I wish I could have him help me with Chaz Malone, but I couldn't ask him for that. Then I would have to tell him what I was doing, and I couldn't afford to have any single person knowing my true identity. Not yet. He'd be a good ally though, in the future maybe. Man, sometimes keeping secrets sucked.
I actually walked into the Anderson building like a normal human being this time and got on the elevator like I had actual business and everything. Worst mistake ever, that elevator was slow as hell. Lurching and groaning between every floor. The guy was as rich as an oil tycoon, couldn't he afford to upgrade the damn elevator? I finally got to the third floor, but I would never get that ten minutes of my life back for fuck’s sake. And when I opened the door to the lobby, Jeanette wasn't in there, which was weird.
Jeanette was always there.
Gabe may have been flaky about business hours of nine to five, but a person could set their clock to Jeanette's habits, and for her not to be there was a warning sign to me. Another piece of that shitty puzzle clicking into place. The lobby was spooky and empty without Jeanette there, but before I could cross the room to knock on Gabe's office door, it opened by itself and out popped Angel.
"I thought I heard the lobby door, oh it's just you." She narrowed her eyes at me and her lips pursed together like she had swallowed something sour. She was going to be mad about what I told Jesse forever.
"Hey Angel," I said, ignoring her obvious irritation and opting for friendly. "Is Jeanette in there?"
Her irritation turned to murder as she came at me too fast to prepare. Her tiny fist thumped off my shoulder as she stood directly in front of me and gesticulated wildly, her voice hitting the high notes as she read me the riot act for some shit I had no idea I did.
"Did you do that to her? Are you the reason why she was crying? I will choke the piss out of you, you sonofabitch!" And she socked me again, right in the stomach. I wasn't prepared for that either, but it still didn't hurt. Me anyway. Angel howled with pain and stuck her knuckles in her mouth, trying to soothe the hurt.
Someone needed to teach her how to punch. You don't lead with your knuckles, for Christ sake.
Gabe came flying out the door behind her, sans jacket and with the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone, tie nowhere to be seen. It didn't take a sleuth to figure out what they had been up to. Gross, I sat on that couch. It wasn’t the appropriate time to give Gabe and Angel a hard time for getting busy at the office though. The things Angel was screaming at me triggered warning bells in my head.
What had happened?
Where was Jeanette?
Why the fuck was she crying?
I would smoke out whoever did it and throw them in the giant pile of people I planned on kicking the shit out of. And I didn't need to be in character to do it.
Gabe saved me from another painless thump by grabbing Angel by the arms and hauling her back against his chest in a backward bear hug. "Easy, gunpowder," he chastised as he gave her a quick kiss on the top of the head. "Dino had nothing to do with this. At least this time. I'm sure he's pissed her off a thousand different ways, but today was something different."
"What happened?" I met Gabe's gaze over the top of Angel's blonde head and let my eyes do the talking.
"Why do you want to know?"
"One, because I want to. Two, because Jeanette is now my next assignment," I said the last part through gritted teeth, "from Chaz Malone." I added, to hammer the point home, "And you know if he is involved it means dangerous, so let's not fuck around with giving me a hard time and help me out here."
Sarcastic, bust Dino's balls time was over. I could tell by the way Gabe's posture changed as he abruptly let go of Angel and stepped in front of her. "Start talking."
"This is sensitive information, man," I said, eyeing Angel. I mean, I didn’t want to be a dick but he knew better than anyone that you had to watch what you said in front of civilians. Damn, he hadn't been out of the field for that long. He should know better.
"I will kick you in the fucking nuts, Dino, I swear to God."
I wasn't afraid of Angel, exactly, it's just that she was kind of unpredictable and I didn't want to be in range of those shiny-ass shitkickers she was sporting today. "Dino, we don't have time for this, and I don't want to keep Angel in the dark about this anymore. Because if it has to do with Jeanette it will at some point have something to do with me. I'm not letting Angel go unprepared if that's the case. You are going to have to say it in front of her."
Yeah. Okay, we'd see how well that went over.
"You don't have to say anything that will blow your cover, Dino, but I'm assuming you came here because you don't want to do whatever it is Chaz wants you to do, right?" I could only nod my head. This sharing of information shit was hard. I needed to keep my own issues on lockdown, but I would still have to share more than I wanted to in front of Angel, however, I would do it. I would do it to keep Jeanette safe, whatever her deal was.
Letting my head fall back in exasperation I made sure the sigh was loud enough that Angel heard it. I don't know why I had so much fun poking at her. I mean, I knew why I poked at Jeanette all the time. Because inside I was a twelve-year-old boy and needed to pick on the girl I liked. With Angel it was kind of like pulling the pigtails of your little sister. She made funny faces when she was mad. I probably should apologize for telling the bartender at Nasta's she pissed her pants though. It was literally the first thing that popped into my head to excuse her running out in the middle of a set. I did the best I could, but Angel didn't see the forest for the trees. She was focusing on that one damned tree and would probably hate me forever.
People hating me? Yeah, I was used to that. My own sister didn’t like me very much either. Vanessa did the best she could though, she couldn't help that our family situation was shit.
"Last Friday, when Jeanette left me at the auction, she was mistaken for someone else." I sat my ass down in one of the lobby chairs, because this was going to take a while. Angel sat down across from me, and Gabe went over to the lobby door and made sure it was shut tight. I heard the lock click and was grateful to him for thinking about it. We didn't need to be interrupted while I was leaking information. "It scared the hell out of her though. She managed to shake the guy and tell him he was mistaken, but she couldn't get her shit together after that and she legit dipped on me right after we got there. I mean, I drove us there and she had to have called a ride to come get her, that was how wrecked she was after seeing this guy."
"You think she recognized the guy?"
"I'm pretty sure she did. You don't get that spooked from a stranger calling you the wrong name." I leaned forward, keeping my voice low. I knew Gabe had the room soundproofed but old habits die hard. "The guy from that night was a real wiener, like he couldn't scare kids in a haunted house with full serial killer makeup. I didn’t think too much of it until I got called into a meeting with Chaz today. That guy was there, and so was someone else" I took a deep breath before adding the part that was going to throw a sense of urgency on the whole situation.
"Gabe, it was a cop."
There wasn't much more that guys like Gabe and I hated more than a dirty cop. Gabe was ex-Special Forces – an army man. I was ex-FBI – both government soldiers but we executed our jobs in a different capacity. But the police force was the first line of home defense. They protected citizens at the street level while the rest of us had to focus on a broader picture. The police were the ones that were supposed to protect our parents and our siblings and God help us, our kids if we were lucky enough to have any. If you couldn't trust the police, then who was left?
Gabe was nothing but silent and brooding as I told him everything I knew about the meeting with Chaz, leaving out the part about him pulling me off of my current assignment, roughing up the Affini's. Gabe and Angel went to the restaurant all the time, I knew. I didn't want them to try to contact the family – not when I was so close. Gabe's expression got darker and darker, until I got to the part about the
photograph and wrapping up the conversation I handed it over.
He took it from me and stared at it for a minute, saying nothing. Then he slapped it against his leg, yelled "fuck" and then fisted his hands in his hair and let his head hang low over his knees. Angel, who had remained silent through the whole story glanced over at Gabe in alarm. I had to echo her sentiment, seeing Gabe react so strongly to the photo meant David Ashley was probably on the right track and Jeanette was really this Gabriella Hensley. If that was the case, she really was in danger of being found, and I needed to know what Gabe knew.
Like, now.
"What do you know, man?" I tried to remain impassive, but the gravelly quality of my voice gave away how serious I was taking his answer.
"This shit does not leave this office."
"Yeah, that's a given." This wasn't my first rodeo for fuck’s sake. I'm a professional.
"I'm not talking to you, Dino," Gabe said, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Angel, and this was probably the first time I had ever seen him focus that stare on her. Normally when he looked at Angel it was either lust on his face or something gooier like hearts and flowers and shit. This was Gabe's business look. He wasn't fucking around.
"I won't. I promise," Angel whispered. She meant it too, I could tell from the size of her eyes. She's never seen this side of Gabe before. Well, she was about to see something interesting, serious working Gabe was a force to be reckoned with.
Gabe looked at the photo in his hand again and scrubbed his face over his hands. He took a deep breath, and with a voice as serious as a prison sentence he began, "When I first found this girl, you would not be able to tell she was the person in this photograph." He closed his eyes and swallowed, something about the memory was making it difficult for him to continue, but he regained his composure quickly.
"I've done two tours overseas and I have worked some shitty security jobs where people have gotten roughed up. I have never seen a woman beaten so badly in my entire life. Not in movies, not in pictures, not ever." Gabe stared down at the floor, his eyes focusing on nothing, remembering some unnamed horror from a time years ago.
"Her eyes were completely red from the blood vessels being broken, her nose was broken, and her mouth was ripped up. I don't mean she had a cut lip, I mean somebody hit her so hard it ripped her smile open on the edges. The cuts had started to scab over, and she could barely talk without ripping them open and bleeding again. And that was just her face. Multiple contusions, her arms and legs were covered in spots where the blood was pooling below the skin. Her right arm was broken, I could fucking tell by how it was hanging down next to her body. She looked like a fucking crime scene, man. There was blood in her hair that was days old. With her broken arm she couldn't even wash it out. I was on a job looking for someone buying stolen goods on the internet. I found her by accident, you guys. Fucking accident."
His hands were trembling where they gripped his thighs tightly. He was still looking at something incredibly interesting on the floor as he spoke, like he couldn't bring himself to look either of us in the eyes as he told the story. Angel was silent, but she had her hand over her mouth, as if to keep the expletives inside, her eyes shiny with emotion. A dull roar was building in my ears. I could still hear Gabe talking but his words were coming from a million miles away.
"If I hadn't found her she would have bled out. She had internal bleeding and there was a lot of damage in other areas too. There was tearing in her...in her...” and Gabe gave up trying to explain. He couldn't say the words, just gesture with his arms towards the lower regions of his body. We fucking knew what he was trying to say and as the implications sank in my vision grayed on the edges and then blurred red.
"Why wasn't she in the hospital? Why didn't she call an ambulance? How did you even know to look for her?" Angel asked the questions in a hushed tone, like she was afraid to get the answers, but I wanted to know as well. Why? Why didn't she get help?
"I was looking for someone who had been trying to buy illegal goods online, and she had been, but she wasn't the one I was looking for. The first and only time I have quit a job I'd taken. There was no way I could leave her like that. No way I could ignore it. She was hiding. She was on the run. She'd fucking driven like that coming from God knows where in a car she had to have paid almost her last cash dollar for, it was falling a-fucking-part. She was afraid to be found. If she went to the hospital whoever did that to her would find her. She was running away and bleeding to death slowly the entire time. I don't even know how she checked into that fucking motel looking like that – but it was a complete dirt hole so maybe they saw shady shit all the time. She had been searching on the Silk Road to find someone who would sell her a new identity. She was looking for something she could tell an emergency room that wouldn't ring any red flags if they looked up her name."
"Like hell! Just looking at her like that would have any hospital anywhere calling the cops to come check her out! Waiting to get help wasn't saving her life, she could have died," I bellowed. Yelling at both of them, at no one, at the thought of Jeanette lying battered and bloody somewhere near death I couldn't control my rage.
"Man, she didn't know what the fuck she was doing. I'm surprised she could even see, much less think straight. I've never seen someone so afraid in my entire life. I got her to the hospital where I knew people. I had to pull some fucking strings for that too – because she was so damaged even me having governmental pull at the time was not going to make it work. While she was there I got her wrapped up tight like she was in the witness protection program. You look up Jeanette Clary you get a social security number and a full fucking back history right down to the hospital she was born at and high school transcripts.
“And even after that. After the surgery and the recovery and the one million questions that the doctors and nurses and even myself asked, she wouldn’t tell us who did that to her. She would not give up her name or his. For all I knew she could have been jumped by a gang, that’s how bad her injuries were. I couldn’t wrap my head around them being inflicted by one person. No matter what kind of security I could offer her, and there was no way I could let her recover on her own, she wouldn’t tell me who she was. So, she became Jeanette Clary, and I helped her. Because no matter what kind of person she had been before, no one deserved what had happened to her. It makes me sick thinking about it, even this many years later.”
Finished for the time being, Gabe did look up then, piercing me with eyes so hard his stare felt like a gut punch. “I won’t let anyone have her. Not a dirty cop, not Chaz Malone, and not you either. I don’t know what game you are playing with Chaz, but Jeanette doesn’t get to be a pawn. If I think you are a danger to her, I’ll take you out too.”
I exploded, launching myself out of the chair and before I could even stop to think about it I planted my fist in his midsection, channeling all of my rage into the blow. He grunted and stepped back a few feet but didn’t fall. He must have been practicing because normally I was tougher than Gabe. I should know, we’d gone a few rounds before. For funsies.
This time though, I was furious. Ignoring Angel’s pissed off yell of surprise I let loose. “Why the fuck do you think I’m here, you asshole? I came here FIRST. Not to talk to you, but to talk to her. I had to make up some fictional relationship with Jeanette so Chaz wouldn’t think it was weird that I was stuck to her like glue. Because I’m gonna be, you dick, so fuck you with your savior complex, I got this.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about that for a minute, shall we?” Gabe countered, yelling back because sometimes it feels good to yell and I had really pushed his buttons with the savior complex comment. He for sure had one, but apparently didn’t like to be called out on it. “Why are you working with Chaz Malone? I get you have some personal project you are working on, but it’s been like a year, man, and I don’t see you getting any closer to whatever it is you are trying to do. I just see you running around town being a douche lackey. What is your operative? Tell me,
and maybe I can help you.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not just about me, okay? It’s a family thing. Yeah, it’s a really weird situation, and most of them are kind of shits, but my Nonna is an angel. A fucking saint. And if there is a threat to her I’m gonna take care of it any way I can, alright? That’s all I can tell you because I haven’t been able to figure out the end game and I can’t fix the problem if I don’t know the cause.”
“Your Nonna?” Angel asked, a confused look on her face.
“It’s Italian for grandmother,” I told her absentmindedly.
“You love your grandmother?”
“Yeah, who the fuck doesn’t love their grandmother?” Angel had lost her mind, why was she asking me those weird questions?
“All right so let me ask you this,” Gabe asked, sitting down again and stretching his legs out, much calmer now that we had gotten our yelling out. “If you are so busy with your current undercover operation, what makes you think you can take care of Jeanette?”
“Because I want to.” And that should be enough, I thought.
“Why?” Gabe asked, and the small little half smile he was trying to hide behind his hand was pissing me off.
“Because I fucking care about her, you shit!” I yelled, still standing because I was too mad and hopped up on adrenaline to sit back down. “I don’t have the right to care about anybody, not with how I am. And I know it’s a fucked-up situation and I know pretty much everything about me is a lie, but I care about her and I’m not going to let some dirty fucking lowlife douche who doesn’t deserve the uniform he wears to hurt her in any fucking way.”
I wasn’t even done talking before I was tackled about the middle by a flurry of boobs and blonde curls. At first, I thought she was trying to take me down, but then I realized that Angel was hugging me.
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