by AJ Nuest
Chapter 3
Hands clasped between his thighs, knee bouncing, Xander leaned forward in the folding chair and blew a tight stream of air through his pursed lips.
His cell waited directly in front of him, centered in the middle of three wooden crates that doubled as the only table in his second-floor studio apartment. On the left, a series of empty water bottles stood guard over the device. To the right sat his tin of mints, the candy inside rattling with the same tempo his heel rapped the hardwood floor.
The phone blacked out, and he unlinked his fingers to tap and reactivate the screen. Eleven minutes to liftoff. Eleven minutes, and he’d place the call, and he didn’t really give two shits if it was too damn early. Whether the news brought his world to a stop or hobbled him with grief, one more hour of the emergency broadcast alert blaring through his head and his brain was apt to initiate a system-wide shutdown.
Fuck. Shoving up from his knees, he sat back and laced his fingers behind his stiff neck. The top of the metal chair dug into his shoulder blades. Brown water blotches stained the ceiling, warped and flaking near the edges like rusty clouds.
He should’ve called the second he left the club.
His knee resumed bouncing. At least then, maybe he would’ve been able to power off for a few hours. Get some much-needed sleep. But after receiving Eden’s text, his gut had told him he’d be better off heading someplace private before calling her back. Someplace he could react without drawing any attention.
If Eden confirmed his worst fears, there was no telling what kind of reaction would follow, and climbing behind the wheel after they’d talked had seemed like a really dumb idea.
Thanks to the viral bit stream that defined downtown Miami’s weekend traffic, he hadn’t hit Little Havana until almost two AM. Tendons popped in his neck as he tipped his head side to side. Even with the hour time difference, that had put Chicago well after midnight, and waking Eden from a dead sleep so she could deliver bad news had come off two degrees short of a dick move.
A door slammed below, and he closed his eyes. Three…two… The clacking syncopation of a Cuban Rumba blasted through his open windows, signaling the bodega on the first floor had opened for business. A second later, the bell above the entrance chimed. Laughter and the excited chatter of a Spanish greeting resonated through the paper-thin walls.
Xander sprang forward and tapped his phone. Eight minutes and counting. Jesus, the anxiety was gonna make him fry a transmitter. He stood and scrubbed his hand through the damp, bleached spikes that made up the top half of his hair.
At least the connections on his mental grid had continued firing enough, he’d had the smarts to use the time to his advantage. Not that the hours he’d wasted searching every known database in the free world had produced anything useful.
He should’ve known better.
Tearing his red plaid button-down off the back of the chair, he swung it around his shoulders and crammed his arms into the sleeves. Over everything else, he should’ve known trying to find Charlie would be like hardwiring cable to the Hubble telescope—a free-float through the vacuum of space without the benefits of a spacesuit.
She’d been trained to be a ghost. Every bit as much as he had. Getting cut from Malcolm’s competition for coming in fourth place hadn’t wiped out everything she’d learned up to that point. She knew exactly how to stay invisible, just like Eden and Adder during the three years they’d lived with the crazy old bastard while he’d groomed them to take over the business.
Molars set to an enamel-splintering grind, Xander jerked open his cuffs and rolled his shirt sleeves up his forearms. Other than several Chicago arrest reports for petty theft, all dated prior to the day they’d met, the only place Charleston McGovern appeared on the net was in a census report taken in the lower Bronx, file date late 2010.
No checking accounts existed. No savings or credit cards listed with her social security number. According to the IRS, she’d never filed any income or received any help from the state.
No medical records had popped on his browser. Nothing in the police database about her being involved in a brutal car accident or dying in a New York hospital. From A to Z, the newspapers had come back a big fat zero.
Which meant all systems go. He could relax.
Except for one ball-twisting malfunction.
He couldn’t trust a single thing he’d read.
Two long strides toward his desk, and he plucked the dog-eared, faded snapshot of him and Charlie from where he always kept it propped against his central monitor. Short of hopping the next red-eye to LaGuardia and waiting at her last known address, there’d been no way for him to confirm if she were truly alive. Or dead.
Pressure condensed in his chest as he stared at her smile. A strangled laugh caught in his throat, and he shook his head.
Up until five hours ago, he’d assumed he had a pretty concrete idea of what it meant to function in hell. Discovering he’d been nothing more than a faulty glitch generated by a couple of homeless meth heads had been a tough thing to process as a kid, and the resulting shuffle from one foster home to the next hadn’t exactly created the ideal environment for him to form emotional attachments.
He lifted his head and scanned the grimy smudges decorating the walls, the occasional bent nail pock-marking the plaster. No one had understood him back then, and he’d been too buggy as a kid, too hyper and socially awkward to define, much less explain, the disjointed emotions that made up his neural network.
Tapping the picture against his palm, he approached the windows and stopped before the row of greasy panes facing the street. A warm ocean breeze ruffled the sides of his shirt against his chest. The scent of brine thinned the noxious diesel exhaust spewing from a moving van stopped at the corner light.
As a seventy-five-pound weakling piggybacking a healthy dose of crippling shyness, he’d been easy to write off as a product of his genetics. No matter what trouble came knocking or how many case workers reviewed his file, the outcome had always circled the same drain.
PTSD, OCD, ADHD—early on, he’d been diagnosed with them all. And across the board, every adult he was granted the frustration of meeting decided that dosing him up with a bunch of prescription drugs was the perfect Band-Aid to stopgap his schizoid behavior.
Brain sufficiently poached, he’d be relocated to a new home. The odd ball. The kind who stuck out. The type whose above-average IQ and physical ticks pigeonholed him as the ideal candidate for whatever shithead might be itching to pound out a little unresolved hate.
Over time, he’d finally get sick of the beatings and split, assuming he’d have a better chance of surviving adolescence on the streets, only to be picked up on some misdemeanor so he could be carted back to juvey and repeat the process all over again.
A muscle spasmed along his temple, and he spun away from the window. Each time he was handed over to some new stranger, he’d grow a little more angry, a lot more lost, and one step closer to folding under the pressure.
Maybe his time would be better spent following in his parents’ footsteps, chasing the addiction of escape.
A short trip across the room, and he slipped the picture into the outside pocket of his duffle bag. The frayed bottoms of his jeans rode the tops of his bare feet as he strode toward the kitchenette. Yanking open the door on the mini-fridge, he snagged the last bottle of water off the shelf.
All that had changed the winter he’d met Charlie. He cracked the cap and dumped half the bottle down his throat. She’d broken the downward spiral he’d been caught in, had taken him under her wing. And for the first time in his life, she’d shown him how damn good it could feel to belong.
A growl built behind his clenched teeth as he lowered the water from his lips. After what she’d done for him, it would serve him right if he’d lost her. He’d blown every chance he’d been given to apologize, to explain.
Starting over ten years ago, on the day they’d stood in the front hallway at Smith Manor, and he’
d been too wrapped up in guilt and pain to stop her from walking out the door.
Pivoting back to the folding chair, he ate up the three strides to the crates, snatched his phone off the top and tapped the app to scramble the signal.
He’d thought he’d known hell.
Raking his fingers through his hair, he thumbed in Eden’s number.
But this… Shit, he hadn’t had the first fucking clue.
One ring, and he shuffled his feet, flexed his fingers and shook out his hand. Two rings, and he flicked open his mints, fished one from between the folded paper and dotted the white tab on his tongue.
The third ring vibrated his eardrum, and he balled his fist in preparation to take out a hunk of wall. Come on, come on. Peppermint iced his taste buds as he ground the candy to dust. If he had to wait for a call back, he was gonna lose his damn mind.
The line clicked over and a bunch of rustling brushed the earpiece. “This had better be good. It’s six fucking AM and we’re still in bed.”
Jerking upright, Xander tore the phone away from his face to double-check he hadn’t misdialed the number. A dude? Answering Eden’s phone? And they were in bed?
What in the holy hell…?
Clearing his throat, he latched onto the first thought that made sense and followed protocol. “Contact Theta, line secure.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” A heavy sigh gusted through the line. “Let me guess. You’re one of Smith’s crazy nut bags.”
Crazy…nut bags? Xander scowled. Who the fuck was this guy?
“Kelly, what are you doing?” The irritation in Eden’s voice came through loud and clear even though she spoke in the background. “Give me that.”
More rustling. “Stop.” Eden again. What sounded like the smack of a bare ass followed by a deep chuckle. “I said stop it. Now get off of me.”
Jesus, the weird—and twisted—impression he’d just stepped into the wrong theater only to get an eyeful of his best friend starring in a skin flick jammed itself in his brain, and Xander dragged his hand down his face. And, lucky him, it was the director’s cut.
“Make yourself useful and go start the coffee.” Eden grew louder, as if she’d successfully taken possession of her phone. A muted response from whomever she was with, and she laughed. “Maybe later. Now go.”
Xander winced and shook his head.
“Hi, X.” She cleared the rasp from her throat. “Sorry about that. I promise that’ll be the last time I leave my phone on Kelly’s side of the bed.”
Side of the— Hold up, she was living with someone?
Xander slid a wary gaze over his surroundings. And apparently dialing her number had ripped a hole in the space-time continuum, and he’d been sucked into an alternate universe. Of all the millions of copper tops in The Matrix, Eden was the last one he imagined playing house. With anyone. “Well, shit. Sorry to interrupt.”
Not that he cared or it was any of his damn business if she’d decided to rewrite the hypertext of her relationship code. He and Eden had always shared more of a brother-sister thing. Or, at least, he trusted her in a way he imagined he would an older sister.
As long as the guy treated her right, whatever she’d blocked and deleted from the programming was no skin off his nose.
“No, don’t be. I’m glad you called. I was starting to think you didn’t get my text.”
And if he didn’t, well then. Xander smirked. The dude’s entire existence was about to take a dump straight into a dark data center. “I was working and didn’t get in until late.”
“Oh? Anything interesting?”
Yep. A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. There was the Eden he’d always known.
During their winter on the streets, she’d been the unspoken leader of their group. Xander, Charlie, and that troubled teenager, Vivian, who’d tagged Eden like a shadow, had always looked to her for direction. For advice.
In the years since, they’d even occasionally kept in touch. Though those rare conversations had been brief, usually work-related information sent either via text or email routed through his private server. “Just a local con. Nothing too complicated.”
Hell, even now, visualizing her on the other end of the line grounded him somehow, helped compartmentalize the worry. Or maybe the image of her simply reminded him he wouldn’t be alone in his grief.
“I gotta say, it’s damn good to hear your voice, E.” Only one other person had ever been able to do that for him. He sank to the chair and lowered his forehead into his palm. “So, who was it?”
She sighed and he braced. Could’ve sworn someone tapped pause on his heart. “Malcolm. He was murdered two weeks ago.” Her voice cracked. “And so was Viv.”
Christ. The air was sucked from his lungs. A second later, the vacancy of a blinking cursor filled his head, and then a punch of shock rocked him back on the seat.
No one knew the revenge business better than their mentor. Those three years he’d lived at the residence, Xander had practically viewed Malcolm Smith through a filter of god-like reverence. Even after he’d hand-picked Eden, Xander, and a third kid named Adder to inherit the reins to his revenge-for-hire empire of Dirty Deeds, Malcolm had kept a low profile, living the quiet life in the affluent suburbs of Chicago’s North Shore.
So what the hell could’ve happened? A sharp whine built in Xander’s ears. And why Viv? She’d moved out long before Malcolm’s retirement, so for someone to hit her kill switch at the same time didn’t compute. The only one who’d been close to both of them was…
Eden.
Every muscle in his body seized, and Xander shot to his feet. Anger rippled through his gut like an electromagnetic pulse, his jaw locked tight enough pain rode the wave into his temples.
Whoever was responsible, they’d done it to hurt her, encroach on her safety. And starting right now, their life was about to be reduced to a scorch mark. “All I need is a name, E.”
No one messed with one of their own. Not if they planned to spend the rest of their days breathing above ground.
“It’s already been taken care of, and is the main reason I contacted you so late.” Her sip and swallow echoed through the phone, and Xander assumed Kelly what’s-his-name had delivered her coffee. “Suffice to say, the person responsible is never hurting anyone again.”
Good. Xander exhaled his first easy breath since he’d received her text. Thank God.
“The reason I initiated contact was to let you know I’ve planned a small service for Monday morning. Around eleven at the cemetery, with a reception afterward at the house. Malcolm’s attorney will be present, and I thought you might like to be there for the reading of the will.”
No question. “I’m on my way.”
Following that clusterfuck of a search, Xander had downloaded his hard drive onto his laptop. Dismantled the network he’d designed to optimize this location and reserved a stand-by seat on an afternoon flight to Chicago.
Everything else could be trashed. He’d start fresh wherever he landed after the funeral, the same as every other time he’d pulled up stakes and moved. “I just need to launch my exit strategy and I’ll be on the next plane.”
“Any chance you’ve been in contact with Charlie?”
He froze, the receptors in his head scrambling to produce an answer that wouldn’t make him come off like a hackerazzi stalker.
“O-o-okay? From the way you stopped breathing, I take it that’s a no.”
Shit. Eden’s soft laugh echoed through the phone, and Xander scrunched up his face in a grimace. “You never told her, did you?”
Dammit. He shook his head. But the really moronic move was assuming he’d actually kept the heart-on he had for Charlie off Eden’s radar. From the first day they’d met, he’d known the woman could read people quicker than the incoming updates on a Facebook newsfeed.
“X-ray…” Her tone softened with understanding. “Malcolm chose you as one of the three Dirty Deeds successors because he believed you, me and Adder were the bes
t candidates suited for the job. Charlie knew that. She understood the risks going in, just like everyone else. After all this time, you owe it to yourself to be honest with her.”
He grunted. “That’s a pretty tall order coming from a woman whose firewalls challenge the security clearance surrounding Area 51.”
Another laugh, filled with more humor than the first. “Yeah, well, believe it or not, I’ve learned a thing or two over the past few weeks. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that second chances only come around once. This is a prime opportunity for you. I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to waste it.”
Right. So, he’d go to Charlie and say what? He scrubbed at his tired eyes before shoving his hand through his hair. The moment she’d stepped into his world, he’d been lost? She’d saved his life and he’d done his best to repay her by royally screwing her over? “Things between me and Charlie are a lot more complicated than you might realize, E.”
“Pffth, they always are, but that’s what makes the rewards all the more worthwhile.” She drew a breath and it grazed his ear as she exhaled. “Listen, I gotta go. But, personally, I think Charlie has a right to know about Malcolm and Viv, and I think you agree. That being said, it’s not my job to convince you what to do, and since I don’t want to stick either of you in the middle of an awkward situation, here’s what I’ve decided.”
Oh, fuck. Every impulse he owned screamed it was time to stop, drop and roll.
“I’ll email her current address to your private server, but whether or not she finds out, I’m leaving the choice up to you.”
His hand hit his thigh with a slap, but nothing could’ve stopped the resigned chuckle that soured the back of his throat. Awkward situation, his ass. Brilliant as always, Eden had stuck him right where she wanted him. Between the rock of going to Charlie and taking the chance she might think he was the biggest asshole in the world. Or the hard place of not going to Charlie so he could actually be the biggest asshole in the world. “Dammit, E. You are one devious nutcracker.”
