“No.” Lawson kept it short as he started the first of his four hundred squats.
“You’ve always been a man of many words,” John said, sarcastic. Then a comically serious look washed over his face. “You’re only thirty-seven, maybe you should try the UFC or something? I’ve seen you fight. You could be the champ.”
“Not sure they let convicted murderers on the UFC roster, but I’ll write Dana White a letter and let him know your opinion.”
“Fine. Don’t listen.” John smiled. “Just try to stay out of trouble. I’ll be back in an hour to walk you out.”
Lawson continued his squats. It had yet to sink in that in an hour he would be a free man. He had little memory of what that felt like. The last ten years of his life had been hell. Not because life in prison was so difficult for him. It wasn’t that at all. It was the fact that Lauren’s sister had taken Lexi back to Kentucky and never let him see or speak with his daughter again. It was the fact that Lauren was dead. And as much as anything, it was the fact that her killer had been able to run free all those years.
Lawson didn’t know much about what his life would look like once he walked outside those prison walls, a free man for the first time in ten years. But he did know one thing for certain: whoever murdered his wife out on that boat all those years ago, and stole his beautiful life right out from under him, was going to wish that the governor had never let the lion out of his cage.
2
Lawson gathered the few things in his cell as he awaited John to walk him to freedom. It didn’t take long. All he had was a notebook and a couple of pictures of Lauren and two-year-old Lexi. But he made sure not to forget that notebook. He changed into the black jogger pants he was given, then walked over to the small sink on the back wall. He put his hands on both sides and leaned over it as he stared at his reflection in the cage-covered mirror. He didn’t recognize the man who stared back at him. He looked, and felt, nothing like the man who was thrown in that prison cell ten years ago. Aside from the obvious—his much more muscular frame and buzzed haircut—through his eyes he could see that the man inside was much different. Hardened. The man with his family on that boat on the lake had been a man with a clear vision of how the world worked. The man in the mirror was a man who had seen all those lines blurred—smeared.
A man spoke up from outside his cell. “Lawson Raines.”
He recognized the voice immediately. Vincent Ricci. A real scumbag, and an infamous enforcer for Nero De Luca, the head of the De Luca family and the biggest crime boss in Las Vegas. When he first came to Vegas, Lawson investigated Nero’s father, Tony. Nero had moved into power when his father died several years back. Just like the governor, Lawson had done a few favors for Nero over the years as well. Lawson never knew if he would get the chance to make use of the contacts he was making in prison, but he knew having friends in all places would be a pretty good strategy if he ever tasted freedom again. It didn’t matter if they were good guys or bad guys, because there was no difference to Lawson anymore.
Lawson turned from the mirror. “Vince.”
“Heard you got a pardon. Too bad, I haven’t had the chance to embarrass you in front of the guys.”
Lawson walked over to the bars, his chiseled jaw set, his face null of emotion. “That is a shame. Lucky me, I guess.”
“Yeah, smart-ass, lucky you.”
“There a point to this visit, Vince? Or are you just taking a mental picture of me for your shower fantasy later?”
Vince grabbed the bars of the cell and shook them in anger. His muscles bulged around his tank top, and it reminded Lawson of a silverback gorilla beating on his chest to show his dominance. Lawson had heard many stories over the years about Vince. Every man on the street feared him. Lawson couldn’t care less.
Vince’s voice was strained, and his face was red as he pointed at Lawson. “You’ll get yours, Lawson. You hear me? You’ll get yours.”
Lawson smirked. “That your speech? Riveting. I’m sure I will get mine, Vince. But unfortunately you won’t be there to see it.”
Vince backed away from Lawson’s cell. “Whatever. Boss is sending a car for you. Says he wants to thank you. I don’t know what you did, but don’t bring that smart-ass attitude in there with him.”
“Thanks for the advice. And, Vince? Don’t drop the soap.”
Vince shook his head and held up his middle finger as he walked away. “I’ll be out of here in no time, Lawson. So don’t worry, I’ll see you soon.”
“Can’t wait.”
John walked up and called for Lawson’s cell to be opened. “What was that all about?”
Lawson grabbed his notebook and pictures. “He’s just jealous.”
A buzzer sounded and the cell door slid open.
John said, “All right, big man, this is it. Follow me.”
As Lawson followed John down the hall past all the inmates, memories flooded back to him. Memories he hoped would fade away fast. He remembered his first meal on the inside. He could barely chew, his jaw hurt so bad from an initiation beating. He remembered his first shower, he never even made it to the water. He remembered his first altercation in the yard, three men took turns on him, nearly beating him to death. He spent a week in the infirmary after that. And then he remembered when everything changed. When the old Lawson Raines turned off and a new switch flipped on. The survivor emerged. After he tuned up two big guys in the laundry room by himself, everything began to shift. He became someone—something—else.
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do? Get a pizza?” John smiled as he opened the door. The door to freedom.
“Rob a bank.”
John smiled and gave him a pat on the back as he walked out the door. Lawson had heard along the way that the sunshine on the freedom side of the prison felt different than back in the yard. It wasn’t. The sun was the sun. He didn’t know how he would feel when he walked out into his new life, but he quickly found that it wasn’t much different. Sure, he was no longer physically trapped behind bars, but without his daughter, and his wife, he might as well be.
In front of him was a black Mercedes sedan. Beyond that, nothing but desert sand. He thought he might see his old partner, Cassie, there waiting for him. But she wasn’t. Only the fancy car of a crime boss and an Italian meathead in a dark-purple silk suit holding the door open for him. Lawson knew if he got in that car that his life on the outside would be taking on the exact opposite of the one he’d left ten years ago. Every day he would be doing things for people who didn’t give a damn about him or anyone else. People who didn’t give a damn about the law. Lawson had already decided that he was just fine with that. He would be making money, and he would be able to move in circles of people who were on the pulse of what was really going on. People who would know exactly who was responsible for Lauren’s death.
And that was all that mattered.
Lawson walked toward the car. With a nod toward the gold-chain-clad meathead, he entered willingly into the Mercedes. Entered willingly into the next chapter of his life.
Come what may.
3
The black Mercedes sedan rolled down US 95 toward the Las Vegas Strip. The afternoon sun beamed through the tinted windows, and the already hundred-degree July heat worked its way in with it. Lawson reached down and lowered the air conditioning in front of him. The cold air blew into his face, a sensation he hadn’t felt in years. It reminded him of when he used to get in the car to help Lexi fall asleep. He would drive around for hours, AC on full blast, giving Lauren a much-needed break back at the house. Lawson imagined that being on the outside was going to be full of painful memories. He knew that everything he would come into contact with would trigger something. That had been the only saving grace of being trapped in that cell. At least there was nothing familiar. Nothing to trigger the pain of losing his family, which he was now already experiencing, and he’d only been out for ten minutes.
This was going to be harder than he thought.
Lawson looked up and found the man’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “No thanks.”
The driver shook his head. “No thanks? Ha. A hard-ass, are you? Well, I’m gonna give it to you anyway.”
The driver paused for a reaction. When Lawson gave none, he continued. “Don’t screw this up. You only get one chance. Not sure how you managed to get on his good side already, but you’re gonna want to stay there.”
“Sage advice.”
Lawson could tell by the man’s silence and his blank stare in the rearview mirror that he hadn’t a clue as to what that meant. A large SUV pulled up beside their Mercedes, and before Lawson had time to notice anything out of the ordinary, the SUV swerved and crashed into the side of their car, sending them momentarily off the road. Lawson’s driver recovered by pulling back onto the pavement. Rocks and dusty sand clouded all around them.
“What the hell? You already have enemies?” Meathead shouted.
Lawson looked into the passenger window of the SUV. He didn’t recognize the man staring down at him right before the SUV once again swerved and crashed into the side of their car, shaking it wildly and running them off the road. Lawson knew that he indeed did already have enemies. When you do favors for people on the inside, there is going to be some retaliation from those on the other end. They had tried to get revenge inside the prison, but Lawson had always managed to handle those attempts. It didn’t take long for them to take aim as soon as he made it to the outside. This time, his driver lost control of the Mercedes and the front end whipped around to the right. Two hard spins later, the SUV tapped the Mercedes again and the car flipped over, rolled twice, and came to a stop on its head.
Lawson, momentarily disoriented, recovered quickly and noticed that his driver was unconscious in front of him. As the SUV came to a stop just outside the upside-down car, he quickly unclipped his seatbelt and fell onto his side to the roof below him. The door beside Lawson opened, and just as a man’s arm reached in, he moved to the opposite side of the car, opened the door, and crawled out. As he got to his feet, a large man in a dress shirt and slacks rounded the back of the overturned car. His sleeves were rolled up like he was ready to do work. But he wasn’t prepared for the man he was approaching.
Without saying a word, the big man reached back and threw a powerful right hand in the direction of Lawson’s face. Lawson swatted the man’s arm, stepped in with force, and busted the man’s mouth with the crown of his head. The big man dropped, and as he did, Lawson heard footsteps coming up behind him. Lawson turned and brought his right hand around like a hammer, bludgeoning the dark-haired man in the forehead. The man dropped to his knees, and Lawson hurled a right hook around so fast that when he hit the man in the temple, he was already unconscious by the time his head bounced off the Mercedes door beside him.
The last man walked around the car but pulled up short. Lawson could see when he turned around that the man was contemplating whether it was worth it or not.
The man said with arrogance, “Look, I don’t know who you think you are, but you are making a big mistake here.”
Lawson looked down at the big man that he’d head-butted, now lying on the ground, then glanced back over his own shoulder at the other man on the ground he’d just knocked out.
“You sure about that?”
The man smirked, ran a hand through his thick black hair, and popped his knuckles in preparation for a fight. “Don’t be too proud of what you did to those two. They learned how to fight in Girl Scouts. I assure you, I’m not like them. I don’t care how strong you are, that has nothing to do with fighting.”
Lawson nodded, his deep voice more of a growl. “I agree.”
Lawson took two steps toward the man, and the man took two steps toward him. The man led with a right hook. Lawson caught his wrist with his left hand, grabbed the man’s throat with his right hand, and spun him around, slamming him against the Mercedes. The entire vehicle shook under the force. When the man looked down, his eyes widened when he saw his feet were dangling about three inches off the ground, his back pinned against the car.
“You want another chance?” Lawson asked as he held him in the air.
The man nodded, his face turning maroon from Lawson’s grip on his throat.
“Who sent you?”
The man clawed at Lawson’s hand, desperately trying to free his neck for a much-needed breath. Lawson only tightened his grip, and the man’s eyes rolled back into his head.
“Who sent you?”
The man couldn’t speak, but he managed to convey his thoughts through raising his middle finger. Lawson didn’t find the gesture funny. He released the man’s neck, grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt, then turned him from the car and tossed him several feet away onto the rocky desert floor.
Sweat dripped off Lawson’s forehead. So far, life on the outside was no different from his time behind bars.
“Tell me who sent you, and that will be the end of this.”
The man staggered to his feet as he gasped for air. He took a moment to slap away some of the dust that had gathered on his pants, then stood up straight.
Lawson turned to face him. “Last chance. Who sent you?”
The man didn’t answer. Instead, he stalked toward Lawson, his fists in front of his face, ready to fight. Lawson stepped toward him and front-kicked his kneecap, popping it out the back side of his leg. The man crumpled to the ground like a smashed soda can. Lawson stood over him, placing his foot on the knee that was now turned in the wrong direction. The man let out an agony-filled scream. Then, before Lawson had the chance to ask again, the man answered his question.
“Serge Sokolov! Please, get off my leg!” he begged.
Lawson obliged, stepping to the side. The man wasted no time, offering threats to try to scare Lawson, desperately trying to save his own life.
“You are a dead man, Raines. When Sokolov hears about this, he’s going to kill you!”
“Wasn’t that your job?”
Allowing no time for an answer, Lawson stomped down on the man’s forehead, knocking him unconscious. Lawson knew of Sokolov. He had a lot of men inside the prison. He ran the second largest crime outfit in Vegas. Sokolov and only one other organization in Vegas were a potential threat to De Luca’s stronghold. On the inside, Sokolov controlled the Aryan brothers. The only other threat in Vegas was a man they called Darkness. Lawson always thought the name was ridiculous, but it did make sense, seeing as how he was black and controlled the black population at the prison. He had done a few favors for Darkness as well, probably why Sokolov sent men for him. It wasn’t really a conscious decision not to help Sokolov. But he always considered that on some level he chose Darkness because he could never stand to listen to that nails-on-a-chalkboard Russian accent.
Lawson searched the pocket of the man’s shattered leg, found the keys to the SUV, and went over and started it up. He went back to the Mercedes for his notebook, then back to the SUV. The air conditioning felt like a transcendent experience. He glanced out the window at the carnage he was leaving behind. He knew it was going to catch up with him sooner or later. He put the SUV in drive and pulled back onto the highway. Without anywhere else to go, he figured the suite waiting for him at Caesar’s Palace sounded like as good a place to start as any.
4
Ten minutes later, Lawson continued driving toward the Las Vegas Strip. De Luca was going to love the fact that he had just taken out three of Sokolov’s men. But Lawson didn’t really care. He was focused on the private shower waiting for him in his hotel suite. It’s an event you take for granted until you have experienced ten years of having a horde of woman-deprived meatheads circling you like sharks as you washed yourself. Lawson physically shuddered at the thought. Then the picture f
ormed in his mind of a king bed, all to himself, and a minifridge full of bourbon. He could almost taste the oak-filled, caramel-colored liquor on his lips. For the first time in a long time, he was looking forward to something.
That was before he glanced in his rearview mirror.
About a half mile behind him, down the long and straight desert highway, cresting the only hill on the entire road, he could just make out flashing red and blue lights. Then another set appeared behind those, and then another.
Damn.
For a fleeting moment, he had the urge to stomp on the accelerator and make a run for it. Once upon a time, he had been a damn good FBI agent. That knowledge of the system was stored deep inside his lizard brain somewhere, and for a second he considered using it to get away. But as much as he hated that jail cell he had just come from, he didn’t want to live on the run either.
Before the police cars were on him, he applied the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. He had a lifetime of fight inside him, but he wasn’t going to waste it on some guys who were just doing their jobs. He tucked the notebook down in the back of his joggers and placed his hands at ten and two.
The police cruiser veered off the road and into the parking lot of an old, dilapidated motel, just on the outskirts of Las Vegas. For the last ten minutes, Lawson had been trying to figure out why the cops hadn’t turned around and taken him back to High Desert State Prison. The officer driving was clearly instructed not to say a word, and he was certainly good at following orders. He also sent the other two patrol cars away before he began to drive. Whatever was going on, someone didn’t want people to know where he was taking Lawson. Or who he was being taken to meet.
As the officer stopped the car in front of the bright red door of room number seven, Lawson couldn’t help but feel like that number was going to be anything but lucky for him. No good could come from a diversion like this. No, he wasn’t heading into a cell, but he figured whatever he was going to find behind that door would more than likely be worse.
When the Man Comes Around: A Gripping Crime Thriller (Lawson Raines, Book 1) Page 2
