Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)

by J. M. Darhower

  After a moment, a series of beeps ring out, sucking away some of the awkwardness infiltrating the office. He unclips the department-issued cell phone from his belt, glancing at it before fixing his pants.

  “Got something I need to deal with,” he grumbles, waving the phone in my face before heading for the door. “Show yourself out, Miss Myers.”

  I sit here, even after he’s gone, staring across the office out the window. Nobody says a word about me being here, nobody bothering me.

  It’s like I’m invisible.

  Eventually, my eyes wander to the messy desk, to the stacks of files covering the top of it. It blows my mind how outdated things are here, case files kept as actual files, folders full of papers instead of being stored digitally.

  Not really secure, is it?

  I glance behind me, out of the office, double-checking nobody is paying me any attention, before shoving out of the chair and slipping around the side of the desk. The files have names scribbled on them in pen. I shift through them quickly, glancing at the handwriting. Blah. Blah. Blah. Bingo.

  Aristov.

  I bring the file to the top of the stack. It’s thick, bursting at the seams with paperwork. Flipping it open, I scan through some of it, skimming paragraphs and pages, glossing over most of it.

  Drugs. Guns. Fraud. Murder.

  A lot of allegedly this and allegedly that, he said/she said bullshit, but not much in the way of evidence. No ballistics, no fingerprints, no forensics. A stack of witness statements, each one wrecked with writing, covered in black marker: retracted… missing… deceased… uncooperative… unreliable…

  I stall at the last one, blinking a few times at the name on the top of it: Morgan Olivia Myers. Unreliable.

  “Whatever,” I grumble as I flip the page.

  I skim through the rest. Blah. Blah. Blah. Nothing.

  “You have to be kidding me.” I shove it all aside as I scan through files again. There has to be another one somewhere. There has to be more. Besides my original witness statement, there’s very little about my history with Kassian and not a goddamn peep about the pain of the past ten months. “Motherfuckers.”

  I shove a stack of files, sending them scattering along the desk as anger runs through me. Have they even done anything?

  Shaking my head, my eyes scan the desk again, and I’m about to walk away when a name catches my eye. Gambini. It’s sloppily scribbled on a fresh folder.

  I know that name.

  I pick it up, and am about to scan through it when the phone on the desk lights up and starts to ring. Shit. I jump, caught off guard, and shove the file beneath my hoodie, securing it with the waistband of my pants as I get the hell out of there.

  I keep my head down as I make my way to the elevator, heading down to the first floor. As soon as it dings, the doors opening, I step off and freeze, hearing the unmistakable sound of a familiar booming laugh echoing through the lobby.

  Oh my fucking—

  My head snaps up, my eyes going straight to a man just ten feet from me. I catch a glimpse of his profile as he stands there, elbows against the front desk, leaning over to talk to Officer Rimmel working the command center. Markel. He’s laughing, flirting, and she’s smiling at him. Smiling.

  The woman, with her neon pink nails, has never smiled at me. Not once, in ten months.

  As the elevator doors behind me close, my eyes bounce from Markel to the exit. Shoving my hands in the pocket of my black hoodie, I lower my head, my eyes on the checkered linoleum.

  I hope like hell I stay invisible as I force my feet to move.

  You can do this. You can do this. You can do—

  Shit.

  I’m yanked to an abrupt stop as a hand wraps around my bicep. Turning my head, I catch his eyes, piercing through me as I’m pulled toward him so fast I damn near lose my balance.

  “Suka,” he says, grinning, using that word so casually, as if it’s my real name. Bitch.

  My heart pounds furiously.

  My head is swimming.

  I’m in deep shit.

  Deep, deep shit.

  ‘Let go of me.’ Those words damn near come from my lips, but I know it’s a lost cause, pleading at this point. He’s not going to just let me leave. So I’ve got about five seconds to save myself, to find a way out of this, because being in a police precinct won’t be enough to stop him from throwing me over his shoulder and dragging me out of here.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  “Pussycat got your tongue, suka?” he asks, letting out a laugh. “Haven’t you missed me?”

  Five.

  I don’t think. I just react.

  Pulling my hand from my pocket, I point a finger at his face, poking him right in the eye, jabbing hard. BAM. He flinches, letting out one hell of a sound, the shriek so loud everyone turns our way in alarm.

  “You bitch!” Markel shouts, covering his eye with his free hand. I know he’s pissed when he says it in English. His hold on my arm loosens in reaction to the sharp pain, letting me slip from his grip and move away.

  He tries to recover, realizing he doesn’t have his hands on me anymore, lunging my direction but he’s too slow. Chaos erupts, the command officer calling for help, the police trying to intervene, but it’s too late for that.

  I scream at the top of my lungs, scream so loud my voice cracks. “He’s got a gun!”

  Does he? I don’t know. Probably not. But who gives a fuck? It does exactly what I need it to do, inciting panic all around us. People try to flee the precinct, the police frenzied, as I run for the exit, shoving through the crowd.

  I damn near make it out before someone else grabs me. Ugh, please don’t be Kassian. Turning, reacting, I swing blindly, striking something.

  “Jesus, what the hell, Morgan?”

  Detective Jones.

  Fuck.

  He rubs his shoulder, where I punched him, looking around in confusion, but I don’t have time to explain. I push him off, heading out the door as Markel shouts something in Russian.

  I shove past people, moving as fast as my feet will go. It’s not safe here. I need to get off of the street. I need to get out of Brooklyn, but the subway isn’t an option right now. Markel is probably already sounding the alarms. They’ll be watching, swarming the area, trying to smoke me out.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I run a few blocks, cutting down some alleys, heading the direction of Coney Island. I know these streets well. I’ve run them before. I’ve hidden in the abandoned buildings in the neighborhood.

  But Kassian knows that.

  He knows all of my old haunts.

  It’s the first place he’ll check.

  So fuck it, I instead swing right into a busy coffee shop. It’s not a Starbucks, but close to it, some mass-produced franchise full of hipsters wearing bow ties and suspenders. I get in line, nervously looking around, making sure the coast stays clear, not really caring to actually order anything.

  I don’t even like coffee.

  Yeah, yeah, I know. There’s something wrong with me.

  “I’ll have whatever she ordered,” I say when it’s my turn, motioning to the girl who went before me, some young blonde that reminds me a bit of Melody. I dig some cash from my pocket, paying the astronomical fee for the drink.

  “Name?” the cashier asks, grabbing a cup and a marker.

  “Scarlet,” I tell him.

  I wait some more then, waiting for my drink, still looking around, observing everybody.

  I zero in on a guy working alone at a small table near the door, his gaze fixed to his laptop, stickers covering the front of it. Bands, I’m guessing. Music. He’s wearing a black t-shirt with a drummer on it. Scattered along the table are papers, a cell phone sitting on top of a closed textbook.

  “Scarlet?” a barista calls, shoving a caramel-colored frozen drink up onto the pass. Guess that’s mine. I snatch it up, sticking in a straw, as I head for the door.

  “What’s your favorite Avenged Sevenfold
song?” I ask, pausing beside the guy alone at the table, trying to turn on the charm and act interested.

  He looks up at the sound of my voice as I lean over, against the table, all up in his space. “Nightmare.”

  “No shit?” I smirk, straw against my lips. “That’s mine, too!”

  He grins at my response and seems to be at a momentary loss, which is for the best, because I don’t even know who Avenged Sevenfold is. I just saw the sticker on his laptop and rolled with it. Poor guy. I grab the cell phone while he’s distracted, trying to come up with something witty to say, slipping it up the sleeve of my hoodie before pushing away from the table and walking out.

  I go another block, passing an apartment building just as someone is leaving. Darting over, I grab the door before it closes, slipping inside as I take a sip of the drink.

  I expect it to be bitter and gross, but it’s actually light and sweet. Huh. I pull out the stolen cell phone as I lean back against the wall near the mailboxes, pressing a button, breathing a sigh of relief when it comes to life. No security code needed.

  So, okay, I don’t exactly have any friends.

  I used to call George in a pinch, but I don’t foresee him coming back to life to help me.

  I’ve turned to Gabe before, but seeing how I just assaulted him, he’s out of the question.

  So that leaves me with one person. Lorenzo.

  Other than 911, it’s really the only number I know.

  Or, well, I hope I know it. I memorized it, weeks ago, when I tried to call him to pay back the money I stole, but my memory’s a bit shaky, so...

  I dial it, bringing the phone to my ear, as sirens wail in the distance, flying by. The phone rings and rings and rings, and I’m about to give up, when the line finally clicks and a voice greets me. “Gambini.”

  I pause. It’s not Gambini. Not technically. Seven answers. It catches me off guard.

  “Hey, Seven... it’s, uh, Morgan.”

  “Morgan,” he says. “Everything okay?”

  Nope. “Yep.”

  “That’s good,” he says. “Did you need something?”

  Yep. “Nope.”

  He’s quiet for a second before saying, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I don’t know that I’d say anything’s wrong...”

  “But?”

  “I kind of got myself into a bit of a pickle. Not sure how to get back out.”

  “A bit of a pickle, huh? Where are you?”

  “Coney Island,” I say. “There’s this apartment building right on west 17th. Big ugly brick one. I’m kind of, you know, hanging out.”

  “Hiding out, you mean?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He laughs. “So Brooklyn, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  He hangs up before I can say anything to him, but I respond anyway. “Thank God.”

  I got stuck on a Ferris wheel once.

  I think I was five or six at the time.

  Something shorted, the operator screwed up, and there I was, stuck in a bucket thirty feet in the sky. Instead of being scared, though, I found it almost calming, being so high up, where nobody could reach me and nothing could touch me.

  I still feel that way most of the time.

  Like right now, as I sit here, legs stretched out along gray asphalt shingles on the sloped roof of the house in Queens, surrounded by the kind of quiet suburban neighborhood where carpool and playdates are things that exist, I feel okay.

  That’s saying something, you know, after the day I’ve had. It seems almost surreal, and I’d think it didn’t really happen, except the file in my lap tells me differently. Gambini.

  I’ve read it already.

  Actually, okay, I’ve read it a few times.

  Can you blame me? Pretty damn sure you would read it, too, if you could.

  Sighing, I suck down the last of my frozen sugary coffee when I hear a door open nearby. Glancing down, I watch as Lorenzo steps out of the house, a cloud of musky smoke surrounding him, a joint between his lips.

  It’s the first I’ve seen him today. After Seven valiantly rescued me, bringing me back here, I discovered the library door closed for only the second time since I started coming around.

  He’s got a headache today, Seven explained. Might not see him.

  Yet, there he is...

  His hair is unkempt, all over the place, like he hasn’t done a damn thing to it since I wound my fingers through it last. The rest of him, though, seems to be put together—white shirt, dark jeans, black boots. He smokes quietly, alone, watching the neighborhood, before Seven joins him.

  “I’m heading home, boss,” Seven says. “Wife is making lasagna for dinner, if you want me to bring you some.”

  “I appreciate it,” Lorenzo says, “but I can fend for myself.”

  Pfftt, fuck that.

  “You can bring me some,” I call down. “I’m not dumb enough to pass up home cooking.”

  Seven laughs, waving toward me. “I think I’ve done enough for you today, Morgan.”

  I make a face at him.

  Seven pulls out Lorenzo’s keys and phone, passing them over before departing. Lorenzo shoves it all in his pocket, continuing to smoke in silence, watching as Seven drives off, leaving us alone.

  Lorenzo tosses what’s left of the joint down, smashing it with his boot as he turns slowly, his gaze flickering up to where I’m sitting.

  He goes back inside, not saying a word.

  I figure he went back to his library, but after a moment, the window from his bedroom shoves open and he climbs out onto the ledge before maneuvering around and pulling himself up onto the roof.

  I wish I could say I got up here that smoothly, or that I even considered doing it that way.

  I stole a ladder from a neighbor’s backyard.

  It’s propped up against the side of the house. Oops.

  He sits down beside me, knees bent, elbows leaning against them, his gaze surveying the neighborhood for a moment before he looks my way. He scans me slowly, his attention drifting to the file on my lap.

  I know he can see his last name on it. It’s written clear as day.

  “You got a file on me, Scarlet?” he asks, his voice casual, nothing accusatory in his tone.

  “No,” I say, looking down at it. “Well, I guess I technically do now. It’s your police file.”

  “My police file.”

  “Yeah, it’s everything they know about you,” I explain. “I kind of stole it from the detective’s office.”

  “You stole it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Takes balls to break the law in a police precinct.”

  “Yeah, well, just add it to the list of other laws I broke. I probably have warrants out for me right now. Disorderly conduct. Criminal nuisance. Assault on a police officer. It all adds up.”

  “Sounds like you had an interesting day.”

  “Very.”

  “Kind of jealous,” he says, eyeing me for a moment before turning away. “So, what’s the file say?”

  “What makes you think I’ve read it?”

  “You wouldn’t go through the trouble of stealing it if you weren’t nosey as shit about what’s inside.”

  Rolling my eyes, I pick up the folder and flip it open. There isn’t much to it, just a few papers.

  “Lorenzo Oliver Gambini,” I say, reading the top sheet before cutting my eyes at him, watching as he whips out an orange, like he carries them around in his pocket. “Oliver? Really?”

  “I distinctly remember your middle name being Olivia,” he says, “which isn’t much different.”

  “Yeah, but that’s me,” I say. “You’re you.”

  “We’re a lot alike, you and I.”

  He says that casually, and I’m not sure how to take it, because my brain suddenly gets hung up on something else. “Wait, you know my middle name?”

  Shrugging a shoulder, he starts to peel his orange, like him know
ing my middle name doesn’t mean anything, like him remembering any part of my name isn’t a big deal. But it is, so I just gape at him, trying to make sense of that.

  “What’s the file say, Scarlet?” he asks again. “Less staring, more spilling.”

  “It, uh…” I look away from him, back at the papers. “Born and raised in Kissimmee, Florida. Your father was murdered when you were four. Your mother and stepfather disappeared about fourteen years after that. You officially became legal custodian of one Leonardo Michael Accardi on your nineteenth birthday, although you’d been taking care of him for a year by that point.”

  “You already knew all of that,” he points out, seeming rather bored by my facts.

  “You inherited an almost 200-acre orange grove that has more than doubled in size and profit under your control. Your business seems on the up and up, so no Al Capone level take down in your future, although they suspect you’ve got something hinky going on down there.”

  “Something hinky,” he says with a laugh. “What, like we’re running guns through the grove? Because they’d be right.”

  “They seem more concerned about Cuban imports.”

  “Ah, yes, priorities. The rum.”

  “They don’t have any evidence, though.”

  “Of course not.”

  “They do, however, have a shitload of stories about you. You’re kind of like Bigfoot.”

  “Bigfoot?”

  “Yeah, everyone’s heard about him, most people think he’s a myth, with nothing more than a couple blurry pictures and unreliable first-hand accounts as proof of his existence. Most of this file isn’t even about you. It’s a bunch of scary stories about a guy with a scar. Half this shit isn’t even believable.”

  “Like?”

  “Like you lit a building on fire in Manhattan with a bunch of men inside of it.”

  “I gave them a chance to get out,” he says. “Not my fault they didn’t take me seriously.”

  “You blew up a storage building in a public park.”

  “I just flicked a lighter,” he says. “I’m not the one who made the place explosive.”

  “You detonated a grenade, killing most of the mob bosses in the city.”

  “See, okay, that’s bullshit. They were already dead by the time that grenade went off.”