Everyone in the living room screamed when they heard the shotgun blast and saw Saint lifted off his feet and hurled across the room. Van ran out of the kitchen and stood over him. He looked down at where the slug hit him and laughed.
“I should’ve known you’d be wearing a vest,” he said, kicking him in the side.
Saint was too focused on getting air to his lungs to feel the kicks and stomps.
Van dug into Saint’s pocket and took his gun back. He then picked up the gun that fell out of Saint’s hand. “I’m a fair man,” he said. He ran over to Max, who was just coming back from La-La land. He slapped him a couple of times to speed up the process.
Once Max realized where he was, Van took the restraints off of him and gave him the guns to hold. “If they move from that couch, shoot them.” He turned back and watched Saint struggle to get on his knees. He cracked his knuckles and rotated his head from left to right. “I’m a fair man. So much so, that I’m going to give you another chance to save your friends.” He kicked Saint in the stomach, causing him to curl up in pain. “The deal is simple. Hand to hand combat. Kill me, you live. I kill you… they all die.”
Saint looked up at him, barely able to breathe.
“Let me help you up,” Van said, as he tore open the top of the overalls and started pulling at the Velcro straps of the bullet proof vest. He finally got it off and flung it. He saw the redness the size of a fist where the slug had impacted on Saint’s ribs. He kicked him in the mouth, drawing blood.
“You’re a fucking coward!”
Van looked at Olivia. “Is that so?”
“He can’t defend himself.”
Van looked down at Saint pitifully and then kicked him in the head twice, knocking him out. With a triumphant smile, he faced Olivia. “I’m a fair man. I heard you’re quite the kick boxer. Come on,” he said taunting her. “If you can hit me just one time. Just once, I’ll stop beating on your boyfriend. What do ya say?” When Olivia didn’t respond, he turned around and started kicking Saint’s limp body.
“Stop it!” Olivia took a step toward him. Baby grabbed her arm, but she pulled away from her.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “That’s what I’m talking about.” He turned to face her.
She circled him until she got near Saint and then stood in between him and Van.
“Give me a break.” Van sighed and grabbed her by the front of her shirt.
Olivia kicked him in the shin and shot the palm of her hand upward, connecting with the bottom of his chin. Van bit his tongue as Olivia’s blow snapped his mouth shut. She kept attacking him like an angry mama bear protecting her cub.
Van swatted her punches to the side. He feinted like he was going to throw a punch, but threw a kick to her midsection instead. Olivia folded over and fell to her knees.
Van put his hand to his mouth. He winced when he felt the huge gash on his tongue. “You stupid—” He kicked her in the ribs. Baby, Grace, Miki, and Glenn were all screaming for him to stop. Glenn attempted to run to Olivia’s aid, but Max raised the gun at him and shook his head, stopping Glenn in his tracks.
“Do something,” Grace screamed at Josephine who was standing stiff as a statue.
“I am.”
“And what’s that?”
“Waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
Van raised his foot, intending to bring it down on Olivia’s head. She put her hands out in front of her to cushion the blow.
“I knew you were a lot of things,” Saint said, wobbling to his feet. “But I never took you to be a woman beater.”
Van spun around and smiled. “Look who’s finally awake.”
Saint shook his head, clearing the cobwebs.
“I’m tired of wasting my time with you. It’s time to end this,” Van said.
“I agree.”
Van was feeling himself so much so, that he never realized that Saint had carefully strung him along up until this very moment. Van was going to learn a very important lesson. It would also be his last.
He came at Saint without caution. He threw a left jab to Saint’s face, which Saint allowed to connect. He appeared to be dazed, which is why Van decided to put his all in the haymaker he was about to throw. He growled as he fired his right hand at Saint’s nose. Saint waited for Van’s fist to get an inch away from his face and then he vanished.
Van’s face knotted in confusion. In his peripheral, he saw Saint standing on the side of him, watching the momentum from his punch take him off balance. In this moment of vulnerability, he turned his head and looked into Saint’s eyes. You knew I was following you that night when you went to Butta Cutz, you knew I had something to do with Josephine getting shot, you knew I would expect you to be in Africa when you called, which is why you jumped on the first flight back to the states. All this time, you’ve been toying with me, playing me… like a game of chess. What I can’t figure out is how did you know where to find us? As this last question flashed through his mind, Saint smiled, making Van believe that he had just read his mind. If he had gotten a chance to ask, Saint would’ve told him that the phone he had left Glenn behind wasn’t just a phone. It was outfitted with a GPS chip. Once activated, he could track Glenn from his laptop from anywhere in the world.
Saint’s smile turned to a snarl as he finished his move. He stepped behind Van and yoked him in a headlock. Without giving him time to counter, he dropped to one knee while at the same time slamming the top of Van’s spine on his other knee. The impact was so brutal, that Van’s head snapped back, breaking his neck.
Max looked on in shock as he saw Van’s neck snap. He stared at Saint like a rabid dog and fired.
That was the moment Josephine had been waiting for. By the time he saw her, it was too late. She grabbed the vase she had been standing next to and smashed him in the face. Josephine snatched the gun out of his hand as he slid down the wall. When she got a hold of the gun, her first shot hit Saint in the forearm, the second his shoulder, and the third would have been a headshot, but the gun clicked as the empty chamber slid back.
Saint charged her as she bent down to retrieve the shotgun. He got to her as soon as she stood. They both had their hands wrapped around the gun, tussling for dear life. Saint head butted her and wrenched the gun from her. Josephine stumbled back into the wall and didn’t move.
Saint pumped the shotgun and pointed it at her.
“Do it,” she screamed.
Saint’s finger twitched against the trigger.
“You killed me a long time ago,” she sobbed. “When you left me here unprotected. I don’t blame them for killing our baby, I blame you!”
Saint blinked.
“I was two months pregnant with our child.”
“You’re lying!” Saint’s voice came in a whisper.
“When have I ever lied to you?”
Josephine’s revelation put a halt to the adrenaline coursing through his body. The sharp pains from the gunshot wounds, caused him to lower the shotgun. He bent down and snatched Van’s .45 out of Max’s waistband.
A thundering voice came through a bullhorn from outside. “Attention in the house! This is special agent Dale of the CIA. Come out with your hands up.”
“Olivia started to run toward Saint. He stopped her in her tracks when he raised the .45 at her.
“Get out of here!”
“Saint—”
“All of you need to get out of here, now. It all ends tonight.”
“It’s not going to end like this. I refuse for you to—” Olivia’s words were cut off when Glenn grabbed her around the waist.
“Go!” Saint said to Glenn. “They won’t shoot.”
It took Baby, Grace, Glenn, and Miki to restrain Olivia and carry her out of the front door. As they passed through the threshold, Olivia turned to look at Saint. His tears were falling faster than he could wipe them away. He ran toward them. Olivia held her hand out to him. He grabbed it, kissed it and then let go. He closed the front door an
d locked it.
They didn’t get fifty feet from the house before agents converged on them and told them to put their hands in the air. After being checked for weapons, they were escorted to a van.
Agent Dale stopped in front of Glenn. “Is he in the house?”
“Who?”
“Clayton Andrews.”
“I don’t’ know who you’re talking about.”
Agent Dale walked off and put the bullhorn to his mouth. “Mr. Andrews, I thought we had a deal.”
“You’re late,” Saint screamed out of an upstairs window. “The party’s over. Everyone’s dead.”
“You’re not.”
“That’s the only way you’re getting me out of this house.”
“Listen to me—” Dale ducked behind a tree as Saint emptied the .45 into the front yard. The Snipers, who were posted in the trees opened fire.
Dale sniffed the air and then cocked his head. “Hold your fire!” he said into the bullhorn. “You smell that?” he asked the agent who had took cover behind a tree next to him.
“It smells like gasoline.
“What the fuck is going on?” he said out loud, but to no one in particular. Then he saw it. Thick black smoke was seeping out the house.
“Shit, we need a fire truck,” Dale yelled. “ASAP. And I need a couple agents willing to go in with me.”
“Are you out of your mind?” One of the agents said.
“Do you know who this guy is?” Dale asked.
“I don’t give a fuck who he is. I’m trying to risk my life to catch him.”
Dale looked around and realized that the other agents felt the same way. The only other one who was willing to go back in, was one of the women that Glenn and the rest of the women were restraining.
I can’t believe that I’m just going to sit here and watch this man turn to charcoal. He knew there was no way out. They had the whole mansion surrounded. He thought back to the call he received earlier that morning from Saint, wanting to turn himself in. He had given him the mansion’s address and told him to be there no later than four o’clock on the dot or he was leaving. He looked at his watch, it was four-thirty.
Glenn stopped struggling with Olivia when the phone that Saint gave him started to ring. “Oh shit!” He fished it out of his pocket and answered it. “Hello!”
“Calm down.”
“Calm down—”
“Put her on the phone.”
“What’s happening in there?”
“Put her on,” Saint said, a little firmer.
“He’s on the phone,” Glenn said holding it out to Olivia.
She immediately stopped struggling and snatched it from him. “Saint?”
“If we would’ve met in another life time, we would’ve been the perfect couple.”
“Don’t do this to me, please. Come out of there. I’ll empty my bank account, sell my business, my house, whatever. We can disappear, go anywhere in the world, and spend the rest of our lives together.”
Saint was silent, as if he was really considering her proposal. “I’m tired of putting the lives of the ones I care about in danger. I can never love someone without someone else wanting to kill them. It’ll be better for everyone this way.”
“Not for me. Saint, I’m begging you. Don’t leave me.”
“I’ll always be with you. I love you.”
“Saint? Saint?” Olivia shook the phone and put it back to her ear, but all she heard was the dial tone. Then she heard an explosion.
The house was totally engulfed in flames, now, and the fire truck was no where in sight.
Chapter 17
Six months later, Glenn and Grace’s dream was becoming a reality.
“Do you, Glenn Lemora, take Grace Williams to be your lawfully wedded wife, until death do you part?”
“I do.”
“And do you, Grace Williams, take Glenn Lemora to be your lawfully wedded husband until death do you part?”
“I do.”
“By the power invested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Everyone in the church stood and clapped as Glenn and Grace shared their first kiss as Mr. and Mrs. Lemora. Olivia couldn’t wait to get out of her bride’s maid outfit. She peeked over her shoulder at Baby, and by the way she kept tugging and adjusting the spaghetti straps, she could tell she couldn’t wait either. She looked out into the sea of faces, astonished that the church was nearly filled to its capacity.
Toward the back of the church, she spotted a couple. An older man with a young woman. Her heart started to race as she made eye contact with him. He was thinner than she remembered, but the eyes were unmistakenly his. No matter how much we try and disguise ourselves, we can never fool the ones we love. His words echoed in her head, as she stepped down from the altar. She worked her way through the crowd of guests, never taking her eyes off him. She was so focused on not letting him out of her eye sight that she bumped into Grace’s grandmother.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Williams.”
“You’re getting married next, I feel it in my bones.”
Olivia smiled at her and then redirected her attention back to the gentleman in the back. Her breath got caught in her throat when she looked up and didn’t see him. Half running, half walking, she approached the young woman.
“Where did he go?”
“Excuse me?”
“The man you’re with, where did he go?”
“I’m not with any man. I came alone.”
“There was a man, just standing next to you.”
“If he was, I didn’t notice him.”
Olivia ran out of the church and stood at the top of the stairs, looking around.
“You okay?” Miki asked, following her out of the church.
“Yeah… I’m fine. I just needed some air.”
“Looks like you were looking for someone.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You thought you seen him again, didn’t you?”
Olivia sighed. “He’s not dead, Miki.”
“He’s gone, and you have to accept that.”
“That’s not what my gut’s telling me.”
“You mean the official CIA report that Mike pulled strings to get you.”
“If you count Van, his three men, Seeger, Saint, and Josephine, that’s seven. But the report says they only recovered five bodies from the fire. They identified Seeger through his dental records and the other four could not be identified. And of the four, none of them were female.”
“Keep in mind, Olivia that you have a copy of the ‘official’ CIA report.‘Official’, meaning, putting on paper only what people need to know. So, they could’ve just as easily left Saint and Josephine’s bodies out of the report.”
“What about the information Gates dug up for me?”
“That French private investigator you hired in France to do a trace on the name Saint gave you, Saint Mac something?”
“Saint Christopher Mackalister. Doesn’t it sound too much of a coincidence that the only Saint Christopher Mackalister he could dig up was one who died in a fire at the age of fourteen? The same age Saint was when him and Josephine left the covenant.”
“Saint never mentioned the convent burning down.”
“According to Gates, the fire department ruled the fire was started with rags and gasoline. Everyone was able to get out, but the young nun who was caring for the young Mackalister. He ran back in to try and save her. When the firemen tried to go in after him, a beam fell in front of them, blocking anyone from going in or coming out. You’ve got to see what I’m seeing here, Miki.”
“Okay, for all intents and purposes, let’s say him and Josephine somehow made it out of there, that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s not coming back.”
“He came back once.”
Miki looked away as she pulled her shawl over her bare shoulders.
“I know he’s not coming back,” Olivia finally said. “I would be able to deal with this much better if I kne
w for certain that he, in fact, did make it out alive, and that the CIA isn’t just doing one of their infamous cover ups.”
Miki put her arm around her. “There’s one thing you can be certain about. You know he wouldn’t want you to put your life on hold, hoping that one day he will return.”
“You’re right.”
“What you two had was special, and you will always have a piece of him with you. Right in here.” Miki pointed to her heart.
They both looked up as the church door opened.
“There you are,” Baby said, stepping out. “Y’all got us in here looking all over for you two.”
“Girl, put your strap back on your shoulder. You ain’t wearing overalls,” Olivia said.
“I can’t wait to get out of this girly outfit,” she said pulling the strap back on her shoulder. “What are y’all doing out here, anyway?”
“We’re just getting some air,” Miki said, winking at Olivia.
In Sri Lanka, in the highlands, a middle-aged woman carefully plucks the ripest leaves for her famous Ceylon tea. Long days in the sun has pleasantly baked her skin to a cinnamon complexion. She continues to carefully select her leaves, although she felt someone approaching.
“How was the wedding?” she asked without turning around.
“How’d you know it was me?”
“Woman’s intuition.”
Dressed in a worn, orange robe, Saint gazes over the country side and then closes his eyes. His mind takes him back to the day him and Josephine first visited the mansion in the Catskills. He wasn’t too fond of the hundred and fifty year old mansion. Just as he was going to tell the real estate agent that they weren’t interested, he took them down into the basement. He started explaining to them how the architect had the furnace installed away from the house so that the noise and smoke wouldn’t disturb the occupants.
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