Charity's Secrets

by Maya James

  I know exactly why we're not waiting. This is a live training session and Justin would rather know now if Garrett can really do this or not.

  Justin turns toward his brother, his eyes growing into his serious JP glare. "Tell me you know how to fire a weapon?"

  Garrett throws his head completely back and bellows of his sharp laughter fill the quiet room.

  CHAPTER XIII

  It's been a twenty-four hour lesson in patience for Garrett Sumpter. They could simply have gone right into the residence and shot Alex Bremer in the head and left when they confirmed he was home a few hours ago, but it wouldn’t be clean. It's the difference of doing something and doing something right.

  "I don't like that we haven't seen the wife or daughter," I confess. "It's a school day; why didn't she go?"

  Justin agrees. I think that is the reason we haven't moved yet, it's an unanswered question. "Find out from Lena what school she goes to and her attendance records," he commands.

  I put her on it with a text and wait for her reply.

  "They didn't open a fuckin' curtain all day. Did you guys notice that?" Garrett asks.

  We can only nod. There's no explanation for anything yet. Maybe they've left him.

  Earlier, Justin had sent one of his men to monitor Alex at work as a Transporter at Newark Berth Israel Hospital. He was there on time and left on time. Our guy followed him from work to home on Stuyvesant Avenue in Newark, signaling to us as he drove by and left us on the street alone.

  No one else ever came or left the house.

  My phone vibrates softly. It's Lena calling me back already.

  "No school," she says flatly. "There's no record of her anywhere, not even private schools."

  "What the fuck!" I breathe. "This is just getting weirder by the moment."

  "I found something else, too," Lena adds. "His wife's mother apparently lives there with them, her social security checks are sent there. But she must be in perfect health, because she hasn't had a medical record in six years."

  "It's all bullshit!" I blurt out. Justin and Garrett both stare at me. "He's a con. None of these women are real. Maybe they were at one time; he's stolen their identities, collecting their checks, taking the tax breaks. The whole damn thing is a con."

  I quickly hang up with Lena and fill the boys in. Suddenly we all feel better about what we are about to do.

  He's alone in there. This is going to be quick and easy.

  "Can we get this done now?" Garrett begs, anxious for revenge.

  Justin nods and gets out of the truck. A blast of biting cold rushes in through the open door. He looks even larger than he is, dressed completely in black, his body completely sure of itself and in control.

  My heart is racing.

  He must see my face, because he smiles at me and pokes his head back in through the open door. His beautiful lips approach mine, igniting my desire as my mouth readies for his taste. The heat of his lips presses into mine, warming me quickly.

  "Be safe," I whisper after his mouth pulls away from me.

  "Always, Warrior." His face lights up with his cocky little smirk.

  Garrett hops out next to him, his breath blowing out in thick white clouds.

  "When we get to the doors, I'll radio when it's a go. Once we go in, it's radio silence. No one makes a sound until we call it clear from inside. Understood?"

  Both Garrett and I nod, but my face is nervous and his is excited.

  I watch them move on the house as I take the driver's seat, ready in case they come out in a hurry. Garrett heads to the back as they planned while Justin crouches on the dark front porch, hidden by a rusty chair.

  The ten count passes as I survey the house and all its windows.

  "Good?" Justin asks over the radio.

  Garrett should reply first to confirm he's ready, then me that the house still has no movement inside.

  "Good," Garrett confirms.

  It's on me now. A feeling of responsibility washes over me as I send my greatest love into danger. "Good."

  I should have lied and kept them safe!

  Justin quietly picks the front door lock and goes in. Garrett would have been doing the same in back.

  Suddenly, I'm all alone.

  As I stare, unable to blink, the tiny rectangle windows of the basement lights up. It hasn't done that all fucking day or night!

  Someone is still awake!

  I can’t even warn them, and it quickly gets worse as I see a shadowy silhouette moving around in the light.

  Alex Bremer is not the only one home!

  My throat closes, and my ears are filled with a piercing ring. Neither of those things stop me from jumping out of the truck and running to the house.

  I leap up the porch and grab the door handle. It strikes me right now that if I rush in like this, one of my own could shoot me by mistake.

  I slow the fuck down, turning the handle deliberately, pushing the door open.

  There's nothing but darkness inside the tiny, cluttered living room. It smells terrible, like the house is full of sweaty men.

  The Sig p226 that Justin had trained me on for protection is now out in front of me doing its job at the end of my arms. I close the door and silently move across the room.

  Nobody is making a fucking sound, which sucks for me because I don't know where anyone is if I can’t see or hear them. I am pretty sure everyone in the entire house can hear my heart beating though. I put my back against the wall near the doorway to another room and listen.

  Suddenly I hear someone just on the other side of my wall. I don't know if it's Alex, Justin, or Garrett.

  What the hell am I doing here?

  They're getting closer to the edge.

  I slouch down to the worn carpet on one knee, praying they don't hear me move. I'll need the advantage from being low.

  There's a creak from above, someone standing on a loose floorboard on the seconds floor.

  Everyone freezes, the whole damn house turns eerily silent. The only thing I can hear now is the air from the heater blowing through the vents in a hollow sounding hum and a ringing in my head.

  Tense moments pass.

  Someone is going to have to make a move. My gun is aimed at the edge of the wall about eighteen inches away from me and I'm pretty sure eighteen inches on the other side is a gun aimed at me.

  I can wait all fucking night, but I don't think we will.

  That dirty smell is suddenly much stronger. God! It's fucking horrible. It wasn't this strong at first.

  Feet shuffle along the floor just behind my wall. Closer! A shadow, a simple dark blotch on a dark rug, breaks across the imaginary divide between the two rooms.

  I take aim, just in case it's not one of my boys.

  The ringing in my ears becomes God awful the more that I strain to listen.

  From over my head I hear two very muffled pops—the distinct sound of gunfire through a silencer.

  Feet shuffle closer to the edge and stop again.

  My radio chirps.

  I'd forgotten about it hanging from my belt loop. Whoever is just beyond my wall must have heard it; they have to know I'm here now.

  Justin's voice follows the short burst of static. "Clear!"

  Justin is upstairs and Alex Bremer is dead, but whoever is on the other side of the wall doesn't have a radio. Only mine went off.

  It isn't Garrett!

  "Are you in the house?" Justin suddenly demands after another quick chirp. He must have heard the echo from my radio from upstairs, and I can hear the fear in his voice.

  "Whoever you are," I say loudly, loud enough for the entire house. "Come out now!" I know Justin and Garrett heard me; I hear their excited feet above me. I can picture them carefully moving back toward a staircase now that they know we are not alone.

  The feet shuffle again, and I see several fingers wrap around the edge of the wall in the darkness.

  My fucking heart!

  That awful smell!

  The f
ucking ringing!

  "Come out!" I order despite it all.

  I hear the guys coming down some stairs in some other part of the house.

  The feet shuffle into the room with me.

  "Are you going to help us?" A tiny, shaky voice asks in the dark.

  My weapon is aimed right between the two absolutely huge, terrified eyes of a frail young girl.

  "We need someone to help," she says.

  The boys are coming up behind me now. I thrust my left hand back at them, signaling them not to move, not to come any closer.

  Frantically, I work to remember the name from Alex's tax papers, and it finally comes to me. "Marley?"

  This malnourished, nervous girl slowly nods her head. Her skin is paper thin and so white she almost seems to glow in the darkness. Her eyes are surrounded in thick black rings, and I realize that horrible smell has gotten so much worse now because it’s her.

  Carefully, I lower my gun and signal for the guys behind me to do the same. I believe I already know the terrible truth of this little girl.

  "Honey, is your mother downstairs in the basement?" I ask softly.

  A tear falls from one of her eyes as she nods again.

  "Is she alive?"

  "Yes, but she can't move. She's chained up. He keeps her that way so he can hurt her if I try to leave," she cries softly.

  I swallow, hard, trying to fight my emotions. "Is your grandmother down there too?"

  Marley's face drops toward the floor. She nods, but it's full of grief. That sick fucking bastard let her die down there and left the body to rot in front of them.

  I turn around to see Justin and Garrett. Their faces are twisted up in anguish and disbelief. "What do we do?" I ask as I stand back up.

  Neither of them do a thing for a minute, then Justin takes out his phone and dials. "Lena—change of plans. Bremer is dead but the girl and her mother are alive." He lets Lena have a moment of shock, like the rest of us are having. "Get a few of the men over here, quietly. We're going to move them out. Start an account for them as well—we'll find out where they want to go. Get a place for them for tonight and get a counselor. They're gonna need to get cleaned up. He had them prisoner here Lena, so you can imagine what they need."

  I get it. It's the best thing for them. We can't call the police, we just assassinated Alex Bremer in his bed. This way, they won't have the news in their face while they're trying to recover. They will have the best therapy, not just some state worker. And most of all, Justin will make sure they have a place to live and won't need for a thing. It's much better than what the state would have given.

  "Are we gonna get to see the outside now?" Marley asks in her tiny voice.

  My heart breaks. She's never been past this room in her life, I'm sure of it.

  I step over to her, ignoring the awful smell, and I hold out my hand toward her. Marley eagerly grabs my fingers, hungry for some compassion, and begins to cry harder.

  "Can you take me to your mother, sweetie? We should make sure she's okay too and get her out of those chains."

  OUR MARK FINALLY CAME out of the bar. Justin has taken the second seat on this one, letting Garrett run it with his guidance. Garrett had proved himself as the trigger man on Alex Bremer, one in the head, one in the heart.

  Justin trusts him now.

  He trusts me to be here as well. Twice I've helped when things didn't go according to plan. That isn't luck in Justin's eyes. He was further impressed by how I handled myself, that I had the balls to go in despite the extreme danger, and that I had the reserve to wait and not blow away whoever was behind the wall without first seeing their face.

  We wait until he reaches the middle of the block. There's much less visibility there.

  Garrett hears the signal over his earpiece and rounds the corner heading for the mark, head down, unassuming. His mark sees him, but pays no mind to the man in the dark jeans and heavy jacket under a Yankees cap.

  They march closer toward each other and this time my nerves are much calmer. My job is simple; pull his hands together behind his back and snap a pair of cuffs around his wrists, then his ankles. He won't be fully conscious or fighting me.

  Justin is driving. A soldier named Malcolm sits right behind Justin on my left, ready at the door.

  The mark staggers a bit from all he drank before coming out. He looks like any other guy coming out of a bar and I have to remind myself that six months ago he was Jesse Simpson's cellmate. He was in for stabbing a rival over ownership of a corner. It was his fourth time in for a violent offense, and he just did eight years for it before being paroled. Three years at the end there were with Jesse. Word is they got tight, fast, and stayed that way. Justin is sure this guy brings us to Jesse.

  Justin puts the truck into drive, pulls away from the curb and starts heading for them. Garrett is next to him in another step, sliding his hand and a needle out of his pocket in a smooth, fluid motion. He jabs it into the mark's neck and pumps it empty while we pull up next to them with Malcolm already swinging the door wide.

  Our mark is instantly doped. Garrett gives him a wicked push toward the open door, where Malcolm grabs his shoulders and drags him in across his lap. The smell of alcohol is heavy on him, quickly filling the truck.

  I grab and pull one arm behind him and snap a cuff around his wrist, but his other arm is under him. Malcolm moves him enough that I pull the arm free and cuff it to his other. Then Malcolm throws him to the floor and Garrett climbs into the truck with us, carelessly stepping on our drunk mark in the process.

  As Malcolm is shutting the door, I'm snapping handcuffs on to the marks ankles. He's out freakin' cold.

  We pull away unseen and drive out of the neighborhood, out of the city.

  "MAYBE HE REALLY DOESN'T know where the fuck he is!" Garrett says, his chest heaving up and down as he tries to catch his breath. His arms are exhausted, hands sore.

  "He does," Justin says with a smile. "He knows exactly where Jesse is."

  Garrett defends. "No—I'm not so sure. He should have given it up by now if he did."

  Justin smiles at him.

  The air in here is dirty and wet; you can smell the mold long before you see it. Every metal beam is covered in rust, every window covered over with rotting wood.

  We're huddled in our truck for warmth. Justin had drove it straight into this old warehouse a couple hours ago and they set up our mark tied to a chair about thirty yards on front of us right in our headlights. They stripped him down to his underwear and the cold is eating at him horribly, as he sits dampened in his own blood.

  "He knows," Justin repeats.

  Garrett saunters back looking deflated and he begins to punch our mark in the stomach, making him throw up again, though there's nothing left to come out.

  "You could have gotten what you needed from him ten minutes after we arrived," Malcolm offers.

  "Yes," Justin replies, "but then none of them would have learned a damn thing. They'd only have my word, and sometimes that's just not enough."

  Malcolm nods that he understands. "If you did it your way, they'd probably doubt you had to. This way they understand."

  "They don't have the experience we do, and they need to learn, especially Garrett," Justin says. "You and Lena—you need to teach him."

  I realize now that they keep saying "they" because they mean me as well.

  Garrett comes back a short time later, now even more exhausted. "Justin, you're wrong. This guy doesn't know where Jesse is—he just doesn't fucking know!"

  Justin passes him a bottle of water and asks him to get in. He climbs into the passenger seat beside Justin and takes several huge swigs, catching his breath.

  "I don't like this," Justin says. "Believe me, I don't get a damn thing out of what we're doing. But you both had to see this with your own eyes, or you may never have trusted what we do and how we do it. I don't want either of you to have doubts, for different reasons obviously. Garrett, you're just getting started and you need to bel
ieve every word I tell you—it will save your life." His eyes grow soft and fall on me. "Charity, I wanted you to know I've never done anything that I didn't have to."

  We're all silent, even Malcolm.

  Justin starts again. "You're sure he doesn't know where Jesse is?"

  Garrett nods. "I'm positive. He's freezing to death. I've beat the shit out of him. If he knew, he would have cracked by now, probably hours ago."

  "Cellmates, ones you can get along with, that's not always easy. Most of the time you're just putting up with the guy and hoping you don't have to kill him for trying to kill you. When you get someone you like, you hold on to that. You share things you don't with anyone else. It probably sounds sick to you, but it's not that different than a marriage."

  Justin looks out the window at our mark slumped in his chair shivering. "Three years he lived with Jesse. They were dangerous together; raping other inmates, beatings. You think they're friends, and that isn't worth a beating like this. You also think criminals don't have much loyalty to anyone but themselves. You're wrong. Their loyal to a fault when they want to be and him and Jesse—they might as well be brothers."

  "You want me to keep going?" Garrett asks, sounding upset by the thought.

  "No!" Justin snaps quickly. "No I don't. I think you see now it isn't working that way and it hasn't been so humane. He's suffering, and even though he's a dangerous sociopath, none of us are, so it's hard to swallow even though he deserves it."

  Justin suddenly rolls down the windows and turns to see my face. "You don't have to watch this. Hearing it will be enough."

  My pulse jumps to life, scared for him. This is exactly why he doesn't want to do this work anymore; I see this in his eyes. Justin steps out of the truck and heads for the chair. As he walks, we see him take a knife out from his belt.

  It takes him forever to get there. I can hear our mark moaning in pain. I'm sure he's already dying from internal injuries, he just doesn't know it yet. Justin's shoes grind on the dirty floor and the sound echoes through the huge space.