by Amarie Avant
“Fuck you!” Wulf said.
“No, a bunch of Mexicans will take that honor when your ass lands in jail for murdering a cartel king!” Robertson assured. “I’m sure the local authorities don’t take kind to tourists committing crimes.”
“Let’s just take it down a notch,” Ariel said in a calming voice, watching travelers pass by. “Look around you, Wulf. I’m sure your extensive vacation has you believing that we’re incompetent. The little game you pulled while returning home the other day, that was amusing. We’re over the entertainment.”
“Oh, trust me.” Wulf’s fiery gaze turned from Robertson to her. “I know there are agents surrounding this place. Black suit left corner, sipping a drink at the coffee station. Please don’t fucking insult me. Side right corner standing near the second terminal with no luggage in a business suit and no briefcase. Kiss my ass, Juarez. If that idiot’s not the Feds, then by all means you win. Shall I continue?”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Ariel retorted. “Your plane is scheduled to leave the terminal in five minutes.”
“And he’ll be on that plane,” Mary Jane assured. “Let’s just walk Wulf toward it, leave all the bullshit here.”
Robertson and Ariel nodded.
She took Wulf’s hand as they proceeded toward his departure area.
“I didn’t think this was your master plan, Mary Jane,” Wulf growled.
Mary Jane gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ve been told that I’m a selfish one.”
“Then be selfish, MJ. Your safety is key.”
“No. It’s time that I stop putting myself first. We spent a year in Mexico because reality and life scared me. This plan works for you. Okay?”
“I don’t need it to work for me,” he replied through gritted teeth.
“Remember the man you were. Rules and regulations. You’ve broken a lot of them since we’ve met. Go home.”
“I will not leave you.” He stopped walking and stood in front of her.
“But I’m letting you,” Mary Jane replied. Her eyes brimmed with tears searched Wulf’s hard ones for agreement. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Throat clogged, Mary Jane felt the words ready to leap from her mouth. She loved him.
Ariel and Robertson stepped back when Mary Jane’s hand went up, though Robertson pointed to his watch.
“Go home. Live your life. Get your job back. Clean the streets of LA.”
“You’re not that optimistic, MJ.”
Her hand went to the stubble on his jaw. “Nah, never. But I have faith in you.”
“What about our baby? And your family? I won’t allow it.”
Gently, she pushed away from his caresses and embraced her womb. The vocal cords in her throat tremored as she spoke, “I just took a test, okay? So, no worries about putting our child at risk, because I’m not pregnant.”
Those gorgeous eyes of his roamed over her. He wasn’t letting go. “What about your sister, your mother? You haven’t seen your mom in—”
“God, Wulf, you’re making my cry,” she said, placing her head against his chest. “Stop the madness. Or just tell…my…family I’ll be home shortly.” Sensing his defiance, she kissed him softly on the lips. Mary Jane recalled Amy’s words while they were seated on the beach after dinner. Amy knew Wulf loved Mary Jane when she hadn’t the slightest clue. As soon as her lips parted from him, she murmured against his chest, “I love you. I love you too, Dylan Wulf.”
She cupped his jaw and told him again. “I love you, but you’re gonna have a good life. No drama. No bullshit.”
59
The Lincoln pulled into Quincy and Shelly’s home. The agent who babysat Wulf during the plane ride and escorted him all the way to the door gave a quick bid of good luck. Clutching the manila envelope that he read during the airport exit traffic, Wulf got out of the car, ruminating over the incentives Mary Jane had secured on his behalf. More money in his pension than he’d recalled and a note from his old Chief of Police welcoming him back come Monday morning. It was safe to assume that Mary Jane’s presence meant volumes to the FBI. Just that realization burned in his gut and began a tormenting churn.
He’d abandoned her, yet again. Left her in the care of agents whose concern was “the greater good.”
The tiny gate creaked as he opened it and strolled through the garden. Shelly came rushing out the door.
Her joy faded a notch. “I thought I’d meet the chick. I’m sorry.”
This was far from a fairytale ending.
Wulf’s gaze didn’t even meet hers as he shook his head. “Maybe later you’ll meet her.” If you don’t, I’ll hunt down Jakob Woods myself!
Shelly’s brow rose, catching the deadly undertones in his tone. Her voice held a note of trepidation. “See, prayer works. You’re home safe. Quincy got in a few hours ago from an overnighter. He hasn’t even went to sleep and is so happy. So, a Starsky and Hutch reunion is on its way!”
The agent’s promptness made Wulf’s worry amplify. “Good,” he said as they climbed up the steps.
Bryan and Ryan flew into his arms next. “Uncle Dylan, you’re back.”
Bree grinned, fidgeting with her fingers.
Though he was having a crummy day, he squatted down.
“Oh, beautiful, you always bring a smile to my face.”
The tot said not a word as she let go and ran back to her father’s lap. Quincy sat in his favorite recliner
“I’m back.” Wulf found himself at a loss for words.
Quincy said, “You need a beer. Let’s get a beer and talk.”
“And you don’t sound grateful about it,” Brenda retorted, from behind them while grumbling about alcohol in the morning.
“Mom.” He gave her a hug, a tight long one remembering Jake’s words. It made his blood boil, but he had to stop thinking about Jake because it only brought worry about Mary Jane’s situation.
“Well now, you’re hugging me like we haven’t seen you in years.”
“Hmmm, it might have something to do with those El Toro boys in Mexico,” Quincy said.
“What?” Brenda sat down on the couch. “Is that why the police are keeping an eye on us?”
“Bryan, Ryan, take your sister into the kitchen and…make her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” Shelly said.
“Awwww.” They whispered about having just eaten breakfast and hopped out of the room.
Wulf told the story of what happened.
“Wow, your crazy chick isn’t that crazy! Sounds smarter than anything,” Shelly exclaimed. “Mary Jane made some type of chemical bomb?”
He nodded.
“Well, wherever she is, with a brain like that, she can keep herself safe.” Brenda patted his hand.
“Daddy!” the boys called in unison.
“What?” Quincy shouted.
“It’s Bree!” Their voices held urgency.
Quincy and Wulf bolted toward the kitchen, Shelly on their heels and Brenda not far behind.
The back door was wide open.
“Wh-where’s Bree?” Shelly clutched her heart.
Quincy already started for the back door.
“She went with the soldier. We told her not to.”
Shelly slapped Ryan in the face, and Wulf held her back from slapping her other son.
“Where is my daughter?” she screamed and Brenda wrapped her in a bear hug.
Wulf hurried out the door. Quincy was already hopping over the wall to the left.
Wulf gripped the cinderblock and bounded over. He saw Quincy standing with hands on his head. Quincy slammed his fist into the wall. “Fuck!”
“We will get her back,” Wulf began.
As Quincy pulled out his cell phone and heatedly called dispatch, Wulf heard Bryan calling out to them. He hurried back over to the other side.
“Uncle Dylan, here…the soldier left this.” Bryan held out a piece of paper.
Now that I have the closest thing to you, in regard to an immediate family, it’s time to return
what’s mine.
–Jake
60
The first thing she noticed when stepping inside the visiting room was Peter’s eyes. They were a slate gray today, mimicking the cement walls. Those piercing eyes appeared to be glued onto a marred, plastic face. Beasley’s Rottweilers had shredded every bit of his lips, leaving a flat effect between his weak chin and nose. He sat in the corner near the back of the empty room as if observing something from a ghost’s perspective. His catatonic demeanor came to life once Mary Jane sat across from him.
“I assumed Dylan Wulf was here to visit me.” Peter’s mouth dipped into a gnarled smile. “I’m truly delighted that my dearest wife has paid me a visit.”
She sat down across from him. Ariel had her listen in to a message from dispatch. Jake had called in threatening to murder another Mary Jane again within the next twenty-four hours. However, he hadn’t provided any information as to his whereabouts. A bud was wedged into her ear, and she was awaiting Ariel’s prompt since none of the other agents had gotten a word out of Peter.
“You deserve to die.” She made the statement, no dose of maliciousness riding along in her tone, but just offering facts. “You deserve it, but not as much as you deserve to live. As your assistant, I grew to learn how prideful you were. I know the power, the confidence that consumed you once your next facial product hit stands and you were revered.” Mary Jane paused.
“You must be angry with me, eh? My beautiful wife? No divorce but death? You want your husband dead?” he taunted.
“Laugh now, Peter, but I hear that you have…what was it? Thirty consecutive life sentences? This is a cage; it’s the type of place that will consume a man like you. A man that needs to rule. It has, hasn’t it?” She smirked. “The hours upon hours of solitary confinement. Nobody to praise your latest genetic discoveries. It’s already fucking with you, right?”
He held onto the frown that itched at the corners of his mouth.
“You’ve screwed with my mind, made me afraid of me. Afraid of my own thoughts! Can I trust myself?”
“What is it that you want?”
“Nothing, Peter. I have something for you.” She licked her lips. “I can make you feel better.”
The light danced in his eyes. He was intrigued.
She pulled out a Glock. “There’s statistics on the affluent, how they fall, how they aren’t resilient and commit suicide once the power they held is gone. Do you mind if I ask, is it better to have had said power and take your life, or just live life like commoners?”
A crazed chuckle licked annoyingly at her ears as Peter shook his head. “You were such an intelligent woman—when you were Mallory Portman, of course. We could’ve gone far as husband and wife, the two of us. If only you had just taken the story I gave you. Stayed away from your family.”
She contemplated his words. “And followed your orders.”
“Yes. That’s true. Albeit, two heads are better than one, but it would’ve been lovely, just the two of us. Taking over my businesses.”
She inched the Glock closer to him, but with his wrists in shackles, Mary Jane could taunt him more. “Let’s return to the present. Too late to speculate on our perfect life together,” she spat the words. “You’re drowning here. No more students to revere you. No computer in solitary, right?”
The tendons in his jaw constricted. “What the fuck do you want, bitch?”
“Tell me about Jake.”
He sniggered. “I’ve been told he’s acting up.”
Juarez: Good, now ask him who has given this information to him.
“Who told you?”
“My ex-wife, Linda. A few months after that whore and I split ways, she got nosy about investors seeking information in Grienke Pharmaceuticals. I didn’t know that vindictive bitch was searching for a paper trail, something to say I’d already signed deals before our divorce. She found out about my dealings with Beasley. That’s a more lucrative business, sweetheart.”
Mary Jane asked naturally, “So you can’t do anything without her?”
Juarez: Good job.
“She actually assisted me with the computations in order to cut down on the length of time it took for the brain to become more malleable. We both have keycodes.”
“And—”
“Tsk, tsk, we’re being listened to, my lovely wife. That’s all I’ll say.”
“Oh, really, you’d rather let her run rampant taking over your business. That’s not your character, Peter.”
“Tell me, Mrs. Grienke, have you begun to dream of Wulf’s death at the hand of Jake?”
She gulped down the rock lodged in her throat. The night Mary Jane had been so spontaneous, wanting to go out to dinner and the subsequent dining with Amy and Tom had begun with a torturous dream. The dream had started coming to her a few months back, and it just clung to her for hours in the middle of the night. She’d be too afraid to wake him, too afraid to say something for fear that it would come true.
“Keep fucking with me, Mrs. Grienke, and—”
“Fuck you!” Mary Jane slammed her palm down onto the table.
“You are an adulterer. You disgust me.”
“Peter, you stole me from my family and the man I was to marry!”
“Tough shit,” he snarled. “You left Keegan for me, like a common whore. Then you ran off on me with that…”
Juarez: Pull back a little. He’s getting angry. We don’t have time to bait him.
“You’re just like Linda.”
“So we screwed you over, Linda and I? Is she calling the shots for Jake?”
Juarez: Great.
“Jake has literally lost his mind—aside from the cognitive conditioning,” Peter huffed. “I paid him in full to murder you if you didn’t cooperate with Beasley. That idiot is—was the dumbest person ever, but greed is the one caveat that made me utilize Beasley’s resources. He would be loyal for the money.”
She inched the Glock forward, just out of his reach. “How can I find Jake?”
“He’s got a tracker, sweetheart. A chip in his brain. Give me the gun.”
Juarez: We need all the details we can get on that tracker, please.
“Since we’re both aware that the Feds are listening, tell me more, Peter. Just get it over with.” Mary Jane shrugged.
“You’ll give me the gun?”
“I promise.”
His pearly white teeth came out and bit down on the plastic-skin of his top lip. Peter caved. He told her about how to find Linda and even gave the password to one of the firewall systems that had not shown up on the computer systems the technical team had worked on in the past.
“Don’t insult me, Mrs. Grienke! Give me the gun!”
Mary Jane waited until Juarez’s voice chimed in her ear. They had a moving location on Jake. She gasped, standing to her feet.
“The fucking gun, bitch! I look like a chew toy. I want out of this stupid place one way or the other.”
She headed toward the door with a smile, then at the last second tossed the gun back toward him.
Mary Jane’s eyebrow arched as he pointed the gun at her instead of his own cranium. Water spouted toward her.
“Funny story. The Feds had to personally speak with the warden to agree with that illegal water gun, Peter.” Mary Jane curved her lips slowly into a smile.
The guard shut the door and boom the automatic lock confined Peter in the nightmare of his own making. She leaned against the wall, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Crossing paths with the man who’d ruined her entire life and not murdering him, well, that had been the hard part.
Ariel offered a look of sympathy. “We found Woods, as you know, but there was a call from LAPD. Looks like we’re going to need you after all.”
Mary Jane’s heart sank.
“I wasn’t going to put you in jeopardy if I didn’t have to; however, Woods has Officer Jones’s daughter. We will do our best to—”
“Just take me. I’ll do whatever needs to be done,�
�� Mary Jane said.
She and Wulf didn’t do much talking about his nephews and little niece in the past, but she’d heard him on the phone with each of the three kids during their subsequent birthdays over the year. He loved them, and so she’d do whatever she could to save his niece.
61
After a short helicopter ride, they landed in the middle of mayhem. Law enforcement swarmed an abandoned factory in South Central Los Angeles. As soon as they climbed out of the helicopter, the Chief of Police introduced himself. Robertson blew him off swiftly, but Ariel Juarez could see the look in his eyes.
Not only was the Chief of Police invested in the welfare of one of their own—Jones’s daughter—this was the end of the line for her and Robertson because the Associate Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations flanked the Chief’s left. The two men mirrored each other’s rigid, angry demeanor. And with the Chief glaring through Ariel and Robertson, it was unmistakable that they’d be scapegoats.
Which made Ariel being ousted even worse. Her eyes locked onto the Caucasian man with pinched eyebrows. Before she could speak, he said, “Juarez, you and Robertson—you’re both liaisons now.” That meant only speak when consulted with. The big boss shoved his chin toward the FBI trailer that was about thirty yards away and surrounded by other police cars and a SWAT bus.
“Wulf?” Mary Jane asked.
Ariel licked her lips. Casually, she undid her ponytail and tied it into the most severe bun she’d ever had in her entire life. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. Truly she was sorry. From the start, Ariel intended to feed Mary Jane to Jakob Woods.
If one sacrifice meant that others survived, so be it.
Mary Jane seemed to understand as well during their short time of being reacquainted. And while traveling to Peter Grienke, the women had bonded over this understanding. Ariel knew about Mary Jane’s dreams where Grienke threatened of getting rid of Wulf. And so on the ride here, they’d both agreed that Mary Jane could assist in deescalating the issue. Which was not to be the case with the Associate Deputy Director here. While Ariel had a subtle approach, The Director would utilize all the tactical resources. And with such a narrow mind, his only resource would probably be SWAT.
