. A part of me had been. I knew it was a matter of time. She was M
orales’ girlfriend. Her time would come and I figured it would be a bloody end, but hearing it—that was another matter.
“My sister?”
“We don’t know. Our reports say that she was with Estrada so she’s probably alive. Or we can hope.”
“But if he did that? Took over the Morales Cartel?”
“Then he’d come for me…”
“How?” That word gutted out of me.
“Sorry?”
He knew. He winced as I asked the question, and then he pretended to misunderstand. He knew. He’d ask to know how his mother was killed if the roles were reversed.
I growled, my hands curling into fists. “Just tell me.”
His gaze went to Downer before his chin lifted and his shoulders fell back, preparing. “Morales was decapitated. His body was found hanging from a bridge. Your mother…”
Jesus.
He had to pause before he told me. That said enough.
“...they were more merciful. An execution shot to the forehead. Her body was left intact.”
Intact.
Jesus.
This world. This was my world, and I was bringing Ash more into it?
Intact.
That was a merciful killing.
I said, “It was Estrada.”
“No.” Roman started to shake his head, both his hands going into his pockets.
That was his tell, his only tell. When he got nervous or when a topic came up that he didn’t want to happen, his hands went into his pockets. I picked it up long ago, but I’d never needed it against me.
I felt every inch of me cool. I was shutting down, or ‘locking down’ as Ash would call it.
I said, slowly and softly, “Yes. No one else would move against Morales.”
“We don’t know—”
“Do not bullshit me.”
Roman froze.
I could feel Downer’s alert go up a whole other notch. He was the best who could read me, and he knew I was close to violence. Because of this, I wasn’t surprised when he said, as if soothing me, “Easy now, buddy.”