Pushing my hands through my wet hair, I exited the bathroom and wasn’t surprised at all to see a dark-haired man leaning against my rickety kitchen counter while another man messed with the shotgun that was leaning against the wall. Both were dressed in impeccably tailored suits and had on shoes that cost a pretty penny and would more than likely be ruined by the time they got off my mountain. In another life, Nassir Gates had been the kind of badass I tried to emulate. My old boss didn’t believe in looking the part of a man in charge, but Nassir always had. He dressed like he was the one running the show, long before he’d taken the reins. I’d always admired his style, even though he was the only person I’d ever encountered in all my years of making people beg and bleed that scared the ever living shit out of me.
Novak had been a crazed madman, hell-bent on carnage and corruption. He was more than willing to let the entire city burn, and all the people that called it home could go with it for all he cared. Nassir was the opposite. Wickedly smart and coolly conniving, he didn’t make a single move without thinking it through to the end. He was just as vicious, just as brutal as Novak had been, but instead of tearing the city down and walking all over the inhabitants, he was building it up and giving them the choice to stay or go. If you stayed, you accepted that the Point was never going to be easy and the men in charge were never going to be law-abiding and above board. If you left, you did so knowing that the secrets of the Point stayed locked within the grit and the grime. You didn’t take what happened in the Point outside of the crumbling city and if you did, Nassir had a reach that was long and impossible to duck.
“I always wanted to try fly fishing. I’ve heard it’s very relaxing. They teach you how to do that out here, Benny?”
The words came from Chuck, Nassir’s right-hand man. The large African-American man had also been part of Novak’s crew when I was running the streets, but before things went to shit, he got in good with Nassir, obviously smart enough to see the writing on the wall. The tides were getting ready to turn, the people that had nothing to lose suddenly had their hearts tangled up in good women, and that made them far more dangerous than Novak had ever managed to be.
“I’m sure they would if I asked, but standing in the middle of a cold-ass river all day isn’t my idea of fun. What are you doing here, Gates?” I didn’t bother to ask how he’d found me. Witness protection was supposed to be foolproof, but there wasn’t much Nassir didn’t know and there wasn’t a single branch of the government or law enforcement that he didn’t have some kind of dirt on. Novak had been a thug and brute. Nassir was a goddamn criminal mastermind. No one was better at giving just enough rope for you to hang yourself with. He’d let you twist and kick in the wind and then offer to save you, but only if you agreed that you owed him a favor.
Nassir’s arms were crossed across his chest and I noticed he had a new tattoo on the back of his hand. It looked like an ornate lock attached to a chain. The guy could give Cumberbatch and Hiddleston a run for their money when it came to being suave and sophisticated, but underneath that Italian suit was a man ripped from the very bowels of hell and he had the ink and scars to prove it.
Everyone from the Point wore their secrets and scars with pride.
“Maybe I just missed your smiling face.” His voice had the barest hint of an accent I could never pin down the origins of. When he spoke, it was both lethal and lyrical. “Nice face fuzz, by the way. Very mountain man.”
I grunted and put my hands on my hips. I wasn’t worried that they were here to kill me. If Nassir wanted me dead, there would be no conversation, just a bullet right between the eyes. He wasn’t a man who offered explanation or excuses.
“It helps cover up the fact that my head was almost removed from my body while I was in lockup. You have anything to do with that?” I ran my thumb along my scar and narrowed my eyes at him.
He shook his head and looked over at Chuck, who offered up a shrug. “It wasn’t us. We would have made sure the job was done right, not some half-assed shit like that. But you don’t have many friends left back home, so I can’t say I’m surprised someone tried to take you out.”
Suddenly, exhausted from thinking about how hard it had been to keep myself alive for thirty years, I narrowed my eyes at Nassir and copied his pose, with my arms crossed over my chest. Of course, it looked much more intimidating and badass in the suit than it did in the towel, but whatever. “Tell me what you want or get the fuck out. I’m not in the mood for games and if the feds find out you’re here, they’ll send my ass back to lockup or move me somewhere even more remote than this mountain.” My stomach clenched at the thought of how much harder it would be to get to Echo if they did either of those things.
Nassir’s dark eyebrows lifted and Chuck let out a low chuckle. Clearly, putting on pants before confronting two of the most dangerous men I had ever met would have been a good idea.
“I have a problem.” Nassir lifted a hand and ran it over his mouth while looking at me. “There’s a girl that went missing and we’ve been unable to find her. One of my people is heavily invested in locating her and I have no intention of letting him down. All my regular sources have failed, so I’m coming to you. Everyone knows there isn’t a problem you can’t solve, Benny.”
I rocked back on my heels a little bit and blinked at him in surprise. Of all the things he might have said, that wasn’t something I was prepared for. “You have your fingers in every single pot in the Point. How is it you’ve managed to come up empty handed and need a Hail Mary? That’s not your style, Gates.”
“The pots my fingers are in don’t sit on stoves up on the Hill. The only information we have on the girl that’s missing was that she was doing her best to help the mayor’s stepdaughter disappear. The players have dirty hands in an entirely different way than I’m used to dealing with. They are covered in white gloves and go pinky up during high tea.” The Hill was the opulent, expensive part of the city, the polar opposite of the Point. I, however, knew that there was just as much crime and exploitation happening behind those closed mansion doors as there was on the streets. “No one will talk and time is running out. Help me find the girl and I will get you off this mountain.”
I tossed my head back and laughed up at the ceiling. “Right. You’re going to get me out of my deal with the feds like it’s no big deal. You’re good, Gates, but not that good.”
He grinned at me and I felt my blood run cold. I should have known better than to question a man who didn’t flinch when the fires of hell burned all around him.
“I know a Marshal. He helped out when Novak went down and everyone was trying to take over his spot. The city was at war and the Marshal stepped in to try and keep the body count to a minimum. He’s agreed to take over your case, after I blackmailed his boss into agreeing to let me pull you out of the program. You help find the girl and I’ll let you go. You can relocate anywhere in the world you want to, but you still have to cooperate with the feds if they think you have information that might help them take down Novak’s old suppliers and obviously, you’ll owe me a favor if I should ever need your special brand of problem solving in the future.”
I shook my head a little, my thoughts pinging and buzzing around my brain like angry bees. “You blackmailed a federal agent?”
He shrugged as if to say “I do it all the time”. “He should be better about hiding the fact he likes to play the ponies and drown his sorrow in barely legal male prostitutes when he doesn’t win. His wife is a Congresswoman and wouldn’t take too kindly to that information going public. For some reason, the people with the most to lose are always the ones with the most to hide.”
I cocked my head to the side and considered him thoughtfully for a long, silent moment. “Bax will finish the job that was started when I was locked up if I come back to the Point. He’s not going to overlook the fact I broke his best friend’s legs and snatched his girl up and handed her over to Novak. I stood there and did nothing while he cut her open, Gates. Bax isn’t the
kind to forgive and forget.” And I couldn’t blame him. I would want me dead too if the situation was reversed and I was the one watching a monster torture the woman I loved because of someone like me.
Nassir nodded and Chuck let out a grunt of agreement. “You’re right. Bax would have you in a shallow grave in no time at all. But in order to do that he would have to know you were back on the streets. He’s in Denver right now with Dovie. That teenager they are all so determined to get out of the city decided to go to college in Boulder. Bax and the entire crew took a week off to move her. You have exactly four days to get in, get me the info I need on the girl, and get out before all hell will break loose.”
It was so tempting. He was offering me the solution to the problem I couldn’t fix on my own, but I was leery of making any kind of deal with the devil. “What if I can’t find her? What happens to me if I don’t manage to hold up my end of the bargain?” I’d never failed before but there was a first time for everything.
Nassir pushed off the counter and lifted his chin up so that he was looking down his nose at me. I hated that it felt like he could see right through me. “If you want off this mountain badly enough, you won’t fail. This is the only chance you’ve got, Ben. I would make it count if I were you. I’m offering you all the best parts of your old life back and don’t bother telling me you don’t miss them. Chuck and I will be outside in the car. You’ve got five minutes to get it together and come with us or you can rot here forever.” He pointed a finger at me and lifted an arrogant eyebrow. “You’ve never been a stupid man; I would suggest you don’t pick now to behave like one.”
With that final declaration, he swept out of the room, taking the electrical current and ominous sense of foreboding with him. I could breathe normally once the space was clear of Nassir’s potent charisma and menace. I’d never liked being under the thumb of men more powerful than me, never liked owing them, but if I wanted out, if I wanted a way to make things work, I was going to have no choice but to sell my soul to a devil in a designer suit.
It didn’t even take five minutes for me to get dressed, throw the bare essentials into a bag, and hit the front door at practically a run. There was an idling Escalade parked in front of my cabin and Chuck was grinning from ear to ear, his gold incisor flashing at me as I threw myself into the backseat.
He pulled the car away from the cabin and watched me in the rearview mirror. “Fly fishing. I’m telling you boys, we need to find a hobby that gets us out of the city and away from it all. It would be good for us.”
Nassir looked over his shoulder at me and smirked. “I have a feeling Benny’s had enough of the wilderness. Where are you going to go? New York? Chicago? Vegas? The offer is open internationally as well. You can disappear into wine and women in Paris if that’s what you want.”
I returned the smirk and turned to look out the tinted window. “The wilderness isn’t so bad when you have the right person to hide away with. It’s funny that Bax is in Denver because that’s exactly where I’m headed when all of this is said and done. There’s something there I need to get back.” Something like my heart, my sanity, my purpose for being. I also wanted my watch back, now that I was going to have the opportunity to wear it again.
“He’s not going to like you being that close to the teenager. You might want to pick somewhere else to hang your hat for the long haul.” That warning came from Chuck, but I was more worried about getting to Echo than I was about running into Bax in the Mile High.
“I plan on keeping my head down and my nose clean.” I was now among the ranks of those dangerous men who had something invaluable they couldn’t afford to lose.
Nassir sneered at me and turned so that he was facing forward. “I’ll believe it when I see it, but then again, I never thought you would embrace your inner lumber jack either. I guess anything is possible.”
Anything was possible, including the villain stumbling across Snow White and stealing a kiss instead of Prince Charming. Once he woke her up, he simply had to be willing to sacrifice everything he’d ever known and work twice as hard at deserving her.
Chapter 11
Echo
Many long, lonely weeks later…
The little boy sitting across from me was the spitting image of his father. He had the same thick, dark hair that had a tendency toward curling, and the same clear, jade green eyes. He even had a single dimple in his cheek, a mirror to his father’s, even though his dad’s was covered up by a very attractive beard. Every time I looked at Hyde, I searched for some part of his mother, any piece of her she might have left behind in him, but he was all Zeb. Considering the way his mother had been taken from this world, it was probably a good thing the little boy was a miniature version of his old man. Right down to his thoughtful, serious personality that aged him eons beyond his actual years.
“She takes all my toys and she follows me around everywhere.” He rolled his expressive eyes as he picked at the pizza that was in front of him. “My dad says I have to be nice to her and share my toys because she’s younger than me and I need to set a good example.” He sounded as put out as any six-year-old could.
I reached over and snagged a pepperoni off his slice and popped it in my mouth while he fake glared at me. He really was the cutest kid on the planet. “Being nice and sharing are both good things. I think you should probably listen to your old man, Hyde.”
He screwed up his adorable face in an expression of youthful indignation. “She’s just so loud and messy.”
The she he was referring to was Remy Archer, the three-year-old daughter of a friend of Zeb’s that was indeed a handful, but in the best way possible. Hyde was also her most favorite person in the entire world, next to her parents and little brother. She followed him around like a puppy, begging for attention and throwing a fit when he didn’t give her what she wanted. The blonde toddler never met an adventure or experience she wasn’t willing to dive head first into and even at her tender age, she was headstrong and defiant. I could see why her wild and rebellious personality was hard to mesh with for a child that was as serious and overly cautious as Hyde was. Remy lived for trouble; Hyde made himself sick worrying about all the ways in which he could disappoint the adults in his life. Losing his mom so young, and in such a preventable and tragic way, had left its mark on the boy, and no matter how fiercely he was loved, those scars would remain.
I reached across the table and ruffled his hair. “Loud and messy can be a lot of fun, Hyde. In fact, most kids your age live for loud and messy. You should embrace the chaos while it’s still acceptable.” I didn’t want him to miss out on any part of his childhood now that he had a stable home life and parents that weren’t going anywhere. His mom had stolen too many of his years from him and because I felt the same way about mine and the constant pressure to live as Xanthe’s keeper instead of as my own person, I knew he deserved more.
He polished off his slice and gave me a toothy grin when he was done that melted my heart. “I guess she’s not so bad, once you get used to her.”
“That’s the spirit, kid.” I glanced at my cell phone and was surprised to see how much time had slipped by. Everything felt like it was going in slow motion since I’d landed back in Denver. Days dragged on, weeks inched by, and hours felt like years as I waited for Ben to come and find me. Time felt like it stood still until I picked up Hyde for our weekly dinner dates. I owed Zeb and his girlfriend Sayer everything for letting me stay in the boy’s life when they didn’t have any reason to. They didn’t have to share the precious time they had with him with a stranger who had made as many bad choices along the way as the woman that abandoned him, but they knew I loved him. They believed me when I said that all I ever wanted was what was best for Hyde, so one night a week, I got to lose myself in the unconditional love of a little boy that made my hurting heart feel whole again. “We should probably pack it in and get you back home. Your dad said you have a project you need to finish for school.”
He nodded solemnly
and waited patiently while I paid the bill. “I have to write an ‘About Me’ book.”
Winter was fading fast into spring, but it was still chilly enough that I made him put his hat on over his ears as we walked to my brand spanking new SUV. Getting the insurance to pay out on the other one had been a nightmare and that was from someone in the industry. I got Hyde into his seat and strapped in before absently asking, “What’s an ‘About Me’ book?”
He gave a shrug and kicked his feet, which hung way up off the floor. His dad drove a cool vintage truck that earned all the badass points, so my SUV, as fancy and shiny new as it was, didn’t impress him very much.
“It’s a book that’s filled with things about me. Stuff I like, stuff I don’t like. I’m supposed to tell the teacher about my family and friends.” He made a face that had me laughing when I caught sight of it in the rearview mirror. “I guess I’ll have to tell her about Remy since she’s technically my friend.”
I snorted out a laugh and made my way through the city toward Capitol Hill where all the old, restored Victorians were. “Yeah, buddy, she is your friend, so you should definitely include her. Be sure to mention that you share your toys with her. Never hurts to butter the teacher up.”
His eyes locked on mine in the mirror and he tilted his head to the side. “Do you think I should mention my mom? I know she’s not here anymore, but she’s still up here.” He pointed to the side of his head where his little beanie was sitting slightly askew.
Avenged: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) Page 11
