“Don’t you have any compassion? Do you have a heart at all?”
“Compassion, mercy—these are the things that weaken a man. You pushed me too far, Jack. I let you have a little rebellion but that’s all over now. You made it appear I can’t keep my house in order. No more. This war you are trying to start won’t happen. Kingdoms fall from such untidiness. The Wades’ issues have nothing to do with this organization.”
The thought of Ella out there without me breaks me down. Elaine’s words echo in my chaotic mind. I can’t panic. I have to find a new way. Her words suddenly don’t seem so useful while I am chained in a cell.
“You’re double crossing both your friend Carter and me, your own blood. That has to be violating even your own fucked-up code. She’s innocent. You sent her to her death. Forget your enemies, not even your allies will trust a man whose word is worthless.”
“There was a term. You violated the term. Not me. The deal is off. Enough with this drivel.” He turns to the guards. “Do what you must.”
Lucius and his guards turn to go, leaving me alone with the grunt brothers. One of them fights a grin at the corner of his lips when he pulls out a leather whip. The other one is more of a tactician. He double checks my restraints with the seriousness of a diamond cutter.
“Which one of you gets a woody from this sick shit?” I say, as the second goon rips the shirt off my back. The absurdity of my uncle’s theatrics has reached its brutal finale. Sucks to be the centerpiece in it.
The first blow feels alright, like the cold slap of water in the morning that wakes me suddenly. The second blow strikes harder and reminds me that this is going to hurt more with each additional blow. I suck in my breath, starting to count backwards from one thousand under my breath.
The whip strikes again and again, relentlessly, in a steady pace as if controlled by a robotic arm that doesn’t miss a beat, almost musical like a metronome. Each new gash like a note being written on a page. These men are the vicious conductors for my uncle’s savage symphony.
My mind fights for ideas, no matter how fabulous, to keep from coming apart. I will not sob for these men. My spirit will not be defeated. I grind my teeth, keeping all kinds of agonizing screams inside. I won’t add them to the brutal sounds of this hellish enterprise. The pain slices me open everywhere at once. Every nerve frays to a state of salty rawness.
I count down to nine hundred, then to eight hundred, counting faster and faster as if reaching zero will put an end to it all, struggling to stay focused on the numbers as if my life depends on it.
The harsh tail of the whip digs into my back and ribs and finds my upper arms and thighs where the skin is partially protected by my jeans. The pain is not the hardest part. I lose count when Ella’s sweet face emerges in the tears flooding my eyes. She shimmers and swims in the blur of the fading world.
Nothing can touch her.
Finally, a single tear drops onto my cheek then slips from my face. I imagine the tear is a piece of her that’s racing ever downward toward my heart, always racing to get there but never arriving.
The chains clink together every time I’m hit. Numbers reach my lips but I can no longer hear them, not even in the quiet of my mind.
“You done?” The voice reaches my ears through multiple layers of thick glass. It’s as if they are in a distant room.
“Boss said no serious scarring.”
The two of them move behind me like shadows to examine their handiwork. “Have the medic come in. It’s borderline.”
The one with the whip moves in front of me. “All right, pretty boy, you’ll survive. You’re lucky you have the Boss’s blood in those veins.”
They leave me hanging like meat freshly stripped of its hide. The throbbing pain feels as distant as their voices had. I couldn’t sob now even if I tried. The agony is as distant from me as her lips.
Everything shuts down. My heart, my lungs, my eyes. There is a steady ringing in my ears emerging like the final note of a sick song.
I hear a voice fading away. “I love you, Jack,” her ghost whispers.
The light is gone. My girl is gone. Everything is gone.
—ten—
Ella
Tanner parks the car a block away. He leads me to the apartment building through a back alley I had forgotten existed. We take the stairs to the third floor because Tanner says so. I’m not about to argue or oppose him in any way since he knows what he’s doing and I’m clueless.
Tanner halts only a few steps away from my apartment door and brings his index finger to his mouth.
I stop cold in my tracks, wondering what it is that has given him pause. Is it a routine thing or is he sensing something’s off?
He looks around the hallway, drawing his gun out. I mouth the word what when he throws me a glance. He points at the door, pretending he’s tapping on it a few times until I get what he’s saying.
Tanner thinks someone’s inside my apartment.
My heart flutters anxiously, my lungs drain and don’t refill. Jax said we were safe. Maybe the Bronsons have set up a fake meeting. Jax and Lucius might also be walking into a trap.
Tanner kicks the door wide open, causing me to jump backwards from the shock. A little warning would have been nice.
As I stay back wondering if I should follow Tanner in or not, a shrill scream enters my ears. I’m stunned for a second at how high-pitched the screaming sounds. That’s not a guy. There’s a woman in there.
I order my legs to follow Tanner. As soon as I get to the door, I find him with his gun raised and aiming at the last person I expected to see today, my friend Mia.
“My God, put that stupid gun away,” I say, rushing to hug my best friend.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her, kissing her cheek a couple of times to calm her.
“What’s happening?” Mia says, shaking a little in my arms.
Where do I begin? “We thought someone had broken in,” I tell her to keep the message as simple and comprehensible as possible.
“We?” Mia bends her face at Tanner, half-terrified, half-curious.
“Yeah… Mia, this is Tanner, my bodyguard. Tanner, this is Mia.”
I expect her to fall into stunned silence or maybe laugh at this, not believing a word I’m saying. Instead, she furrows her brow as she takes a closer look at stoic, ferocious Tanner.
“Your bodyguard? That’s hot,” she says.
“No, that’s not hot,” I tell her, freeing her of my hug finally. “That would be actually horrible. Are you serious, Mia? You should be traumatized after the shock of having a gun in your face.”
“I am,” she says, “but being shocked can be interesting.”
I take a peek at Tanner, wondering how this girlie talk is affecting him. He doesn’t even blink. His eyes focus on the wall behind Mia and me as if we don’t even exist.
“I’m sorry we frightened you. I thought you’d be in Europe still,” I say to change subjects, leading Mia to the couch.
“Do you even check your phone anymore?”
I do, I just assumed all the messages she left the past few days would be pretty much identical to the first twenty ones she sent: Spain is cool but Spaniards are hot, or, What a hell of a hangover… AGAIN!!!
“I’m such a terrible friend. I’m sorry, Mia. Behind on messages.” Now that we’re more relaxed, I notice she has a new haircut and a lighter color. Her new short bob cut makes her cute face glow even more.
“I’ll forgive you if you tell me what the hell is going on. I mean, I’ve used the key you gave me hundreds of times before and it never led to a bodyguard holding me at gunpoint.”
“It’s as messed up as it sounds. I’m not sure you want to know.”
“For fuck’s sake, tell me everything. Start with Jaxson Cole. Last time we talked you were ready to jump his bones and then… nothing. I’ve emailed, texted, no answer. I’m dying to know, did you do it or not?”
I turn to Tanner. “Would you mind giving us some priva
cy?”
He takes his time to think about this. Mia pinches my arm as we wait, trying to contain a chuckle. His seriousness is too much for her.
“I can’t go far,” he says. “This is not a secure location.”
“What about the kitchen?”
We watch him lift his shirt and tuck the gun in a hidden holster. His abs are all bulging muscle. He nods before walking to the kitchen.
“Wow, just wow,” Mia says as she watches his behind. “He could shock me in so many interesting ways.”
“Mia. I’m sure he heard that.”
“Perfect,” she says, giggling. “All right, your turn. Spill.”
I take a deep breath in. “First things first, my father’s back.”
Her eyes widen so much I think they’ll pop out. “That’s awesome. Right?”
I shake my head. Wrong. In fact, she couldn’t be more wrong. So I tell her everything. She listens closely, getting more and more restless.
“So you see,” I conclude, “it’s not safe for you to be around here.”
She’s speechless. When she finally talks, it’s only a half-sentence she can manage. “This is just so…”
I’m about to help her finish her thought when Tanner barges in the living room holding his gun again. A second later, there’s a knock at the door. How the hell did he know that was going to happen? He has canine hearing.
“Everybody just relax,” I whisper, glaring at Tanner.
“Who is it?” I say, walking to the door.
“Rick Esposito.”
Oh, shit. I walk back to Tanner. “It’s the police,” I say in a voice so low I can only hope he’s heard me.
He has and quickly returns to the kitchen.
“What’s going on now?” Mia says.
I hush her as I open the door.
“Detective Esposito,” I say with a smile.
“Miss Wade. May I come in?”
I move to the side to let him in. Esposito’s cologne enters the instant he does, filling up my nostrils, making me nostalgic for the day we met before I knew I was hunted.
Esposito pauses when he sees Mia. From her expression, it’s obvious she’s loving the sudden emergence of hot men in my apartment. Esposito’s expression, on the other hand, is completely unreadable.
Once again, introductions are in order. “Detective Esposito, my friend, Mia Jones.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Jones,” Esposito says, shaking Mia’s hand.
“The pleasure is all mine, Detective.”
She means it, too. She moves behind Esposito’s back to make a face that pretty much means wow. Goddammit, she’s so distracting and I need to focus.
“You must be wondering why I’m here,” Esposito says.
“Why are you here?”
“I’ll go do something… in the kitchen,” Mia says. I’m sure that will go down well with Tanner. At least, she’s giving us privacy.
“I’m not happy with the way I acted last time we met,” Esposito says. “I overstepped, big time.”
“It really doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve moved on. We’re cool.” I don’t need an apology, what I need is for him to leave.
He nods absentmindedly. “So how have you been?”
Great, small talk. “Trying to adjust to the life of unemployment,” I say casually.
“Any insights on the case of Madison Starr’s murder?”
“No,” I say, doing my best to sound sincere. “What about you? Have you made any progress?”
“Not really, no,” he says, sitting on the couch. “All leads take me to dead ends. I was hoping you or Mr. Cole might have something to share.”
Does he suspect Jaxson and I might actually have all the answers he needs? Why would he? Unless he knows more than he’s letting on, like maybe the fact Madison’s death was a mob hit gone wrong.
“Why would we know anything?”
He shrugs. “You like to play detective. Has anything out of the ordinary happened lately? Every little odd piece of information might help.”
Out of the ordinary, that’s one way of putting it. “No, I’m sorry. Life has been its usual boring self lately.”
“You know you can trust me, right, Ella?”
“Of course,” I say, in complete awe of my new ability to deceive. Maybe I picked it up in the air at HQ. “I just have plans with Mia, you know.”
“Oh, right, yes, I’m sorry to be taking up your time.”
I walk him to the door and he’s almost out when he changes his mind and takes a step back inside.
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” he says. “Promise me you won’t hesitate to come to me if you feel something’s wrong.”
His intensity is alarming. “I promise,” I say quietly to get him out of the door. “But you don’t need to worry about me, Rick.”
He stares at me. “It’s become a habit,” he says before he goes.
The door shuts and I rub my temples. He knows things he’s not saying. Everything is connected to everything. Mia is probably a secret assassin as well. Not really. Oh, shit. Mia! And poor Tanner!
The big gunman might be trained for all eventualities, but he’s totally unprepared for Mia. I hurry to the kitchen still wondering what kind of game Rick Esposito is playing.
—eleven—
Ella
Two days without word from Jaxson. No, that’s not true. A second text arrived the night he was supposed to come to the apartment, saying the negotiations took longer than originally planned and he didn’t know when he’d be done. My calls go straight to voice mail. Something isn’t right.
Tanner isn’t exactly thrilled with my plan to go to HQ. He’s very suspicious of the whole business with the Bronson meeting but I can’t sit still any longer waiting for news to arrive. I need to talk to someone and my hope is I will find Carter or Elaine or maybe Lucius himself there.
At the HQ gate they have us wait in the car while getting approval to let us in. I feel stupid for being so mad at Carter that I never even bothered to ask for his phone number.
Tanner yawns for so long I think his jaw might pop. “I’m sorry.” I say. “This must be quite boring for someone like you. You must be used to action.”
Tanner looks at me as if to make sure I’m for real. “I like boring,” he says. “Action is overrated.”
He has a point. Minutes go by without a sign from the gate. “What was your last assignment?” I ask Tanner just to kill time.
“It’s still going on,” he says. “It’s just the family is in Europe right now.”
“Let me guess, the family of a mobster.”
“It’s more complicated than that.” He looks at his watch and then, unexpectedly, offers me more information. “I only protect his daughters now. All four of them. I’m done with the rest of the shit.”
“Four girls, huh? How old are they?”
“Early to mid-twenties.”
I chuckle a little. “It must be a tough job.”
He doesn’t get my sarcasm. “Not really. Women are easy to handle. They follow orders and try to please. At least the three of them do.”
“You like easy, huh? You’re full of shit, Tanner. I bet you like the fourth girl better.”
He doesn’t answer. The gate opens wide and we sail right through it.
Tanner is asked to wait in the lobby while I am led to a large room with a long table. Nobody seems willing to answer any of my questions. Five minutes go by before the door opens and Lucius walks in.
“Miss Wade,” he says. “How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Jaxson,” I say. “Or my father.” There, I said it. Father. Somehow I’m hoping my connection to Carter will soften up Lucius a bit.
“You’ve lost both of them?”
What? “I’m not quite sure…”
“Relax, I’m joking, eh?” He laughs but there’s nothing happy about his laughter. “Jaxson is at a meeting, negotiating your safety. As For Carter, he left the day he brought you in. I th
ought you knew.”
“Oh,” I say, taken aback by the fact I feel disappointed that Carter’s not around and even more so that he didn’t bother to tell me. He’s never been good at goodbyes or sticking around. I guess giving me a bodyguard was his way of saying goodbye.
“Now, if there’s nothing else, there are urgent matters to attend.”
“Sure, yeah. You’ll let me know when you hear from Jax?”
“Of course. Although something tells me you’ll hear from him first.”
He shakes my hand and then a guard takes me back to Tanner.
“Well?” Tanner says.
“Nothing. He gave me nothing. Except for the fact my father’s gone.”
“I could have told you that.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I say, slapping his shoulder hard which hurts me, not him.
“You never asked. Let’s get out of here.”
“Are you sure we wouldn’t be better off staying at HQ?” I ask as he practically drags me to the exit.
“No,” he says. “There’s something I don’t like here. In my job you develop an instinct that you trust. This place is not harmonious. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“What do you mean, besides the obvious?”
He doesn’t answer most of my questions. This one is no different. He puts me into the car police style, hand on top of my head.
“Tanner, what’s going on?” I say as soon as he gets in the car next to me.
“I spotted someone who shouldn’t be here,” he says, starting the engine.
“Who?”
“Someone working for the other team. A contract man.”
“The other team? You mean the Bronson family?”
“Affirmative.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“Let’s not stick around to find out.”
He drives away like a maniac. When we get to the freeway he’s constantly changing lanes as if he’s being chased. My stomach gets stuck in my throat and I’m begging him to slow down even though I know it’s pointless.
“Where are you taking me?” I yell when he gets on a surface street I’ve never even heard of before.
“My place,” he says casually.
Scandal: The Complete Series Page 22
