by Evelyn Glass
“You’re serious,” he said, his voice changing to firmer ground. “You want to settle with me?”
She let out a long sigh of exasperation, “Yes,” she said as if discussing things with a petulant child. “How much?”
“One million,” he said, and she could hear the snide smile coming through the connection.
She had it. As of yesterday, the buy-in she did on a biotech startup brought her up and over the top of her first million. But, if she just said yes now, he wouldn’t take her as seriously when she showed up to pay and she needed him to see this as a business deal.
“Get serious, Gabriel. You wouldn’t ask that for Antonio and Davis together. Start reasonable, or maybe I’ll tell Lou why he’s wasting resources – the real reason. Think he would enjoy finding out that he’s been exposed like this over a call girl? Half-a-million.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what that old spic thinks. He’s been paid, up front, for the month. That was the deal. Fuck him. Eight hundred and I’ll close it all down.”
She almost sighed with relief. Gabriel just stepped firmly into the negotiation. He was going to take this seriously. Thank fucking God.
They hammered at each other, insulted each other, brought up secrets the other didn’t know were exposed. But when Gabriel dropped to $750,000, she said, “Done.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said done. I accept. I’ll take a cab, drop off your money, and we are quits,” she told him.
“You have 750k?”
“Yes,” she said patiently. “Yes I do and now I don’t, but I consider it money well invested. Would an hour fit your schedule, because I have a flight to catch.”
“An hour? Yes. That will work. Tell the guards at the gate who you are,” Gabriel told her, his voice all business now.
She did call a cab, after checking her stock values to ensure that something hadn’t gone terribly wrong, but they were fine. To Angie, she said she was leaving to shop and then got in the cab before she could think about it too much.
At the gate, she began wishing she had stopped to pick up something a little nicer to wear. The guards were wearing five thousand dollar suits, for crying out loud. She was escorted up to the third floor of Gabriel’s mansion, to his office. There, the guards left and closed the door. Gabriel was across the room and two of his regular goons were on each side of her, which made sense, considering he was in a war.
“Good to see you again, Nicole,” though he said this without turning around to actually see her as she walked to the middle of what could have been a master bedroom.
She stopped in front of his desk, “I would like, if only for politeness’ sake, to say the same, but I can’t. Let’s do this and get back to business.”
He turned around to face her and she saw what was in his hand — a syringe.
Strong, unyielding hands grabbed her arms and shoulders, and pressed her hard into the desk, making her drop her laptop, “What is that? What the fuck is that?” she said, barely noticing the hands on her. Her focus centered on the needle in Gabriel’s hand.
“I think you know,” Gabriel smiled. “Heroin. The whore trainer.”
“You keep that filth away from me! Gabriel! Don’t fucking do this!” she yelled, her voice was breaking and her panic rising.
“You don’t have to worry. We’re just going to do some retraining on you. I’ve got ten years of very good experience with excellent results. I’m very good at this, Nicole.”
“We had a deal! A fucking deal!”
“You aren’t a power, Nicole and I don’t negotiate with whores. I mean, really, what would people say?”
She was scared out of her mind. Over and over she witnessed the results of that drug in the hands of Gabriel. He would hook her and then break her. She wouldn’t be a call girl any more. She wouldn’t be able to think well enough to be one after he was done. She grabbed a hold of that last thought, “Fine! I’ll come back! I’ll come back willingly. I’ll take up my clients again. But I can’t if you use that on me. You know it won’t happen. I’ll never be able to take my clients with that filth in my veins.”
Gabriel stopped. He watched her for some time and then walked back to the window, “Well, that would take care of this stupid war and have you remain profitable at the same level,” he mused. “But no,” he said turning back around. “There’s that driver of yours. It wouldn’t work. He would still come after you and eventually he might even get you. I mean, the man took out Antonio in a close combat gunfight. You don’t take a man like that lightly. It would be stupid.”
“I’ll call him,” she panted, her fear nearly choking her. “I’ll call him and break it off. I’ll tell him I came back on my own. He’ll have no reason to come after me.”
Gabriel set the needle down on the desk and thought about that for some time. “You’ll tell him that you don’t want to see him? That you came back on your own?”
“Yes, yes, and no one can prove otherwise,” she panted.
“Hmm, risky, though,” he mused. “But all right. I’ll take you back and put you back with your clients on the condition — and I swear to you, honey, I’ll so fuck you up if you try something — on the condition that you make it so convening that even I believe you.”
“All right, yes. Yes,” she agreed, relief pouring out of her.
They let her up from the desk and she stood slowly. She begged the universe to somehow let Cole know that she didn’t want to do this. She had no choice. She couldn’t live with that shit inside of her, melting her Brian, taking her soul away, breaking her into a fuck-doll. She would at least be able to think after this and remain Nicole.
She calmed down, pacing a little with her phone in her hand, getting her voice and attitude, and memorizing lines. Then she called Cole. Her heart shattered and, for a moment, she thought she was going to die, right there. Just fall down dead. You can’t live without a heart; everyone knows that. She hung up the phone and droped it, utterly defeated. Then she was slammed back on to the desk and Gabriel picked back up the needle, “Well that makes everything nice and tidy,” he said, and then smirked at her, “You really are a stupid whore.”
“No, Gabriel! No! Don’t do it! Fuck! Cole! Help!”
The needle hit her vein and a fog was suddenly in her Brian, taking the world of fear and panic away, along with herself.
“Now, isn’t that better?” Gabriel asked her. “Don’t worry about a thing. I can take care of all of this. And I do need to take care of all of it. Now that you are under control, we’ll take care of Cole Porter next.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Cole stood with a hole in his chest so deep he couldn’t breathe past the suction it created in him. His mind wouldn’t catch gears; it just spun with no intelligible thoughts. Things like, “it wasn’t really her,” and “she had a gun to her head,” and “I can’t believe this,” would flash across his mind, but all the bases were covered. He could call Angie, but he knew what she would say. Nicole left on her own and went back to Gabriel to be a call girl. Her reasons were valid and her voice matter of fact.
Brian sensed something, because he came toward him, looking him over. But before he could ask, Jim’s phone rang and Big Jim looked at the display and said, “What the fuck does this pimp think he’s going to say now?”
Cole snapped out of it enough to walk past Brian, asking, “Is that Gabriel? Would you mind speaker phone?”
Jim looked at him and then looked harder at him, studying him, and then he said, “Yeah, all right. Everyone in this room is fully invested. Why not?” He set the phone on his desk and answered the call with the speaker, “What the fuck do you want?”
Gabriel laughed, “Well, I just thought I would call and tell you that it’s over. I’m done. Back to business.”
“What?” Jim bellowed.
“I said it’s done. You win. And that’s how I’ll tell it to anyone who inquires. I was far too impulsive and it was all for nothing, really. I’ve lost my two
best enforcers for no reason at all. She came back all on her own. She’s going to see a client tonight. So, you win.”
Jim snapped his eyes to Cole who looked slowly down at his phone still in his hand. Something black and angry came into Jim’s eyes. “Well, that would be all nice and fuzzy if I gave a flying fuck about your call girl problems!”
“What?”
“I said I’m not interested in your girl coming back to you! You attacked my man! And I’m going to kill you for it. Do you understand me, you fucking twisted moron?”
“Oh,” Gabriel said, “Oh, that. Right. Yes, I would be looking for your ball-sack as a change purse if you did that to me, as well. So, I agree. It was definitely out of bounds on every level. So, what do you want? How much?”
Cole could see he wanted to tell the man to fuck off, but that wouldn’t be the best thing for the club. “Hold on,” he said, and put the phone on mute. Turning to Cole, Jim told him, with a voice close to plea, “Give me something, Cole. Anything I can believe. Anything.”
Cole looked at his phone, played the conversation back through his head, searching. Nothing. Not a damn fucking thing. Lifting his eyes back up to Jim, he slowly shook his head and felt the rest of his life draining out of him into that back hole.
Jim’s shoulders sagged as he hit the button, “One million,” he said into the speaker.
“Bullshit,” Gabriel sneered. “That man is still alive! I’m the one who lost men! My best men! Half!”
Jim shook his head slowly and with the voice of death himself, he said very slowly and clearly, “No. One million by two o’clock today or I start dropping bombs. I swear to God, nothing will be left of that fucking house of yours but a big black, smoking, hole.”
Silence.
“Hold on,” Gabriel said.
Jim looked back to Cole, “She called you?”
Cole nodded but couldn’t speak.
“She could have been forced,” he offered.
His voice croaked when he tried to answer. He cleared it and tried again, “She went there on her own.”
Gabriel came back on the line, “Fine. It’s done. I’ve made the transfer using the normal methods. We can get back to business. I’ll expect the drivers and guards to show up before five.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, no. We’re done. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you. We are done.” Jim said and closed the connection. Jim looked around the room at his officers, “I felt that this man is too insane, clinically insane, to put our men at further risk during future actions he might create. However, if you feel differently, now is the time to convince me.”
“You were right before Jim,” George, the List Master, told him. “We should have distanced ourselves near the first of the year.”
Bear, the Sargent and Arms, said, “It was perfect win Jim. You got a million, ended the war, and got us away from a psychopath. I declare victory.”
A round of cheers and shouts went through the room. Jim stood looking at Cole, his face still as stone. When the noise level dropped he said softly, “Victory never felt so bad before. I’ll be in my office.” Then he lumbered out of the room.
Cole made it to the bar before his energy ran out. It was wrong; it was all fucking wrong. But she went there on her own! She went there on purpose, back to her life and her wealthy men. And she was right! This life wasn’t for someone like her. What the hell did he have to offer her?
But she said…
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Cole woke the next morning with what he could only describe as an emotional hangover. He had a shot at the bar and a shot when he got home, but wasn’t close to intoxication when he went to bed at ten.
His night’s dreams were deep and what he mostly remembered were feelings of confusion and suffocation — trapped in a dense, weighted fog and couldn’t figure out which was up or where to go. There was a feeling of panic, or rather what should have been panic, but the panic couldn’t seem to get past the fog either; it was always there, but never surfacing so he could scream.
He woke drenched in sweat and gripping his pillow hard enough that the seam had broken.
Making it to the coffee pot, he put the makings together and started the brew. From his stash, he put out a line of cocaine and sent that into his sinus. Then he grabbed a cold bottle of beer and headed for the shower.
Between the steam and hard streams of water, the cold beer, and the cocaine, his chemistry was shocked enough to reset and the emotional hangover was gone as he dried off.
He dressed for riding, as he normally did, and was just pouring his first cup of coffee when he heard a Harley engine gearing down in front of his house and then coming up his driveway. There, the engine powered down. He began walking to the front door, fairly sure the engine was Brian’s Lowrider. Opening the door, before his visitor could knock, he found the redhead on his porch. “Morning, Brian. Coffee?”
“That would be good. Glad you are up already,” Brian said as he walked past and into the living room.
“Why’s that?” Cole asked, deciding the morning was nice enough to leave the door open and take advantage of the fresh air.
“Well,” Brian replied, removing his leather jacket and revealing his dual-shoulder holster, “I hate waking people up when I want to ask them a favor. It always feels like I got the favor already if they weren’t pissed off about being woken up.”
Cole noticed that the guns Brian was carrying weren’t the hand cannon twins, but what looked like twin 9mm, “Didn’t lose your cannons, did you?” he asked, heading back to the kitchen to pour Brian a cup of coffee.
“No. Truth is I don’t normally wear them. I use them at the range and I was planning on going to the range that evening before everything went down. They are custom-built and designed .600s, and were made by my grandfather. He was a gunsmith and designer for Smith & Wesson all his life. He made those by hand. Machined every part, dyed every screw, and even the casings are his. So, they aren’t really the things you want to use on a daily basis,” Brian explained.
“Wow,” Cole breathed and passed him his cup. “So grandfather was obviously into you learning to shoot.”
“I was firing a .22 by the time I could ride a bike. Started competitions at twelve and won my first the following year,” Brian agreed and added, “My dad, though, he was the battle and strategy lover. He had these, well, hate to call them toys, but that’s what they were. Anyway, he would create and recreate scenarios over and over. I would watch him play his war games in the garage for hours, and around the time I was competing as a marksman, I was pointing out things my father missed in his strategies.”
Cole studied him, “So, young start and then what? Special Opts? Military?”
“College and then Langley,” Brian replied.
“Seriously? CIA?”
Brian smiled, “Seriously. CIA, SAD/SOG and black opts. Five year contract.”
“So, um, what happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Brian smiled and nearly laughed, “Nothing. The contract ended and I never really got into it, so I didn’t sign another. I mean, it was never going to be what I wanted to do with my life. It just wasn’t. So I spent basically five years training and retraining, and then training some more for some seriously intense tactical operations. And then I was done. I came back to Chicago and now I’m riding with you.”
“No wonder George put you on the security list so fast,” Cole chuckled and then added, “So all that stuff about it being the lifelong commitment and shit is just shit.”
“Only in the action movies, which I see you watch quite a few of,” Brian agreed, looking over Cole’s stacks of DVDs.
“Hey, that’s where I’ve learned some of my best tactics, so don’t knock them,” Cole said with mock offense.
“With your memory skills, I don’t doubt it, actually,” Brian suggested.
“Yeah, well… so what is the favor?” Cole asked, changing the subject
.
“I’m making a local drop, North East, up the coast, about three hours from here. The group is a regular of the club and this is a regular drop. Three kilos. But, it’s my first time. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind riding win?” Brian asked.
“Or,” Cole suggested, emptying his cup and washing it out, “You decided that since all I was going to do today was mope around the house, wallowing in depression that you would get me into the wind before it really got ahold of me.”
“Well yeah, that, too. But it really is my first time,” Brian confessed with a smile.
Cole came back out of the kitchen, “For future reference, use the I’m nervous about the run line before telling the mark you’ve been a death-squad protégé since puberty.”
“Yeah, that might be more effective. Thanks,” Brian agreed, “but you’re coming anyway, right?”
“Yeah, I’m coming anyway, because you’re right. That’s exactly what I was going to do today and being in the wind along the coast sounds much better. I’ll wallow tonight at the club,” Cole told him.
“I’ll wallow with you. Might pick up some good techniques for future use,” Brian told him.
The wind blew out the remaining lead fuzz from his dreams last night and cleared his mind of everything — even her. Not the pain and not the hole, but the thoughts and, for Cole, that was more than expected. He doubted if the hole was going to fill. Ever. She was it. She was everything. And now there was nothing where she once was.
Brian and Cole rode side by side down the highway and then up the frontage roads. They were naturalized to one another now – aware and tuned to the other’s engine sounds, and how the other tended to take a corner or change a lane. This comfort level with the other’s style of riding made the journey even more enjoyable and, perhaps, even therapeutic. When they pulled off the road and up a narrow, barely paved stretch for a mile, then left into a narrow dirt path, Brian took the lead and Cole followed at a distance far enough back that he could get to his gun before riding into the same difficulty Brian may have been attacked with.
