The Genesis Group

by Mike Dagons

  “Okay, I’ll deliver the message, and then what?”

  “You convince him to help us, and then you do whatever he tells you to,” he ended the call.

  As soon as Trent was out the door, he spotted the two man surveillance team assigned to follow him. As he suspected, Lincoln had put watchdogs on him to make it impossible for him to detour from the destination he’d been given without him finding out.

  They wanted him to know that they were there, so they saluted him when he walked by them to get to his truck.

  Inside his vehicle, he removed his Beretta, and put it in a secret compartment under his dash. He wasn’t leaving it because he thought that he would be searched when he arrived at his destination. From their point of view, it stood to reason that as long as they had Kenyah, he wouldn’t have any use for a gun. And it should have been true, but he had played the role of Geo so long, he sometimes slipped into the persona without even realizing it. It was what had happened at Kenyah’s job. He’d thought he was in control then, like he did now, but he’d lost it. He didn’t know what he was walking into, and having the weapon on him only increased the chances of him doing something impulsive and stupid. He couldn’t risk it with her life at stake. So the best place for the Beretta now was safely out of his reach.

  Chapter 8

  Desmond drove to the Canal Street address, and used the building’s valet parking service. He followed Trent’s instructions, and walked through the lobby of lounging couples to the kitchen, and through there to a private elevator.

  He pressed the call button, and waited for the doors to slide open, and then he stepped inside the shiny car with black mirrored reflective walls.

  There were no numbers on the console, only a keypad, and he entered the code he had been given. The doors glided closed, and the car shot upward like a speeding rocket.

  Desmond had to brace himself against the back wall to keep from being tossed around. The car stopped on thirty with a hard jolt, and then a sudden burst of white light flashed in his eyes, momentarily blinding him just as the doors pinged open.

  Choc rolled off Rayce, and onto his back, and then he pulled her over into his arms. “I’m glad you decided to come by,” he held his mouth to her forehead.

  “I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” she glanced up at him.

  “Why, you afraid you’re going to break my heart?” he joked.

  “No, I’m afraid you’re going to break mine. You do have a fiancée, you know. The odds of this turning into something meaningful are not in my favor.”

  Charles ‘Chocolate’ Baltimore, or Choc as he was called, was a covert operative for Genesis, a contract security agency, owned by Melvin Ryan.

  Rayce worked for the same agency, and because she knew the real him, not some cover he’d fabricated to better fit the moral lifestyle of his soon to be wife, he could relax and just be himself in her presence. He liked being himself very much, and he was learning that he liked being with Rayce a lot, too.

  “I’m thinking about calling off the wedding,” he rubbed a hand up her bare shoulder.

  Rayce lifted her face off his chest, and looked him in his. “Not on my account, I hope,” she closed her eyes, and then rested her face on his chest again.

  “Well, you are responsible for my decision in a way.”

  “How you mean? You do know that it was my decision to sleep with you. You told me that you were engaged, and I chose to ignore it, and take you to bed.”

  “You couldn’t have taken me if I didn’t want to go,” he countered. “Seriously, you made me realize I am missing something that’s very important in a healthy relationship.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “Honesty, I can never be honest with Sharon about what I do, or how much I enjoy doing it. I can never be myself with her like I can with you. I like the way you make me feel.”

  “I like the way you make me feel too,” she moved her hand between his thighs, and gave him a little squeeze.

  Her fingers massaged him tenderly, and he groaned in pleasure. Choc pulled his knee up and used it to part her thighs. He was just about to take the plunge when the shrill of his alarm alerted him that he had an uninvited guest on his elevator.

  It was a high tech security system that used multimodal biometric authentication to screen for discrepancies in access codes and personal identifiers. Personalized access codes were needed to operate the car. The person using the code had to have the same physiological characteristics on file in the database or an alarm was sounded. If you didn’t have a personal access code, you couldn’t use the elevator unless it had been cleared by him first. Biometric sensors in the keypad read fingerprints when it was touched. Additional sensors in the ceiling, walls, and floor cross matched and compared physical traits. If the prints matched, but you were two pounds heavier or two inches taller or shorter than the information on file, Choc got a warning alarm like he was getting now. As an added security measure, the intruder was blasted with a blinding, disorienting, white light before the doors opened to the penthouse loft.

  Choc and Rayce both moved at the same time, pulling on clothes as they reached for their weapons. They were in the alcove seconds after hearing the alarm, and Choc keyed in the code to silence it.

  He looked at the viewing screen and saw a man pressed against the back wall and holding on like he was on an amusement park ride.

  “You know him?”

  “Nope, but he’s using a code,” he answered while he was checking the entry log. “It was issued to my brother.”

  “Your brother?” she raised a brow in surprise. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “How did that guy get his code?”

  “Don’t know, but we’re about to find out,” he took position against the wall adjacent to the elevator with his chrome and gold plated Glock 18 aimed at the doors in a two hand grip.

  The specially designed Glock was his prize possession, and it was tricked out and security coded so that it could only be fired by his hand. It was a beauty, which was his pet name for it.

  Rayce was positioned on the opposite side of the doors. The silver plated Walther PPK that he’d given her last week for her 30th birthday, at the ready.

  “First time you trying it out?” he asked with a smile. He’d had it redesigned. Like his Glock, it had some real neat added features.

  She shook her head, no, not wanting to take her eyes off the doors, or break her concentration.

  Only a select few knew about this loft, and even fewer were authorized to access it. The man coming up on the elevator was a stranger, and even though it looked like he was unarmed, it didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat.

  Choc laughed, and Rayce cut him a mean eyed glance. “Quit playin’,” she frowned.

  He gave her that nonchalant shrug that he used sometimes instead of saying, ‘don’t sweat it,’ which was a phrase he used religiously.

  Charlie Baltimore was the coolest man she’d ever known. He didn’t argue or raise his voice, unless he was playing a role. He didn’t show fear or any real emotion unless he was making love, and he never sweated the little things.

  When the doors slid open, the dude inside instinctively brought his arms up to shield his eyes from the burst of white hot light that assaulted his retinas.

  “Oh God, my eyes!” he screamed, and stumbled backwards like he’d been hit with a stunner.

  Choc stepped inside the car with him, and when Desmond blinked his eyes open, he was staring down the barrel of a gun. He threw his hands up. “I’m looking for Charles Baltimore!” he shouted like the bright light had deafened him too.

  “Step out the car,” Choc beckoned him forward and backed out the elevator.

  Once they were off the elevator, the doors closed. Desmond saw the woman. She was dressed in jean shorts and a tank, and if he hadn’t been so scared, he would have noticed how sexy she looked with her short hair tousled, and
her dark caramel skin dewy.

  “Who are you?” Choc asked, drawing his attention away from Rayce, and back to him.

  Desmond swept his eyes over the man nervously. He was expecting to see some family resemblance, but the man standing before him, barefoot and shirtless, with smooth brown skin so dark it almost looked black, looked like a Nubian king, and nothing like Trent.

  “I’m looking for Charles Baltimore. You’re him, right? Trent Real’s brother?”

  “Who wants to know?” he flipped a switch with his thumb and turned on the Glock’s amplifier. It made the internal mechanisms working sound loud enough to hear over the roar of a crowd.

  It was a scary sound that made Desmond cringe. “My name is Desmond. Desmond Fox. Your brother, Trent, sent me to find you. He said to tell you he needs a lift.”

  The girl was silent. She hadn’t moved or said a word, and the man was studying him with intense eyes the color of amber stones.

  “You have his eyes, you know,” he said to fill in the silence.

  “My brother says he needs a lift?” he repeated slowly.

  Without warning, Choc’s right hand shot out and grabbed him in his collar. He shoved him back against the wall hard, and pushed the gun under his jawbone. “Where is he?” he asked.

  Desmond noted that the man spoke with an eerie calmness that contradicted his actions. It made him think Mr. Baltimore might be a little crazy, so he started talking fast. He told him everything he knew and ended by saying, “the address is in my pocket.”

  Choc went into his pocket and got the paper, and then he stepped back off him. “Trent told you he was going to this address alone?”

  “Yes, he says they’re not going to kill him before he gives them what they want.”

  Doubting their visitor was a real threat, and confident that Rayce had him covered if he was; Choc turned his back on him and walked out the alcove and into the living area.

  Desmond looked at the woman. She didn’t look dangerous, but she was holding a gun, so he thought she might be. He cleared his throat. “Does he want me to follow him?” he asked Rayce.

  “Yes, let’s go,” she motioned for him to walk ahead of her, and he did.

  Choc was standing looking out the pane of glass covering one wall from floor to ceiling.

  “He knows you’re not practicing law?” she asked.

  It was Choc’s cover story, and not many people, not even his fiancée, knew that it wasn’t how he really made his living.

  “Yeah, he sort of knows. I hinted at it the last time we talked.”

  “You’re a lawyer?” Desmond asked in disbelief. “What are you, disbarred? They took his wife, and he sent me to fetch an ex-lawyer. I’m calling the police,” he pulled out his cell, and Choc snatched it from his hand. “Hey!” he started to protest, and then stopped when the gun was shoved in his face.

  “Don’t be stupid. Would I be living like this if I was disbarred?” His response seemed spontaneous, but it was actually well thought-out.

  Choc was pleased to learn that Trent had the sense not to reveal anything about him to Desmond. Since he’d jumped to the conclusion that he was a lawyer, he was going to let him keep believing the lie.

  Choc removed the battery, and then walked over to the bar and tossed it and the phone into the ice crusher.

  “That was a six hundred dollar phone,” he gawked at Choc like he was strange.

  “It’s also a locator. I don’t want nobody coming here looking for you.”

  “Who are you, man?”

  “A lawyer and you don’t really want to know anymore than that,” he answered, pouring beer from a bottle into a glass. “Have a seat, and we’ll be right back,” he handed Desmond the glass, and then walked out the room.

  “Is it legit?” she asked when they were behind the closed bedroom door. “You think your brother sent him?”

  He simply nodded, yes. The fact that he had a younger brother was not something he talked about, ever. They had different fathers, and because of the five year difference in their ages, they had never been real close.

  Neither of their fathers chose to stick around, so his mother was the glue that had held the family together. After they grew up, they’d only seen each other for holidays because they both loved and respected her, but she died three years ago, and they hadn’t spoken since her funeral.

  Choc had a Harvard Law degree, and Trent had a degree in criminal justice, but they were total opposites in looks and attitude.

  Trent had always been nerdy. He was the law abiding good guy, and Choc was only law abiding when it was absolutely necessary, and it was seldom necessary in his line of work.

  Their mother made them promise to look after each other on her dying bed. She had always wanted her boys to bond, so Choc had given Trent the address of his secret hide-a-way loft and an elevator access code at her funeral.

  Trent had told him that if he ever needed a lift, he’d drop by. He never did, and Choc figured he’d honored his mother’s wishes by offering him the code. He never reached out, or tried to contact Trent again. Until now, he thought Trent discarded the information and forgot he even existed.

  “Choc,” Rayce touched his arm. “You have to go to him.”

  “I haven’t seen him in three years, and I’ve never met his wife. I wasn’t invited to the wedding,” he pouted.

  “Desmond says his wife is a nice person, and he’s a cop, but more importantly, he’s your brother and he needs you. He could have called in the CPD, but for whatever reason, he turned to you. I have to think it’s because he knew you’d have his back.”

  “Or he knew CPD would fuck it up and get him and his wife killed.” He sat down on the bed, and put on his socks and shoes.

  Desmond gulped down the beer, and then got up and paced the floor. He was worried about Kenyah, and he hoped Trent’s brother was more than a lawyer with a license to carry a gun.

  He thought about going to the bedroom door and knocking, and telling Charles to hurry up and make up his mind. If he wasn’t going to help, and it was starting to look like he may not, then he needed to do something else. Like go to the police like he wanted to do in the first place.

  He felt like he was wasting time lounging around in the expensive ass loft while Kenyah was in the hands of God only knew who.

  He looked at his watch. He’d already been there almost thirty minutes, and he hadn’t accomplished a damn thing. Every second that passed seemed like an hour, and he was starting to imagine all kinds of crazy things. He thought…Trent had to know his brother didn’t give a fuck about him. Now he was wondering if sending him there was a trick. It crossed his mind that maybe Trent was behind the kidnapping. Maybe he wants his wife dead, and is using me to alibi his crime. Trent did believe they were having an affair, and he was mad enough to kill them both just a few nights ago. Maybe he’s not using me as his alibi, but framing me for the murder! You’re a patsy—his mind screamed it so loud his head started to throb. He felt like there was something terribly wrong about the whole setup, and he had to fight the compulsion to run the hell outtá there.

  “Okay, open up. Tell me why you’re hesitant about helping your brother. His name is Trent?” She had changed into fatigues, and put on a sports bra under her tank top. “I take it that y’all didn’t get along as kids?”

  Choc had always been cool, even as a kid. He prided himself on his self-control skills. Nobody ever upset him, except for Trent. He couldn’t be in the room with him for ten minutes before he did something to make his stomach churn.

  “He’s a spoiled, ungrateful brat that I haven’t seen or spoken to since our mother died. He didn’t even think enough of me to invite me to his wedding. I didn’t even know he was married.”

  Rayce took notice that he looked pained when he talked about it, and she grinned. “You love him,” she observed.

  “What? Why you say that?”

  “Choc, I’ve never seen you upset about anything, but this is upsetting you.�
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  “I’m not upset. I’m annoyed, and I never said I didn’t love him. I just can’t stand his ass, that’s all.”

  “Choc, maybe he didn’t know how to reach out to you. You’re not an easy man to read.”

  “He sure knew how to reach out to me when his ass got in a sling,” he chuckled dryly.

  “I bet y’all really pissed your mother off with the boneheaded shit, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, we did,” he grinned. “Seriously, I showed him I was reachable by giving him my contact information, but he never used it.”

  “Maybe he thought it was for emergency use only.”

  “Yeah right,” he huffed.

  A wide grin made dimples pop in her cheeks. She had never seen Choc stressed about anything, and she held her cell up and snapped a picture.

  “What the fuck you doing?” he asked, his calm demeanor back in place.

  “Taking a picture…I may not ever see you scowl again, and I know ain’t nobody going to believe me when I tell them that you did,” she laughed.

  “Real funny,” he cracked a smile.

  “Seriously, you’re hurt because your little brother didn’t invite you to his wedding. Were you planning to invite him to yours?”

  “No, but that’s different.”

  “How is it different?”

  “I wasn’t going to invite him because he wasn’t talking to me. I offered the olive branch, and he rejected it. It was his turn to reach out, not mine. Besides, I’m not even sure I’m going to get married.”

  “It makes no difference what he did, he’s still your blood, and he’s in trouble, so we have to help him.”

  “I know I do, but you don’t.”

  “Bullshit! We’re a team! A muthafuckin’ unit, nigga, and that’s why I’m calling Ryan. We need help with this.”

  “Rayce, the boy works for CPD, so he can’t afford to hire Genesis,” he pulled on a lightweight blazer to hide his shoulder harness.

  “You can afford to pay Genesis, and I’m sure Ryan will be willing to give you a family discount,” she joked.