by Alison Ryan
Emerson Titan was a name I knew, a larger than life playboy with a mountain of cash and a penchant for rubbing elbows with every famous person on the planet. It never occurred to me that a man like that might have children. But my hunch had been correct. Odin was Emerson’s son.
Atlas had approached me in the parking lot in front of my building as I arrived home at my condo, walking up to me with his open hands raised to demonstrate that he meant me no harm.
It was early afternoon, and there were people around, though nobody I knew well, so I felt that if he had anything sinister in mind, the presence of witnesses, including children, would dissuade him.
Then he’d made his proposal. He wanted me to be Odin’s personal physician. For a year.
“That’s quite an offer, especially since you’ve completely blindsided me. May I ask how you knew where I lived? Or who you are?” I had my phone in one hand and my keyring through the fingers of my balled fist in the other. I wasn’t going to go easily if something bad went down, although I didn’t expect the human grizzly bear in front of me to fall for any of the self-defense tricks I’d picked up in seminars going back to my college days.
“I’m sorry. My name is Atlas. Atlas Titan. I’m in a bit of a bind here. You worked on my brother yesterday, I’m sure you remember. I made a bit of a scene.”
I nodded and maintained eye contact, looking for any hint of malice.
“It’s… complicated. You know about Odin. They say he’s out of immediate danger, but he’s comatose. And he isn’t out of danger, not really. The people who put him in that coma wanted him dead, not hospitalized. It’s only a matter of time before they move on him again. So I need help. I have other people I can contact, but you’re intimately familiar with his situation. And I don’t want to have to move him far. I have a place, a safe place, we can take him. But I need an answer quickly. Immediately.”
Atlas scanned our surroundings as we chatted, and I looked him over. The resemblance to his brother was unmistakable, but where Odin’s physique was lean and toned, more like a swimmer, Atlas had muscles in place I’d never seen before, and I’d seen countless people in every state of dress and undress during my career. It was all a bit too much for me, although I had friends who were really into the whole beefcake thing. Odin’s body was more the type that lit my fire, if even the slightest spark remained. Sadly, where my sex drive, and even my heart, had once resided, was just a hollow, empty place now.
“A million dollars?” I asked, sure I’d misunderstood him.
“That’s about all I can get my hands on right now. If it’ll cost more to acquire your services, consider the million a down payment and give me a day or two to arrange something,” Atlas said, matter-of-factly.
Who were these people?
I had plenty of money, especially since I’d downsized my life after losing Callum, but a million dollars was still a million dollars. Goodbye student loans, goodbye car payment, and goodbye credit card bills, with plenty left over. Besides, I was intrigued by the whole situation. Life as an ER doctor had lost its novelty some time ago, and I’d been considering transferring to another department or into private practice. The million could set me up very nicely if and when I needed my own space.
“I just might be interested, Mr. Titan. But if your brother is in danger, why not just have the police post a guard at his door?”
Atlas narrowed his gaze and stared at me for a moment, with an intensity that made me squirm.
“Going to the police would be just like killing Odin myself. The man who shot him is an ex-FBI agent. Probably tipped off by a mole in local law enforcement,” Atlas said flatly. “If he was feeling up to it, I’d have my brother on a flight out of here right now. Out of the country. But it’s too risky. I can protect him here, but it has to be on my terms.”
“What? The FBI? The police? Why would I help you? Why wouldn’t I turn you in myself?” I asked.
“In our world, it isn’t as simple as ‘the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black hats’. A badge is a good indicator that the person wearing it is all about justice and doing the right thing, but money and power are strong motivators. My team identified the shooter, and he’s an ex-FBI man. I’ve dealt with him before. If this all seems very cloak and dagger, that’s because it is. I’m a SEAL. I was a covert operative for the United States government. There are people in power who don’t want what’s best for you, for me, the American people, or pretty much anybody but themselves. Those are the bad guys. And those are the people hunting my family. I need your help, and I’m willing to compensate you more than fairly for it. But if you aren’t interested or aren’t able to be all the way in, don’t worry about it; you’ll never see me or hear from me again. But if you want to get involved, the time is now. I need a decision.”
I considered everything Atlas said to me, and I reached a decision, one I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t wind up regretting.
“How would the money work? And where would we be? Working, I mean.”
He produced a key from his pocket.
“You bank at First Nevada Savings and Loan, correct? I’m guessing the branch down the street? I just came from there. They have two safe deposit boxes with a combined million dollars of cash inside. It’s in your name and mine. You can go see it now, if you’d like. If we have a deal, we’ll go into the bank and do the paperwork to have my name taken off the boxes. It’ll be all yours. As for where, I can’t divulge that until I’m certain you’re on board. We’re removing Odin from the hospital tonight. I’m hopeful it will be into your care.”
“I guess I should stop being surprised at what you know, since you seem to know everything about me, but yes, of course that’s where I bank,” I replied.
“I’ll follow you there, then,” Atlas stated, climbing back into his black SUV.
I hesitated a moment, then threw caution to the wind. This whole thing sounded like an adventure, something I’d never had time for, whether as Ms. Clara Martin or as Dr. Clara O’Grady. I nodded my assent, got back in my car, and within minutes we were standing in the bank parking lot.
I had no experience with bank deposit boxes, so Atlas walked me through the process of legally and privately visiting one’s own treasures and he handed me the keys. I went through bank protocol and was shortly alone in a small room with two lock boxes.
With trembling hands that betrayed my normally steely surgeon’s resolve, I opened the first box. Inside, I found stacks upon stacks of hundred dollar bills, bundles of $10,000 each. The second box was identical.
“This is either the luckiest day of your life or you’re the dumbest smart person on Earth, Clara,” I spoke the words out loud while flipping through a bundle I’d removed from the second box.
I put everything back in order and thanked the branch manager for his assistance. Atlas was waiting for me outside.
“I agree to your terms. But I need the rest of the afternoon to tie up some loose ends in my life and at work. If you’re serious about all this, just tell me how it works, where you need me and when.”
Atlas smiled. He looked relieved.
Maybe I had agreed to this too quickly.
“Odin will leave the hospital tonight at 9:00 PM in an ambulance from a medical center in North Las Vegas. He’ll be transported to a house on the east side of town. I want you in that ambulance. Once he’s dropped off, he’ll be in your care. I’m having a room set up right now as identical to his room at MULV as I can get it, but I’d like you to come by and see if it has everything you need. You’ll also have an apartment on site, near enough that you’re never too far from Odin if he needs you, but so that you can have your privacy as well. You’ll be living with us for as long as this takes. I’ll make arrangements for your condo to be kept clean and current. It’ll be just as you leave it later today.”
Atlas handed me a cell phone and he unlocked it, showing me a memo inside with an address, and gate code, along with phone numbers next to four names, “Atlas,
” “Piper,” “Mallory,” and “Nathaniel.”
“This is the address of the house. Obviously, I’m Atlas. Piper is my fiancée. Mallory is Odin’s girlfriend. Nathaniel will be handling security. He’ll report to me directly. But I want you to feel free to voice any concerns you may have. By the way, Piper is pregnant, and you’ll be handling her pre-natal care and delivery if things with Odin drag on that long. I’ll set you up to coordinate with her personal doctor.”
I’d delivered babies before, but I was certainly no obstetrician. “How far along is… Piper? I have some experience delivering babies, but I’m by no means an expert.”
“You’ll do great,” Atlas assured me, ignoring my question. “I have to go. Take care of what you have to and get to that address when you can so we can get you set up prior to Odin’s arrival. Let’s conclude our business inside.”
With that, Atlas and I went back into the bank and filled out the necessary forms to make me the only living soul with access to the two boxes containing a combined one hundred stacks of one hundred Benjamin Franklins.
As I watched Atlas drive away, I couldn’t help but wonder who these Titans were, that they could trust such a pile of cash to someone they barely knew and who hadn’t yet done a thing to earn the bonanza. Then I remembered how Atlas had found me, knew where I banked, and knew that I was unattached. “Vetted,” indeed. They knew more than enough about me to know I wasn’t going anywhere with their money until I’d performed the duties required of me.
I went home and drafted a letter packed with as much information as I could think of regarding the Titans and the entire situation. I placed it, along with the bank keys, into an envelope which I hand delivered to my attorney. I told him that I’d check in with him every two weeks and that if I failed to do so, to open the envelope and to contact the police. He agreed and placed the packet in his office safe.
The hospital was my next stop, and over protests from the hospital administrator and several co-workers, I set up a leave of absence with human resources. My final stop was home to pack, and then I’d make the drive across town to the address I’d been given. It was already approaching 7:00PM, and time was running short to make things ready for Odin’s arrival.
I took a final long look around my living room and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Was I really doing this? Was I out of my mind? Yes, and maybe yes. My stomach felt like it did the first time I stood at the edge of the diving board at summer camp. Everything was about to change.
5
Clara
GPS led me to a street just off Las Vegas Boulevard, between the Stratosphere Tower and downtown. The Strip in that area is a stretch of pawn shops, bail bondsmen, strip clubs, and tacky souvenir shops. An area I did my best to avoid.
Two blocks east, however, and I was in an eclectic neighborhood of older homes with retro architecture. No two properties seemed to share a theme or even a lot size; it was a haphazard collection including houses that could have fit into one of the poorer sections of West Las Vegas abutting mini-mansions behind gates, complete with tasteful desert landscaping.
I checked the address and pulled up to a large ranch-style property that sat on more acreage than most. A wrought-iron fence, painted white, surrounded the house. The driveway held two Range Rovers. I began to follow the gate code instructions Atlas had given me, but before I could enter any of the digits, the automatic gate slid open and the garage door past the SUVs lifted to welcome me.
No sooner had I pulled in than the garage door dropped behind me and Atlas emerged from inside the house, accompanied by a pregnant woman and an older, grizzled-looking man.
“Hello, Doc,” Atlas greeted me. “This is my fiancée, Piper, and this is Nathaniel, he’s head of on-site security.” Suddenly two more men appeared, dressed in black track suits. Their silent approach startled me.
“There’s a guest house behind the main house. Carlo and Randall will move your things for you. It’s entirely private, you’re set up with an encrypted laptop, television, your own kitchen and bathroom, and you’ll have 24-hour audio/video on Odin’s room, once he arrives,” Nathaniel explained.
Atlas reassured me. “These men are part of our security team. They won’t always have such a presence, and most of the time they’ll blend in and you won’t even realize they’re here. Your living space will be yours alone.”
I nodded and popped the trunk so my things could be moved into the guest house.
Atlas and Piper led me inside, where I found an immaculately-appointed modern home that belied the exterior, which screamed 1970.
Piper caught my jaw hanging open. “I know, right? The Titans don’t do anything halfway. If something looks like an antique, it is. If something appears expensive, it’s worth twice what you think it might be. And having said all that, nothing is as it seems.”
Piper walked over to a bookshelf, carefully removing four titles and replacing them in different spots. The entire massive piece slid soundlessly to the left, revealing a room beyond.
“Atlas and his brothers grew up like this. I still can’t get over feeling like I’m in a James Bond movie,” Piper said as she and Atlas led me into the secret room.
A sofa sat against the far wall, with chairs framing a hospital-style bed that dominated the space. A cabinet filled with medical supplies was next to a double sink, with a small bathroom tucked into the corner. We could have been standing in a recovery room in a boutique hospital, rather than a residential neighborhood.
“After we show you the rest of the house, and your living quarters, I want you to inventory this room and tell me if you’ll need anything else to keep my brother comfortable and on the road to recovery,” Atlas explained. I nodded.
We exited through the hidden door behind the bookcase, around a corner, and into the kitchen, all chrome and marble. Atlas opened a door leading to a walk-in pantry. We walked to the back, where a heavy door led to what I assumed was a freezer or meat locker. He stopped at a keypad outside the door and punched in a code. Instead of the freezer door opening, however, a section of pantry shelving recessed into the wall, revealing a spiral staircase heading straight down.
Atlas motioned for me to descend, but Piper sensed my apprehension and she led the way. At the bottom, we entered a narrow corridor that led toward the rear of the house, if I had my bearings correct. We walked for several moments before ascending a second set of spiral steps. we emerged through a hatch and out into the air once more. We stood behind the guest house, between a bush and a fence, where Nathaniel met us.
“All her things are inside, Atlas. And I have final confirmation on the ambulance. We should start prepping,” he said.
Atlas nodded and asked Piper to show me my space while he went with Nathaniel back to the main house, this time above ground.
“So clearly all the secret doors and the tunnel and everything wasn’t built in the past two days,” I asked Piper. “What’s the deal?”
“The way Atlas explained it to me, this house was built by a mob boss back in the late sixties. The streets around here were filled with gangsters living right next door to casino executives. Some of these guys, the owner of this house in particular, needed to be able to disappear or escape quickly in case the police or rival mobsters showed up unexpectedly. It’s all been modernized, the whole house has, but the tunnel was part of the original house, and so was the secret room. There are, or were, secret tunnels connecting some of the older casinos on the Strip, too. But so many of the hotels have been replaced and rebuilt that that stuff is disappearing. I guess Odin is sort of a Las Vegas historian and he actually picked this place out himself several years ago based on his own research. The owners didn’t even know the tunnel was there. He found out about it from the original blueprints. Atlas talks about Odin a lot; I had only just met him when everything happened.”
“How are you handling things?” I asked. “I mean with the pregnancy, the stress of the shooting and everything, are you okay? Is the baby…”
“She’s kicking up a storm,” Piper replied. She didn’t seem bothered at all. “And frankly, yeah, it was scary, but I’ve been through a lot over the past seven or eight months. That shooting would have given me a nervous breakdown a year ago. Nowadays? Not so much.”
“I want to give you an ultrasound as soon as we can, and a complete checkup. I don’t want your pregnancy to get lost in the shuffle of Odin and everything. Atlas said he can put me in touch with the doctor who was seeing you before?”
“Sure, yes, she was handling it remotely, we were Skyping. It’ll be nice to be able to speak to a doctor in person.”
Piper showed me my accommodations, small and simple, but nicer than my own apartment. We walked back into the main house and I set about getting Odin’s room ready for him.
As I finished my inventory of supplies, I sensed a presence behind me and turned to look up at an angelic face framed by shimmering blonde hair.
“I’m Mallory,” she introduced herself. “Odin’s girlfriend. Are you the doctor?”
“Yes, that’s right, my name is Clara. Nice to meet you,” I extended a hand, which she shook.
“I’m so sorry about everything that happened. Are you okay?” I asked.
“It was terrifying!” she exclaimed. “Is Odin going to recover? Be himself again, I mean. Like walk and talk and everything.”
“I certainly hope so. I’m going to do everything I can to bring him back to the man he was before.”
“I haven’t been to see him. His face…what does he look like?”
I found it odd that wouldn’t have visited her boyfriend following such a tragedy, but everyone responds to shock differently, so I tried not to judge.
“He’s very lucky. He has some swelling now, but I expect that once he’s up and around again and his hair grows back in, he’ll look just like you remembered,” I offered.
“Oh God, I hadn’t even thought of his hair,” she appeared concerned, even if I wasn’t sure exactly what had her in such a state.
