Ballistic

by K. S. Adkins

  “Okay, rookie,” I tell him. “Thanks for the intel. Maybe that’ll get you closer to the pearly gates.”

  Closing his eyes again he whispers, “After everything I’ve done, you’re the closest I’ll ever get to heaven. I hurt a lot of people. Ain’t no forgiveness for that.”

  Stepping back and taking a deep breath, I know what the right thing to do is. It’s a fucking shame it had to come to this. But, I remind myself this is a mercy the others weren’t granted. I tell myself to look at this like euthanasia. It’s the humane thing to do. Firing one round, it’s over before he had a chance to know what happened. There was no need to terrify him further. What was waiting for him was far worse than what I had just done. Turning away and kicking Mrs. Mathers in the back left tire, I scream silently. How in the fuck are we supposed to get ahead when our own cops are against us? Pulling my hair by the roots, I know in my gut what the answer was. You don’t get ahead. You do what it takes to stay alive. Christ, the department isn’t just corrupted. It’s infected. I may be freelance, but my job is to help the department and I thought I was. This is my payment for that? Watching my back from every man in uniform? Bending at the knees to get my composure, I mentally cry out for Anthony.

  Then, like a granted wish, he’s there wrapping me up in his strength. I hear him directing Saint on how to make it look like an accident and leaving the car as a warning. As for me, I’m miles away. I don’t even care that he’s fixing this for me and hit up Jules to use Saint. I just took a man’s life and I’m not nearly as upset as I should be.

  Yes, it was better than the alternative, but in the end, am I any better than they are? I know the answer. Yes, I was. Going down for this would suck dick, and calling Julian to defend me was not on my list of things to do either. I’d rather see jail time than owe that guy a-fucking-thing, but today was just a taste of what was in store for me and I knew it. Of my own free will, I just raised the stakes and I had to prepare for the fall out.

  “Are you hurt?” Anthony asks, looking me over and touching me everywhere.

  “No.”

  “Where is Mrs. Mathers? I can have Saint help her.”

  “Mrs. Mathers is my truck,” I explain, shrugging but he looks confused. “I have a thing for Slim Shady.”

  “You named your truck after Eminem’s mother? You have a thing for rappers?”

  “Yes, I named it after her, but calling your truck Debbie isn’t fun. Mrs. Mathers is sassy, like my baby. I don’t have a thing for rappers. I have a thing for one rapper.”

  “Define thing.”

  “He’s a poet with serious anger management issues. A girl has to respect that.”

  “Christ,” he says, pulling me close. “You scared the hell out of me.”

  “I had it under control.”

  “We have to get you out of here,” he says, helping me into the passenger seat. Looking in the rear view he mumbles, “You tore that SUV apart.” Pulling away he didn’t bother speaking, but while it was fresh, I had to cover my bases. “Make sure Saint grabs his badge, ID and weapon. Also, he said they paid him off but he told him to follow me.”

  “Slow down. Who are they? Who’s he?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  The second we’re back to the house, I grab my smokes and haul ass up to the spare room and I don’t come out again until morning. Not even the possibility of going to prison for murder kept me from getting the truth. Deep down, though, I know whoever was responsible didn’t want me to go to prison. He wanted to fuck with me. My goal was simple.

  Find the truth before it finds me and destroy it.

  Last night I dreamt of my future. With her there, wrapped around me, I saw us just like this fifty years from now. When death was approaching, she still held on to me because where I went, she followed. To show for our time here on Earth we were parents, grandparents and had the love and security of our friends. A rag tag group of people with no family to speak of so, we made up our own. Even in our old age we did things our way. We woke each day wanting to make the other happy, and we did.

  That dream was my truth.

  She was my truth. Lina needed me. She might fight it, she might not want to admit it, but she does. All I ever wanted was to find the woman who would unlock the love I’ve reserved in my heart just for her. She did that, and though I harp on Max for being a coward, I’ve been a coward myself. My biggest fear is that her heart won’t hold the same amount of love for me, but if my dream is a vision of the future, then thinking her heart isn’t full of love for me is a lie.

  Now I just need to teach her how to unlock it.

  When Saint told me she was in a car chase, I couldn’t see straight. That fucker thought it was funny because from where he was sitting, she was hell on wheels. Literally. I’m glad he found the humor in this, seeing as it wasn’t his woman flying down the city streets with a dirty cop on her ass. Cleaning the scene wasn’t difficult. She knew to stay out of sight and took back roads, but damn, anyone could have seen it and bystanders wouldn’t have known she was the one in danger. Bottom line is, she was lucky. That could have gone horribly wrong. Saint cleaned the guy out and promised to follow up later. But right now, my focus is solely on her.

  Since bringing her home, I realized a few ways to get through to her. The first is keeping the same work hours as she does. Second, is listening to her while she sleeps. She says all sorts of shit when she’s out of it that she’d never say awake. Third was to be patient with her. The time spent watching her proved her theory to be true. She doesn’t process things like other people. When she should be shaking and crying, she isn’t. Instead, she’s back upstairs working her gorgeous ass off.

  Knowing she’s not ignoring me helps, but a lesser man would probably leave and find a clingy woman. I don’t want or need a clingy woman. I want her. Taking a seat across the desk, I light two up, handing her one. “Start from the beginning,” I tell her. “Where are we?”

  Taking a deep breath, followed by an even deeper inhale, she blows the smoke out then blows my mind. “If we look at your parents cases, we assume it was simply revenge. The Russo’s, well what was left of them, wanted blood for what was done to them. The captain now who was lead detective then, planned the entire thing, but was a no show for the big game. Unless I’m able to talk to him, we’ll never know why. We can only guess. Fast forward to his son, Gary, after all these years, he’s MIA and really so is Venessa. Only Venessa pops up and so does he. Coincidence? Not fucking likely. Did the captain have a hand in it? Who knows. Like I said, I haven’t spoken to him. Now, trafficking has been big here since I’ve been born. Wait, how old are you?”

  “Thirty-two. Stay focused.”

  “You don’t look thirty-two. You must moisturize, kudos. Right, so I don’t think this shit show is about trafficking. I think Hank changed the game with that one. If I had to guess, Hank was the perfect distraction. Let’s look at the girls. Macy managed to do something revolutionary. Venessa was using it, which got her noticed and bad guys wanted it for their own reasons, which are too many to list. Who are the bad guys? Now that’s a great question. I’m glad you asked.”

  “Keep going.”

  “I believe Gary was paid off. I think he’s the first. Macy dated that dickbag, who, if I’m guessing right, was the second to be paid off. Probably with drugs because he was blown out daily. Ben Freeman, whose father is political big stuff, got him into the program which he’d have to because Ben just wasn’t that smart. Briggs and Ben are in place, only guess what? Macy meets Rafe and Venessa has Rogan. It’s not easy to get to them anymore. Macy explained about the guy that helped Ben. She called him number three, only number three was a dirty cop too. Still with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Moving on… throughout all this drama what landmark aren’t we watching?”

  I didn’t even have to think on it, I already knew. “Shit.”

  “Lush was a playground for Hank because no one paid attention, in
cluding Max. Everyone was distracted with Venessa and Macy at that time. The brains of this operation used Hank’s greed for his own purposes. Hank was a diversion, nothing more. I also think he heard cops could be paid off and decided to get in on the action, getting both Max, as well as Jules, out of the way. Had she not shown up, Max would have never known. Am I wrong?”

  “No.”

  “I rarely am,” she says, but she wasn’t being conceited about it, which I appreciate. “In my humble opinion I think that’s where Hank fucked himself. He didn’t plan for Jules, and the man behind the scenes was too busy to notice what Hank was doing. Even if he did notice, he wouldn’t care, right? Because the more trouble Hank caused, the better for him. It’s the whole concept of being so focused on the right hand, you can’t see what the left hand is doing. Which is usually spanking the secretary’s ass. The second Jules convinced them to cut intel with the captain, everything went loopy. Now you’ve got the DPD, who treated me as an STD for years, requesting me at every scene? Please. Venessa was never supposed to become justice. Macy was never supposed to finish her research. Jules was supposed to divorce Max, and I was supposed to stay far away from the DPD. Preferably a mental home, if I had to guess.”

  “The four of you together are powerful,” I tell her, chain smoking. “The captain, more than anyone, would know this.”

  “Yep,” she says, taking my cigarette. “But let’s look at you men, shall we? Two detectives, a club owner, and a Fed. The captain never saw that one coming.”

  “He doesn’t know I’m a Fed.”

  “No, he thinks you’re a crook, which is even better.”

  “I suppose I played my part well.”

  “Too well,” she says, inhaling. “Venessa and the others think you’re a crook, too.”

  “I don’t care what she or anyone else thinks. I care about what you think. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re fighting your own nature since you’ve met me. If I were anyone else, you would be lying your ass off to get what you want. I think that’s exactly what you’ve been doing until me. Am I wrong?”

  “No,” I tell her smiling. “I saw the truth. I’m a changed man.”

  “Huh,” she says, thinking it over. “I need to see the captain soon. I believe he’s part of the they and I’m hoping he leads me to the he. Whoever he is, he’s the real threat.”

  “Do you think the captain had anything to do with our parents deaths?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you think he had anything to do with what happened with Venessa and Macy?”

  “Venessa yes, Macy no.”

  “Jules?”

  “He’s terrified of Jules.”

  “Who terrifies him more than Jules?”

  Giving that Cheshire cat smile, she leans forward blowing smoke in my face again. “Why me, of course.”

  “She’s a fraud,” he said, sneering at me while gathering evidence. “Get her out of here.”

  “Sir,” the lead detective said, “with all due respect, we both know she is not a fraud. She’s also the only one who has made any headway on this case. My captain wants her here, which means you will cooperate with us and with her.”

  Watching the pissing contest, I appeared bored when really I was breaking apart. Even with all of his anger, I felt his lie for what it was. He thinks I’m not a fraud, but he fears me just the same. I didn’t want to be feared. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted him to remember that I was still the same kid that wanted to get the bad guy. I was still the same kid that wanted him to be proud of me.

  “You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” he yelled over to me. “Got everyone fucking snowed, but I know what you are.”

  “What’s that?” I asked him, smiling because the alternative is crying in front of him.

  “A mistake,” he threw at me while walking away, taking his vile words with him. Even though I knew better, the words still hurt. That’s the thing about words. They pack more of a punch than even the best upper cut.

  And the captain wins by knockout.

  Pushing through my exhaustion, my timeline’s show too many gaps. The only links from the past to the present are the execution style shootings, and the captain. Cops aren’t trained to shoot people in the head. It’s just not done. Chest, heart, stomach or maybe a leg if necessary but, shooting a perp in the head is the most violent way to kill someone, in my opinion. Oh, and the public wouldn’t be down with that, which is why cops are trained in various ways to take someone down without massive carnage. A head shot is not their first option.

  Hank’s dead and gone, so following up on anything on him is useless at this point because, obviously he isn’t talking. But Hank wasn’t as nearly wealthy as he pretended to be, either. Years of bad businesses decisions left him struggling. The only stake he had in anything was Lush and even that wasn’t much because Max held the deed. He was funded, had to be, and whoever he was, had money. Someone had to be paying these guys off, too. Not only are they being paid off, they are being ordered to aim the barrels at the foreheads of their brothers, and that’s way too personal for my taste. I’ve got this friend, Rion. She’s a bookie who literally runs Detroit. Anyone who bets, owes her money and they always pay one way or another. She’s a cool chick who is only slightly saner than I am. You’d have to be off to be a bookie. We are always doing favors for each other, plus she is the only person I’ve met who can out drink me, so I love her on shots alone.

  “Yep,” she says, answering right away.

  “First, I want to put two hundred on Sunday’s game in favor of Detroit and then I need a list of cops who owe.”

  “Two hundred on Detroit?” she asks, laughing. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “I’m an optimist.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “I’m that too,” I tell her. “How long on the list?”

  “How far back you want me to go?”

  “One year,” I tell her.

  “Give me an hour,” she says, typing. “Oh and that list?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is gonna be long.”

  “Figured.”

  “Heard you like to smash ‘em and crash ‘em,” she says laughing, and dammit she has the most adorable laugh I’ve ever heard.

  “Fuck,” I mumble. “Who saw me?”

  “Let’s just say when you lose and come into pay up, Rio will have a field day with you.”

  “First, I only bet, so I have an excuse to see you, and Rio never needs an excuse to have a field day with me.”

  “True,” she says, giggling. “Seriously though, how is Mrs. Mathers?”

  “Tis but a scratch,” I tell her, quoting the “Holy Grail.”

  “A scratch?” she says, faking an accent. “Your arms off!”

  “Are we done?” I ask, laughing in return.

  “For now,” she says. “Glad you’re okay, Leens,” which is her stupid nickname for me. “Good cop or bad cop?”

  “He was a good cop who made a life-changing decision.”

  “Ha!” she yells. “Ain’t that the truth!”

  When she hangs up, I stretch out and close my eyes for a minute. To answer her question, yeah it was the truth. I didn’t have to like it, but I couldn’t change it either. Feeling lonely and needing some skin on skin, I walk into the bedroom and see Anthony lounging there looking peaceful and beautiful. That’s when the feeling of being exhausted leaves me and the feeling of being fucked into oblivion took its place.

  I do my best thinking after an orgasm.

  My little sleep talker was very handsy. She had to be attached to me at all times when she sleeps. But when she’s awake, she’s reluctant to hold hands or, god forbid, hug. The way she loses touch with reality but can zero in on work or me, blows my mind. The only time that glassy look was completely gone, was when I was inside of her. As much as I’d like to be inside of her all the time, I had to find a way to switch her focus. Moving slightly, I tested my theory by loosening her grip
on me. Sliding away from her, she sat straight up and reached out for me with closed eyes.

  “I’m right here, pienko,” I said, soothing her. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Okay,” she mumbled, digging her nails to keep me close to her. “Just stay.”

  “I’m not leaving,” I reassured her. “I promise.”

  Snuggling in even closer, she kissed my chest, which was a first, and it wrecks me that she did it.

  “Truth,” she said, letting sleep take her again and never once letting go.

  The internet is an amazing place. For a woman who is a loner due to circumstance, she also craves touch as most humans do. My touch specifically calms her, which pleases me to no end. While she works, I need something to do. Firing up my tablet, I research everything I can find on the benefits of touching. The results are astounding, to say the least. Every night she’s been here, she has to cuddle or she can’t sleep well without it. When we cuddle, her nightmares don’t wake her and I’ve also come to find out that I was craving the closeness as much as she was. Together we found a way to put each other at ease, even in sleep. I memorized an article that I thought was both brilliant and profound. It said: cuddling will literally put a woman into a peaceful state of mind. It can even reduce the stress and strengthen the heart. The second I read it, I know it is true. I knew what cuddling did for her, and this solidified it.

  When the door opens and she walks in looking exhausted and horny, I decide that tonight is all about connection by my touch. Touching her as much as possible is my goal. Showing her through touch how much she means to me, that she can trust me, always. She pulls her shirt over her head, reaches behind and releases her bra and crawls in next to me wearing nothing but panties. “Is whatever you’re reading making you smarter?” she asks, trying to hide a yawn.

  “Actually, it was.”

  Running her fingers over my chest, then throwing a leg over me she says, “Tell me about it.”

  “I’d rather show you,” I tell her, setting the tablet down and rolling her onto her side. The second my fingers trace the outline of heaven’s gate on her back, she breaks out into goosebumps and sighs. “Relax for me, piękno,” I instruct her and slowly she does. I trace her neck, shoulders, back and sides, all the while I can see and feel her start to relax. It’s fucking beautiful and empowering.