by Rebel Hart
“You were supposed to be watching the fries,” Felicity whined back at me. “I was doing the pizzas.”
“The ovens for the pizzas aren’t even on your side,” I argued. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
All the playful frustration left Felicity’s face as she stared at the course layout on the television. “Oh… Yeah, you’re right.”
“Okay. I’m going to try again. Please don’t let the fries set the whole kitchen on fire.”
She side-eyed me. “Don’t get lippy with me.” Just as I was about to hit the button to restart the level of the co-op cooking game we were playing, Felicity’s phone rang. She glanced over at it on the table next to the couch, and then sat up a little straighter. “Oh. Hang on. It’s Nico.” I sat up at attention too as she brought her phone up to her ear. “Hello? Hey.”
She stood up and walked out of the room and though I was tempted to follow her, I let her go. She preferred to have conversations isolated, I’d noticed. It was less about keeping information from me, because she always told me everything, but more about being able to focus her thoughts. All I could do was hope that his call was a sign that he’d found something.
“Concrete.” I tapped my leg. “Come here, boy.” Concrete turned his head in my direction and looked at me, but didn’t move. “Come here.” He offered a couple of blinks, but stayed in place and I snickered. “Fine. I guess I’ll come to you.” I stood up and his tail immediately started to flap, growing more excited as I closed in and sat down where Felicity had been moments before. I sat down and he did move then, but only enough to scootch forward and set his head in my lap and bear his belly. “Brat.”
I started to scratch his stomach, and in no time at all his tongue rolled out of his mouth and to the side and his eyes drifted shut again. As I laughed at him, I realized how difficult it would be to leave him when the time eventually came. I’d have to get a dog of my own as soon as could, probably one very close to Concrete. I smiled, imagining moving into a small, modest place with Cherri and getting a dog. Maybe Venom and Felicity could come and visit and bring Concrete and our dog could bond with him. Was it dangerous to dream of such a delightful life? I had very little faith that I’d ever have that kind of life, but it didn’t keep me from wishing for it.
“Hey,” Felicity said, walking back into the room.
“Hi,” I said. “Any news?” She frowned, and that was enough of an answer. “No luck, huh?”
“Connor’s proving slipperier than he thought,” she said. “He’s coming up short, but he’s going to keep trying.”
“I know we agreed that we’d leave Nathan out of this, but the information he has could be really useful. Maybe we should reach out to him,” I said.
“That’s a last resort option,” Felicity replied. “Let’s give Nico a little more time and then if it really feels like he’s not getting anywhere, we can consider it.”
“Fine,” I said.
“There is something though,” Felicity said. “Something else I’m hoping you’ll keep a secret from your dad.”
“Okay?”
“There was a place he used to go. A trade show of sorts. It’s masked to look like a car show, but it was something of an underground black market. They use these flashy cars and all their money to hide just about any illegal business. Nasty stuff. Trafficking. Drugs. Embezzling. Blackmail. Murder for hire. If it would be considered a felony, you can find someone there who will do it,” Felicity said.
“Connor has to have used a place like that,” I said.
Felicity nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking too. Garret wouldn’t tell me where to find it, but Nico did.”
“Wait… You’re gonna go? That’s gotta be insanely dangerous,” I said.
She punched my arm lightly. “Maybe, but I can take care of myself. Plus, it would be worth it if it meant we could get a solid lead on Connor.”
“Let me come with you then,” I said.
She glared at me. “We agreed—”
“I know, but we also agreed we were going to work together,” I retorted. “If Venom knew I let you go somewhere he didn’t want you to go, alone, he’d break my legs. I’m not letting you go alone. Either we both go, or neither of us.”
She watched me quietly for a few minutes, and her jaw flexed and relaxed in a pattern while she considered it. Finally, she blew air out of her nose and nodded. “Okay. We’ll go together.”
My stomach actually lurched a little at the thought. It’d been a little while since either of us had mentioned Connor or looking for him, and July was officially underway. I’d very nearly tricked myself into thinking that this was just the life I was living. I was just a normal kid living with his mom and adorable pit bull, doing chores around the house, and getting a little too into co-op video games.
But no.
Reality came crashing back into me and it made me anxious, but also reminded me of what I was doing in the first place. I had a family to get back to, a real one. My mother, my brother, my best friend, and the love of my life. They were waiting for me and this was an active effort to move in that direction. I was glad for the opportunity. We turned off the video game and each spent a little bit of time showering and getting ready, then we fed Concrete and left in Felicity’s hot rod.
Not surprisingly, the car show took place at night, and instead of being at a convention center like a regular show might be, this one was outside in something akin to a warehouse district close to the coast. Like a scene out of a movie, everyone filing into the show was receiving a mask to wear, likely to protect identities. I was shocked when I saw some police officers standing around, but the booze most of them were working on and scantily clad women dancing around them led me to believe they were dirty cops paid by some powerful men to keep things orderly.
I was slightly nervous that getting in would be difficult, but Felicity knew the right things to say to the guy guarding the entrance, and then we received our masks and were allowed inside. It was helpful that, despite being 18, my muscular stature and overgrown facial hair made me look older, and I kept close to Felicity as she led me further in.
“Okay,” she whispered to me when we were safely inside. “It would probably be best for you to not be seen asking about Connor, even if your face is covered. I’ll ask about him, I just need you to stay back and stay discreet.”
“I don’t want to do nothing,” I said. “I’ll ask around too, I just won’t ask about Connor.”
“Deon, that’s not a good idea. He could have people here. If you even ask about something related, you could end up getting caught,” Felicity said.
“The same is true for you. It’s not like Connor doesn’t know who you are.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t want to just be passive in my own fate anymore. I want to do something.” There was more hesitation in her expression than I’d seen up to that point, and I could tell she really didn’t want me to do it. “We spend less time here if we divide and conquer. We each hit up a few places, ask a few questions, and then get the hell out of here before any dust kicks up.”
She took a deep breath in, held it, and then let it out. “Okay, but Deon, you have to swear to me that if anything seems suspicious, even a little bit, that you find me so we can get out of here. I mean, if someone lingers on you for more than a few seconds, you need to tell me.”
“I will. I promise,” I said. “Same goes for you.”
Felicity did a little side-step, like she wasn’t certain she wanted to leave, but eventually she walked away, and I did the same. The entire yard was arranged like a car show with beautiful, luxurious cars spaced all around. Display boards were set up with stats for each of the cars, but no one was looking at them. Everyone was mingling and talking to one another, and the people that seemed to be informants for the cars were at the center of all the attention. No one was in the market for a car, so it was just a matter of figuring out which industries were which.
Thinking about Connor, there was one as
pect of his life I’d had more than my fair share of experience with, and that was the number of women that he used to his personal gain. I wasn’t an idiot—Connor was a good-looking man—but word spreads fast in a small town like Postings. Not only that, but Felicity was a woman from well outside of Postings, and just so happened to be a woman in a very specific, very useful capacity. The same was true for my mom, Connor’s former wife Alicia, and Miss Abrams at Postings Proper High School. Somehow, Connor was digging up women who were of use to him in very specific ways.
So I was looking for a trafficker of some sort, potentially someone who trafficked specific women’s information without them knowing, as opposed to the women themselves.
I wandered around for a bit, standing near the back of different conversations and listening for anything that sounded like what I was looking for. The different things I heard made my stomach turn. More than anything, I just wanted to leave and get away from all of those deplorable people before I ended up punching someone in the face, but I kept my family in the back of my mind, both the one I had currently and the one that was waiting for me back home, and resolved myself so that I could find the information I needed.
Finally, I came across a man in a rather high-scale suit, standing near a brand new Mercedes. Unlike a vast majority of the other cars, there were only men situated around this one, and very few of them were discreet about watching the women walking around. I was surprised more of them weren’t salivating.
I approached the collection of people and got close enough to stand near the back of the current conversation taking place.
“So, you’re sure she’s the right one?” One man asked the suited man.
“Sir, trust me on this. Not only is she beautiful, but she’s got a sick mother. Once you’ve spent enough time, she’ll do just about anything to get the money she needs for her care,” the suited man said.
The guy talking to him smiled. “Perfect.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash and peeled about ten, one-hundred dollar bills off the wad and handed them over. In exchange he received a manila envelope and the suited man gave him a knowing nod. “Best of luck.”
The man took his envelope and walked away and then the suited man turned his attention to me. “Why hello.”
“Hi.” Even though I didn’t see anyone who I thought would recognize me, I wanted to use as few words as possible, just in case.”
“Are you in the market for a beautiful car today?” he said.
“Possibly,” I replied. “I’m browsing.”
The man took a step back and raised an eyebrow. “Browsing?”
“Yes.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was looking at me and then turned back to face the suited man. “A teacher possibly.”
He crossed his arms and I got the funny feeling I’d done or said something wrong, though I wasn’t sure what. “I’m not in the business of teachers anymore. Not since all of that mess in Postings.”
My heart started to beat a little faster. I was in the right place at least. If I could just get the guy to relax a bit, I’d be in a better spot. “That’s a shame. I’d pay well for one.”
The man looked over my shoulder and nodded his head. I glanced back in the direction he was looking and saw two masked people staring back at me. In a slow-motion, heart pounding moment, one of them reached up and lifted the mask on his face up, revealing that he was one of the two who’d captured and tortured me before I managed to escape.
Shit.
I turned and looked back at the suited man and raised an eyebrow. “I guess you don’t want my business.”
He smiled. “You’re right. I don’t.”
With that, I slid away from the area and started to scan the crowd for Felicity. It was harder with everyone masked, so I simply kept an eye out for her signature braids and the dark blue dress she’d worn. As I turned a corner, I risked a look to my right and saw that the two people, including one of my former captors, was still following me. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, but maybe Felicity was right, it was a bad idea to ask around.
Eventually, I came to a bustling corner of the show and saw Felicity standing amongst the fray. I tried not to raise any eyebrows as I slid and pushed my way towards her, and instead of reaching out to grab her, I just moved and stood at her side.
“Felicity?” I asked.
She turned and looked at me. “Hey. You good?”
“Um, not really,” I replied. “Remember when you told me to come find you if I ran into any trouble?”
“Yeah,” she said, nervousness in her voice.
I looked over her. “Well this is me finding you.”
15
Cherri
No one mentioned the dead end we found for a handful of days. Though none of us were willing to say it, I think the same one thing was true for all of us.
We weren’t expecting to still be searching for answers a month later.
Sicily was still trying to work his way through the muddle of information he ran into from the unknown number that had called Nathan and I, which turned out to be how Deon was communicating with Nathan, but the information he was getting was hard to stick to anything. The only thing he’d learned was that a majority of the pings from the number were in and around Maine, which meant Deon was likely still in the state, but he had no idea where. Just being in Maine was useless to us.
The road we’d followed with Brayden trying to find Connor had hit the same brick wall. Wherever Connor had been meeting with Brayden, it had been totally cleaned out. Apparently Connor was a man who liked to cover his bases.
Who knew?
Brayden had mentioned that there were a few different places he’d been brought to, but none of them sat as clearly in his mind as the one we’d found and now knew was of no use to us. We had made a couple of attempts that same day we hit the first dead end to find something else—it was Brayden’s way of trying to keep us all from getting too down in the dumps—but nothing led anywhere near as concrete.
Suddenly, it felt like we had nothing.
Stalemate.
A knock on my door pulled my attention over, and I looked up to see Nathan walking into the room. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
Nathan walked in and sat down in the chair sitting at the desk and spun it to face me. “How you doing?”
“I’m okay. I just feel… out of options,” I said. “I feel like we’re no closer to finding Connor or Deon than we were a month ago.” Nathan slid his hands into his dark brown hair. It’d gotten much longer since we were dating. “You taking a stand against haircuts?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Nah. My therapist and I talked about it. I’ve always liked my hair longer, and Nikki likes it long, but it’s more of a control thing. It’s one thing I have control over, whether or not I cut my hair.” He laughed. “I know that sounds dumb.”
“No.” I smiled at him. “Are you really seeing a therapist?”
He nodded. “Yeah. It’s been great. I mean… I needed it.”
“I’d say so,” I responded.
“My dad used to do strange shit,” he said suddenly. “He’d blindfold me, or bind my hands, and I usually had to pass some test or recall specific information before he’d let me out. He said that if I had pressure to get the information right, I always would. He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t even realize until I started going to therapy how much I’d repressed that stuff. I’d forgotten.”
“That’s probably why you always felt like the best way to communicate was to trap who you were talking to,” I said.
He nodded. “So I’ve discovered. Not doing that is hard. It’s scary not being able to control everything in my world, but I know now how unhealthy that is.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“I saw how disturbed you got when I said something about the blindfold,” Nathan replied. “I… want us to be close again, Cherri. Not romantically, but you’re important to
me. I want to be open and honest with you.” He shrugged. “I mean, you’ll probably be my sister-in-law… someday I think.”
“Oh god. I will have dated my children’s—”
“Nope,” Nathan cut me off. “We’re not going to talk about that… ever.”
I laughed. “Fair.”
He stood up from the chair and tapped me. “Come on. I’ve set up a dinner meeting for all of us. Hopefully it’ll help you not to feel so lost.”
“Okay.” I stood up and Nathan started to walk away, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. My heart started to pound a bit faster, but I closed in on Nathan and wrapped my arms around him in a hug. He hugged me back, and I could feel in the way he squeezed that it was just as needed for him as it was for me. I stepped away and laughed. “Sorry.
“No,” he said. “Don’t be. Our first real hug. That was awesome.”
“Agreed.”
Bit by bit, all the tension that I’d built up was easing. I missed Deon and couldn’t wait to have him home, but I was happy to be getting close with my “royal” family while I waited.
We met up with the rest of The Royal Court and we split up into a few different cars to drive to one of our favorite pasta restaurants in downtown Postings. A table had been reserved, and we were ushered to it in a back, private room as soon as we arrived. We sat around the table starting with Nathan, then Nikita, Jaxon, Colette, Kyle, Brayden, Alistair, Avery, me, and Sicily, and then there were two open chairs between Nathan and Sicily. Water in crystal goblets were at each seat, and there was a large basket of a few different types of bread at the table.
“Surprise guests?” Alistair said.
Nathan nodded. “Hopefully they can help us glean a little more information.”
We made idle chatter and enjoyed the bread and butter until, eventually, two more people were brought back to the private room. The woman was medium-height, with shoulder-length light brown hair, and a dark blue cocktail dress showing off a fit, toned body. She was beautiful, no question, but the most unique feature about her were her eyes, which were a sparkling green. The left moved around naturally, taking in the different people at the table, but the right, though realistic-looking, wasn’t moving at all.